Susan Cain: The Power of Introverts and Loneliness
音乐与艺术心理与人性生物与进化技术与编程哲学与宗教
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"And it's interesting because I didn't really think of it that way because you think you die, but he really framed it as killed because he's like, there's no such thing as dying of old age."
— Susan Cain （1:43:56.700）
"But there is, I think, even when I think about engineering human intelligence or superhuman intelligence systems, I feel like they also need to have the yin and yang of life."
— Susan Cain （1:47:57.700）
"And that was an interesting way to look at it because we tend to think of humans aren't supposed to be killed."
— Susan Cain （1:44:25.700）
"And the teacher actually said to me, she was like, you know, you should put this story in a drawer and not take it out again for 30 years because you're way too close to it."
— Susan Cain （1:38:20.700）
"And I think while a lot of that is shown to be probably not true, what is like a deeper truth there is your first early experiences of love or depth of connection are probably somehow strongly formative of your conception of love and your definition of the perfect thing you're reaching for for the rest of your life."
— Susan Cain （1:40:00.700）
🎙️ 完整对话（2284 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
People whose favorite songs are their happy songs,
Lex Fridman (00:02.800)
play it on their playlist about 175 times.
Lex Fridman (00:05.680)
The people who love sad music, play them about 800 times.
Lex Fridman (00:10.880)
And they say that they feel connected to the sublime
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when they're listening to that music.
Susan Cain (00:16.160)
The longing for what you lack is the very thing
Lex Fridman (00:19.440)
that gives you what you're longing for.
Lex Fridman (00:21.800)
So the longing is the cure.
Lex Fridman (00:25.600)
The following is a conversation with Susan Cain,
Susan Cain (00:28.520)
author of Quiet, The Power of Introverts in the World
Lex Fridman (00:32.240)
That Can't Stop Talking,
Lex Fridman (00:34.000)
and her most recent book, Bittersweet,
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How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole.
Susan Cain (00:40.720)
This is the Lex Readman podcast, support it.
Lex Fridman (00:43.840)
Please check out our sponsors in the description.
Lex Fridman (00:46.480)
And now, dear friends, here's Susan Cain.
Lex Fridman (00:51.080)
You've written on your website that, quote,
Susan Cain (00:53.040)
I prefer listening to talking, reading to socializing,
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and cozy chats to group settings.
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So I think this conversation and the podcast
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is gonna be fun.
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What's a good definition of an introvert?
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Is something like those three things a good start?
Susan Cain (01:10.200)
It is a good start in terms of how introverts
Lex Fridman (01:13.440)
experience day to day life.
Susan Cain (01:16.200)
I think a good definition is one that some of your listeners
Lex Fridman (01:20.000)
will have heard many times before,
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the idea of where do you get your energy?
Lex Fridman (01:24.320)
And for some people, they get their energy more
Susan Cain (01:26.440)
from quieter settings, and for other people,
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they get it more from being out there.
Lex Fridman (01:31.880)
So a good rule of thumb is to imagine that you're
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at a party that you're really enjoying,
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and you've been there for about two hours or so,
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and it's with people you really like,
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and it's in your favorite place, so it's all good.
Lex Fridman (01:45.000)
An extrovert in a setting like that
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is gonna feel charged up,
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and they're gonna be looking for the after party.
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And an introvert, no matter how good a time they're having
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and how socially skilled they are,
Susan Cain (01:55.760)
there's this moment where you just wish
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that you could teleport and be back at home.
Susan Cain (02:00.600)
Yeah, and at the time before the start of the party
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to the time when that moment happens
Susan Cain (02:05.880)
is different for different people.
Lex Fridman (02:07.080)
So the shorter that is, the more of an inch where you are?
Lex Fridman (02:09.280)
Is that that kind of thing?
Lex Fridman (02:10.640)
The shorter the moment until you get to the place
Susan Cain (02:13.120)
where you've gotta teleport home.
Lex Fridman (02:14.600)
You gotta teleport home.
Susan Cain (02:15.720)
Yeah, and then for extroverts, it's the opposite.
Lex Fridman (02:18.520)
They're gonna feel, maybe they're working on,
Susan Cain (02:22.520)
I don't know, focused on producing a memo
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that's really intensely interesting to them,
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but if they're in that state of solitary,
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the solitary mode of really focusing,
Susan Cain (02:33.360)
they might get stir crazy a lot faster
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than an introvert would.
Lex Fridman (02:37.040)
And so it doesn't have so much to do
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with what you're good at as how you get your energy.
Lex Fridman (02:42.440)
And so for an introvert, the source of energy
Lex Fridman (02:46.640)
is what?
Susan Cain (02:47.480)
Silence, solitude, and for an extrovert,
Lex Fridman (02:50.800)
it's interaction with other people?
Lex Fridman (02:53.120)
What I'd really say is that,
Lex Fridman (02:54.520)
and this is neurobiological as well,
Susan Cain (02:56.560)
is that it has to do with how your nervous system
Lex Fridman (02:59.960)
reacts to stimulation.
Lex Fridman (03:01.760)
So for an introvert, you're feeling
Lex Fridman (03:04.640)
in a great state of equilibrium
Susan Cain (03:06.360)
when there are fewer inputs coming at you.
Lex Fridman (03:09.480)
So they could be social inputs,
Lex Fridman (03:10.960)
but that's why an introvert in general
Lex Fridman (03:12.760)
would rather hang out with one close friend at a time
Susan Cain (03:15.680)
as opposed to a big party full of strangers
Lex Fridman (03:18.160)
because that's too many inputs for the nervous system.
Lex Fridman (03:21.080)
And for an extrovert, the nervous system
Lex Fridman (03:23.560)
needs more stimulants, so if they're not getting enough,
Susan Cain (03:25.960)
they get that listless and sluggish feeling.
Lex Fridman (03:28.560)
So if you're just walking through the world,
Susan Cain (03:31.640)
like people listening to this, but in general,
Lex Fridman (03:34.960)
how do you know if you're an introvert?
Susan Cain (03:37.200)
Like how do you empirically start to determine
Lex Fridman (03:40.360)
if you are in large part an introvert?
Susan Cain (03:43.640)
Well, I would start by just asking that question
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of what happens to you at around the two hour mark
Susan Cain (03:49.280)
where you're having a good time.
Lex Fridman (03:50.120)
Go to parties, just go to parties every day.
Lex Fridman (03:52.600)
But I also find, I'm curious if you have
Lex Fridman (03:55.080)
a different experience from this,
Lex Fridman (03:56.200)
but from all the years that I've been out there
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talking about this topic, I found that most people
Susan Cain (04:02.160)
really seem to know once they're being honest
Lex Fridman (04:05.480)
with themselves, and maybe that's the question to ask
Susan Cain (04:08.040)
is like if you imagine that you have a Saturday
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or a whole weekend where you can spend your time
Susan Cain (04:14.320)
exactly the way you want to with no professional obligations
Lex Fridman (04:18.120)
and no social obligations, who would you spend it with?
Lex Fridman (04:21.400)
How many people, what would you be doing?
Lex Fridman (04:24.360)
And what does that picture that you're painting
Lex Fridman (04:27.040)
start to look like?
Lex Fridman (04:29.160)
Yeah, so there's nuance to this though
Susan Cain (04:31.840)
because I'm sure for extroverts to get energized
Lex Fridman (04:35.080)
by stimulation, whether that's stimulation
Susan Cain (04:38.000)
with other people, like it depends
Lex Fridman (04:39.520)
what that stimulation is, right?
Susan Cain (04:41.760)
Like maybe you're not surrounded
Lex Fridman (04:43.280)
by the kind of people that you enjoy being around.
Susan Cain (04:46.680)
So, you know, maybe that has to do less
Lex Fridman (04:50.960)
with whether some characteristics of your personality
Susan Cain (04:54.240)
more has to do with the fact, like what your environment
Lex Fridman (04:56.840)
is like, that's always kind of the question.
Lex Fridman (04:59.640)
Do you want to be alone because everybody around you
Lex Fridman (05:01.600)
is an asshole, or do you want to be alone
Lex Fridman (05:03.240)
because you get energized from being?
Lex Fridman (05:05.400)
Well, I would hold the variables constant, I guess.
Susan Cain (05:07.880)
I would say.
Lex Fridman (05:09.120)
You know.
Susan Cain (05:09.960)
Keep the assholes constant and see.
Lex Fridman (05:12.880)
And then there's the other thing you kind of observe
Susan Cain (05:15.080)
that there's a lot of people that will say
Lex Fridman (05:17.920)
they get energized from being alone.
Susan Cain (05:20.480)
Like people are exhausting to them or something like that.
Lex Fridman (05:24.760)
But at the same time, when you see them at a party,
Susan Cain (05:27.960)
they seem like the life of the party.
Lex Fridman (05:30.560)
I know.
Lex Fridman (05:31.400)
And I hear from those people all the time.
Lex Fridman (05:33.600)
There's so many people like that.
Lex Fridman (05:34.840)
What would you classify them as exactly?
Lex Fridman (05:37.200)
Is it ultimately as the source of energy?
Lex Fridman (05:39.560)
Is it the most important thing?
Lex Fridman (05:40.760)
Or like how the heck are they the life of the party?
Susan Cain (05:43.640)
It's a bunch of different things, you know.
Lex Fridman (05:45.480)
So first of all, just to say like a big caveat
Susan Cain (05:48.920)
to all of this is humans are just amazingly complex.
Lex Fridman (05:52.600)
So you can't explain every individual human
Susan Cain (05:55.880)
through these parameters,
Lex Fridman (05:56.840)
even though I think the parameters are really valuable.
Lex Fridman (05:59.680)
But that person at the party,
Lex Fridman (06:01.400)
it could be that they're more of an ambivert.
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So they kind of are more in the middle of the spectrum.
Lex Fridman (06:07.160)
It basically means someone who's not extremely introverted
Susan Cain (06:10.120)
or extremely extroverted, they're kind of in the middle.
Lex Fridman (06:12.520)
So maybe at a party, their more extroverted side comes out.
Susan Cain (06:15.320)
Or it could be an introvert who's gotten really good
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at the skills of acting more like a pseudo extrovert.
Lex Fridman (06:23.400)
And they pull that up at the moments that they need it.
Lex Fridman (06:26.960)
So they learn how to fake it.
Susan Cain (06:28.480)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (06:29.320)
Oh, there's a lot of people like that.
Lex Fridman (06:30.640)
And I know this because like,
Lex Fridman (06:32.400)
I think out of all the people on this planet
Susan Cain (06:34.240)
you could be talking to,
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I've heard from the most number of those people.
Susan Cain (06:38.120)
Like they all come and tell me about their experience
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out in the world presenting a face that's different
Susan Cain (06:44.680)
from what they feel.
Lex Fridman (06:45.720)
So one of the things you talk about is,
Susan Cain (06:47.840)
at least in the West, we've constructed
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a picture of success.
Lex Fridman (06:50.960)
And that picture is usually one of an extrovert.
Lex Fridman (06:55.200)
Like when you imagine somebody who's a leader,
Susan Cain (06:57.160)
who's a successful person,
Lex Fridman (07:00.000)
that person has some of the qualities
Susan Cain (07:01.960)
you would associate with an extrovert.
Lex Fridman (07:03.880)
And so there's a lot of incentive for faking it.
Susan Cain (07:10.120)
Yeah, exactly.
Lex Fridman (07:11.760)
If you want to be successful,
Susan Cain (07:12.640)
you gotta be able to fake it,
Lex Fridman (07:14.880)
to sort of hang with the rest of the team.
Susan Cain (07:17.760)
You have to be able to be outgoing
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and all those kinds of things
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and not be drained by the interaction.
Lex Fridman (07:23.680)
Yeah, but I mean, there are also a lot of introverts
Susan Cain (07:26.320)
who figure out ways to draw on their own strengths
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and they're incredibly connecting and successful
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and they're great leaders and they're not actually faking it.
Lex Fridman (07:36.600)
They're more just figuring out ways to do it their own way.
Susan Cain (07:39.960)
You see a lot of people like that.
Lex Fridman (07:42.600)
Is there advice, is there lessons you can draw from that,
Susan Cain (07:44.920)
from just observing how you can be an introvert
Lex Fridman (07:47.840)
and be in a leadership position?
Susan Cain (07:50.440)
Yeah, it's kind of like a mantra,
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figuring out what your own strengths are
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and how to draw on them.
Lex Fridman (07:55.720)
I think of a guy I know, Doug Conant,
Susan Cain (07:59.920)
who had been the CEO of Campbell Soup for many years.
Lex Fridman (08:04.000)
He's very introverted.
Susan Cain (08:06.280)
He's quite shy also by his own description.
Lex Fridman (08:09.360)
And he really cares about people.
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And so when he started at Campbell,
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the employee engagement ratings of the company
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were all the way at the bottom of the Fortune 500.
Lex Fridman (08:23.520)
And by the time he stepped down 10 years later,
Susan Cain (08:25.920)
they were all the way at the top.
Lex Fridman (08:27.520)
And it wasn't that he was going out there
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and schmoozing people, but he really did care.
Lex Fridman (08:34.560)
So he would find out who were the people
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who had really been contributing
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and he would write to them personal letters of thanks.
Lex Fridman (08:44.320)
And these letters meant so much to people.
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They would carry them around with them.
Lex Fridman (08:49.600)
And during his time, the 10 years there,
Lex Fridman (08:51.480)
he wrote 30,000 of those letters.
Lex Fridman (08:54.560)
So that was his way of doing it.
Lex Fridman (08:56.760)
That was his way of drawing on his own strengths.
Lex Fridman (08:58.840)
And he did that together with, of course,
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you sometimes have to go outside your comfort zone,
Susan Cain (09:04.000)
no matter who you are.
Lex Fridman (09:05.080)
So he was doing plenty of that too.
Susan Cain (09:07.080)
It's a kind of combination.
Lex Fridman (09:08.560)
Yeah, the writing process
Lex Fridman (09:11.040)
and focusing on the one on one interaction,
Lex Fridman (09:14.080)
I can definitely relate.
Susan Cain (09:15.280)
There's something deeply draining,
Lex Fridman (09:16.880)
which concerns me about Zoom meetings
Susan Cain (09:19.520)
because it's some weird brain manipulation.
Lex Fridman (09:23.040)
Same here.
Susan Cain (09:23.880)
Well, because you're not really engaged,
Lex Fridman (09:26.840)
but it wears on you the same way that it does a party.
Susan Cain (09:30.440)
It feels like you're emptying that bucket
Lex Fridman (09:34.520)
for the introverts, even though they're not participating
Susan Cain (09:37.560)
at all in the meeting.
Lex Fridman (09:38.840)
I mean, I suppose that's true for physical meetings too,
Lex Fridman (09:41.320)
but with Zoom meetings, remote meetings,
Lex Fridman (09:43.600)
it's so much easier to invite a larger number of people
Susan Cain (09:46.360)
into the meeting.
Lex Fridman (09:47.480)
So you're draining more and more of the introvert energy.
Lex Fridman (09:50.360)
And probably extrovert too, but the introvert definitely.
Lex Fridman (09:53.320)
I mean, it's interesting.
Susan Cain (09:54.440)
I would love to understand that more
Lex Fridman (09:56.320)
because there's more and more push towards remote work
Susan Cain (10:00.480)
without, I think, a deep understanding
Lex Fridman (10:02.880)
of why these meetings are so draining on people.
Susan Cain (10:05.360)
I just anecdotally have heard from that.
Lex Fridman (10:08.000)
But maybe that's because the managers,
Susan Cain (10:10.040)
the people who arrange the meetings,
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are just not sufficiently yet aware
Susan Cain (10:14.640)
of the draining nature of them
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so that they pull in too many people,
Susan Cain (10:18.200)
they schedule them too regularly,
Lex Fridman (10:19.600)
so they need to adjust, that kind of thing probably.
Susan Cain (10:21.880)
I think people are starting to realize,
Lex Fridman (10:23.800)
but I would say one reason that Zoom is so draining
Susan Cain (10:27.640)
is because you can see your own self presentation
Lex Fridman (10:33.120)
the whole time if you choose to.
Lex Fridman (10:35.280)
And when you go into in person, you can't.
Lex Fridman (10:38.680)
So you're kind of freed of thinking about that.
Lex Fridman (10:40.720)
So it's like an extra cognitive load
Lex Fridman (10:42.680)
that you're bearing the whole time.
Lex Fridman (10:46.240)
And you might want to turn off the camera
Lex Fridman (10:49.880)
so you can't see yourself, but then you feel like,
Susan Cain (10:51.280)
well, I have the ability to,
Lex Fridman (10:53.080)
so I probably should be doing it.
Lex Fridman (10:54.640)
And then that alone is a decision that you're making.
Lex Fridman (10:57.920)
Yeah, there's probably studies on this now happening,
Susan Cain (11:00.120)
either have happened or are happening,
Lex Fridman (11:02.600)
the effect of seeing your own face on camera.
Susan Cain (11:07.600)
Because it's reminding you
Lex Fridman (11:08.800)
that you're supposed to be acting a certain way.
Lex Fridman (11:10.480)
And that is especially a stressful thing.
Lex Fridman (11:13.480)
Yeah, you can't be in the moment as much.
Lex Fridman (11:15.520)
But I mean, for you, you make the decision
Lex Fridman (11:18.200)
to do all your podcast interviews in person, right?
Lex Fridman (11:21.880)
And that's even when it's very costly.
Lex Fridman (11:26.040)
If there's any kind of chemistry
Susan Cain (11:28.480)
that contributes at all to the conversation,
Lex Fridman (11:31.320)
which I think most conversations have chemistry,
Susan Cain (11:34.040)
even the boring work meetings, there's something there.
Lex Fridman (11:38.120)
Because yes, you're trying to solve a particular problem
Susan Cain (11:40.960)
at this particular time.
Lex Fridman (11:42.720)
But underneath it, there's a team building that's happening.
Lex Fridman (11:46.080)
And honestly, people also have told me about this,
Lex Fridman (11:50.480)
why they enjoyed the Zoom meetings during the pandemic.
Susan Cain (11:54.840)
It's like, they're lonely.
Lex Fridman (11:56.280)
Yeah, yeah.
Susan Cain (11:57.200)
Like they, you know, it's annoying to have to sit
Lex Fridman (12:01.040)
and listen to folks talk about nothing and so on.
Lex Fridman (12:03.720)
But they tune in anyway,
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because it's kind of lonely to sit there by yourself.
Lex Fridman (12:09.120)
And that, I mean, there's a deep connection there
Lex Fridman (12:12.480)
when you're with other people.
Lex Fridman (12:13.720)
And that is especially true when they're in person.
Lex Fridman (12:17.360)
Which is a huge concern for me
Susan Cain (12:18.720)
for like more and more offices
Lex Fridman (12:21.320)
from a capitalist perspective, realizing,
Lex Fridman (12:24.360)
hey, why are we, why do we have these large office spaces?
Lex Fridman (12:27.200)
Why do we have to get people together?
Lex Fridman (12:28.800)
But I think in some deep sense we do.
Lex Fridman (12:32.000)
But then you also talk about that once we do,
Susan Cain (12:34.600)
we wanna protect the introverts.
Lex Fridman (12:38.120)
Like you don't want the open space, office space,
Susan Cain (12:42.200)
which was a big fad for a while.
Lex Fridman (12:43.720)
I don't know where people stand on that at this point.
Susan Cain (12:46.360)
Yeah, I think people are figuring it out in a post pandemic
Lex Fridman (12:48.920)
context, but I mean, I know what you mean.
Lex Fridman (12:52.280)
So before I became a writer,
Lex Fridman (12:55.080)
I was a corporate lawyer for like seven years.
Lex Fridman (12:57.760)
And literally the only thing I miss from those years
Lex Fridman (13:02.400)
is hanging out with people at the office.
Susan Cain (13:06.400)
Like, I don't know, just some of the funniest moments
Lex Fridman (13:09.120)
I've had in my life came from being at the office
Susan Cain (13:12.680)
until midnight with the other people I was working with.
Lex Fridman (13:15.000)
So I know exactly what you're talking about.
Susan Cain (13:16.520)
Though I will say the office is there at that firm
Lex Fridman (13:19.160)
and at most firms in those days,
Susan Cain (13:20.720)
everybody had their own office.
Lex Fridman (13:22.160)
So it was like a dorm room,
Susan Cain (13:23.640)
where it was like a long hallway
Lex Fridman (13:24.960)
with everybody in their own little dorm room.
Lex Fridman (13:27.520)
So you had tons of privacy,
Lex Fridman (13:29.000)
but you would also come out and hang out with people.
Susan Cain (13:31.920)
You could just kind of roam whenever you want.
Lex Fridman (13:34.640)
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (13:35.480)
And whenever you roam, that means you're kind of open.
Lex Fridman (13:38.680)
You're looking for trouble.
Susan Cain (13:40.760)
You're open for interaction.
Lex Fridman (13:42.160)
And the extent to which you would keep your door open,
Lex Fridman (13:44.560)
was it wide open or was it half a jar or just a little bit?
Lex Fridman (13:47.720)
Those were all signals.
Lex Fridman (13:49.560)
So is there, cause you said reenergize,
Lex Fridman (13:51.360)
is there, do you like to think,
Lex Fridman (13:53.120)
and again, the human mind is complicated,
Lex Fridman (13:54.880)
but do you like to think of it as like a bucket
Susan Cain (13:57.240)
that gets refilled for introverts
Lex Fridman (13:59.600)
in terms of energy of social interaction
Lex Fridman (14:03.680)
that they're able to handle?
Lex Fridman (14:07.560)
Do you think of it like that,
Lex Fridman (14:09.560)
as a bucket that gets emptied and needs to be refilled?
Lex Fridman (14:12.320)
I think of it, yeah, more or less,
Susan Cain (14:13.600)
cause I use the metaphor of a battery
Lex Fridman (14:15.400)
that gets recharged or not.
Susan Cain (14:16.920)
It's basically the same thing, different metaphor.
Lex Fridman (14:19.960)
But yeah, but just to add on that,
Susan Cain (14:21.440)
that there is a layer of complexity to that
Lex Fridman (14:24.040)
because you could be somebody who
Susan Cain (14:29.400)
doesn't want the kind of social life, let's say,
Lex Fridman (14:32.320)
where you have to be like on and presenting
Lex Fridman (14:35.120)
and interacting with tons of people all the time,
Lex Fridman (14:37.160)
but you'd get really lonely if you were just by yourself.
Lex Fridman (14:40.080)
So what you want is to maybe be in the company
Lex Fridman (14:42.400)
of a couple of people you know really well.
Susan Cain (14:44.760)
Like for me, the pandemic was not actually that hard
Lex Fridman (14:47.640)
for me personally.
Susan Cain (14:48.560)
I mean, I lost family, but I mean,
Lex Fridman (14:50.600)
from the point of view of what we're talking about,
Susan Cain (14:52.720)
it wasn't that hard because I live with my husband
Lex Fridman (14:55.480)
and my kids.
Lex Fridman (14:57.080)
So I knew it was hard on the kids
Lex Fridman (14:58.280)
and I felt badly for them.
Lex Fridman (15:00.160)
But for me, I was like, you know what?
Lex Fridman (15:02.920)
I have a lot of social life right here in the house.
Lex Fridman (15:05.880)
And I can focus and do my work.
Lex Fridman (15:07.520)
Yeah, like yeah.
Susan Cain (15:09.800)
That's the cool thing about the pandemic, I think,
Lex Fridman (15:12.320)
it helped people figure out how much they love their family.
Susan Cain (15:14.920)
I think that's true.
Lex Fridman (15:16.280)
And while you give you a chance
Susan Cain (15:17.720)
to really reconnect with kids,
Lex Fridman (15:19.920)
with your kids, like really spend time with them,
Susan Cain (15:22.200)
it's just fascinating to watch.
Lex Fridman (15:23.400)
Like people actually, it did strengthen the family unit
Susan Cain (15:26.960)
in an often beautiful way,
Lex Fridman (15:31.000)
which just sucks to have to leave behind at this point.
Susan Cain (15:34.600)
Yeah, and I think that's part of what people
Lex Fridman (15:36.360)
are not gonna wanna go back to that we need to solve for,
Susan Cain (15:40.720)
to the extent that work becomes non remote again.
Lex Fridman (15:44.120)
I think people have just realized
Lex Fridman (15:45.200)
how precious those aspects of their lives are.
Lex Fridman (15:47.400)
And for somebody who's in a conventional office job
Susan Cain (15:51.880)
where you're going home and seeing your kids
Lex Fridman (15:53.800)
for an hour before bedtime,
Lex Fridman (15:56.080)
and that's your interaction with them,
Lex Fridman (15:58.040)
that's kind of a ridiculous way to set things up.
Susan Cain (16:01.440)
It's cool that you can get,
Lex Fridman (16:02.680)
I think a lot of places give you the option now,
Susan Cain (16:05.000)
which is interesting.
Lex Fridman (16:05.920)
You get to optimize that element of your life.
Lex Fridman (16:08.400)
Do you take the commute and the office work
Lex Fridman (16:10.080)
and then the social interaction there?
Lex Fridman (16:11.360)
Do you focus on the work at home?
Lex Fridman (16:13.760)
It's also lonely at home,
Lex Fridman (16:15.120)
but then you get to see your kids if you have kids.
Lex Fridman (16:17.640)
That's part of the optimization is like,
Susan Cain (16:20.240)
I have some options now and I'm gonna try to optimize
Lex Fridman (16:25.120)
solitude, loneliness, happiness, productivity,
Susan Cain (16:30.280)
seeing family, seeing coworkers,
Lex Fridman (16:34.840)
the chemistry with the team building with the coworkers
Susan Cain (16:36.760)
versus just the raw exchange of information
Lex Fridman (16:40.360)
with the coworkers.
Susan Cain (16:41.320)
It's fascinating to see how that kind of evolves.
Lex Fridman (16:44.640)
Yeah, and then there's the big,
Susan Cain (16:46.400)
the third space idea of the spaces
Lex Fridman (16:49.680)
where you're in a coworking space
Susan Cain (16:52.640)
or a cafe or something like that.
Lex Fridman (16:54.240)
You've got other people around you,
Lex Fridman (16:55.640)
but you're not exactly interacting with them,
Lex Fridman (16:58.320)
but they're very much there.
Lex Fridman (17:00.440)
And that's huge too.
Lex Fridman (17:02.160)
I don't think we think about that enough.
Susan Cain (17:04.360)
Yeah, that energy's there.
Lex Fridman (17:06.320)
Yeah, yeah.
Susan Cain (17:07.360)
I lived in Manhattan for 17 years before we had kids
Lex Fridman (17:11.800)
and I absolutely loved it.
Susan Cain (17:15.520)
I loved it, the feeling of all that energy all around you,
Lex Fridman (17:18.680)
but you could be anonymous within it.
Susan Cain (17:21.200)
To me, it was perfect.
Lex Fridman (17:22.280)
Yeah, it was beautiful.
Susan Cain (17:23.120)
I worked this morning for a few hours,
Lex Fridman (17:26.240)
programmed for a few hours at a Starbucks.
Lex Fridman (17:28.560)
And first of all, wearing suits,
Lex Fridman (17:31.920)
like Manhattan is the one place
Susan Cain (17:33.880)
you can kind of fit into that
Lex Fridman (17:35.320)
because everyone's wearing suits.
Lex Fridman (17:36.680)
You wear suits every day?
Lex Fridman (17:38.680)
Well, these days, unfortunately,
Susan Cain (17:39.880)
because I get recognized,
Lex Fridman (17:41.320)
I wear usually not suits on my own life.
Lex Fridman (17:45.440)
But yeah, I love it.
Lex Fridman (17:46.680)
I love the way it feels, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (17:48.800)
And the way I think about the world when I wear a suit,
Lex Fridman (17:51.280)
I take it seriously as if my life is gonna end today.
Susan Cain (17:54.760)
This is what I would want to wear,
Lex Fridman (17:56.880)
not for physical appearance,
Lex Fridman (17:58.720)
but for some reason, it makes me feel focused.
Lex Fridman (18:02.840)
I don't know.
Lex Fridman (18:03.680)
So even if you're not gonna see anyone,
Lex Fridman (18:05.120)
you would still put the suit on when you're doing your work?
Susan Cain (18:07.080)
Especially then.
Lex Fridman (18:07.920)
Really?
Susan Cain (18:08.760)
Especially then, yeah.
Lex Fridman (18:10.480)
Yeah, I really love doing that.
Lex Fridman (18:12.640)
So it tells you seriousness of purpose,
Lex Fridman (18:14.920)
something like that?
Susan Cain (18:15.760)
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (18:16.600)
Like everything elevated now?
Susan Cain (18:17.760)
I don't know what it is.
Lex Fridman (18:18.600)
I don't know what I imagine exactly,
Lex Fridman (18:20.040)
but it's some kind of platonic form
Lex Fridman (18:23.640)
of a mixture of James Bond
Lex Fridman (18:26.480)
and like, I don't know who else,
Lex Fridman (18:29.040)
Richard Feynman, what can I think about
Lex Fridman (18:31.200)
when I think about a suit?
Lex Fridman (18:32.280)
You know, I think of Leonard Cohen,
Lex Fridman (18:33.640)
but he was always wearing suits too, but you know.
Lex Fridman (18:37.040)
Leonard Cohen is definitely one of my,
Susan Cain (18:38.720)
is a tragic human, is a beautiful human being.
Lex Fridman (18:41.400)
Yeah, yeah.
Susan Cain (18:42.240)
Through his words, through his own private life,
Lex Fridman (18:44.520)
yes, I definitely would think about Leonard Cohen.
Lex Fridman (18:49.560)
So small talk, that's another thing.
Lex Fridman (18:53.920)
Is that part of the equation
Lex Fridman (18:57.040)
of introvert versus extrovert?
Lex Fridman (18:58.800)
Well.
Lex Fridman (18:59.640)
How much people enjoy small talk?
Lex Fridman (19:01.080)
I kind of went into this whole thing
Susan Cain (19:03.080)
thinking that it was,
Lex Fridman (19:04.800)
but from what I've seen, most people have studied,
Susan Cain (19:07.840)
is that most people don't like small talk.
Lex Fridman (19:11.000)
I think that's why people like your podcasts,
Susan Cain (19:12.800)
because you're like, forget the small talk,
Lex Fridman (19:14.840)
I'm going deep into it from the very beginning.
Susan Cain (19:17.440)
Yeah, so it's actually, the picture you're painting
Lex Fridman (19:19.560)
is like the way you started,
Susan Cain (19:21.640)
like with your, with the book Quiet,
Lex Fridman (19:25.480)
and the way you are today is you realize
Susan Cain (19:27.840)
the picture may be more complicated.
Lex Fridman (19:30.640)
Yeah, everything's more complicated.
Susan Cain (19:33.960)
I will say with the small talk thing,
Lex Fridman (19:37.240)
that I'm curious if you have this experience,
Lex Fridman (19:41.040)
but I find it fantastic to have a career
Lex Fridman (19:44.720)
where I'm known for anti small talk kinds of topics,
Susan Cain (19:49.720)
because it means that anywhere I go,
Lex Fridman (19:51.840)
like if I show up at a conference or something like that,
Susan Cain (19:54.280)
no one does small talk with me.
Lex Fridman (19:55.960)
They're like telling me about the deep truth of their lives
Susan Cain (19:59.360)
from the first hello, and I love that.
Lex Fridman (1:00:04.180)
maybe like 20% is written down on paper,
Lex Fridman (1:00:08.540)
but the rest of it is my thoughts in the moment.
Lex Fridman (1:00:12.180)
That's a difficult balance to strike
Susan Cain (1:00:15.220)
because if you write a lot, you're going to be more precise,
Lex Fridman (1:00:17.620)
you're going to be more accurate,
Lex Fridman (1:00:20.340)
but you're going to miss some of the deep, honest emotion.
Lex Fridman (1:00:25.420)
The silences won't be correct,
Susan Cain (1:00:29.060)
or the silences between the words
Lex Fridman (1:00:32.340)
won't capture the depth of feeling.
Susan Cain (1:00:36.400)
Unless, if you're somebody like me,
Lex Fridman (1:00:38.300)
if you're like, I guess that's what actors
Lex Fridman (1:00:40.720)
and actresses have to do.
Lex Fridman (1:00:44.420)
Basically, even though the script is fully written,
Susan Cain (1:00:46.620)
you improvise between the words, between the lines.
Lex Fridman (1:00:50.940)
But that's a skill.
Susan Cain (1:00:52.860)
Well, it also takes so much time.
Lex Fridman (1:00:54.700)
I mean, I experienced that with the TED Talks.
Susan Cain (1:00:57.180)
It's like you get to a stage,
Lex Fridman (1:00:59.540)
so you're memorizing everything word for word,
Lex Fridman (1:01:01.940)
and at first, in that process,
Lex Fridman (1:01:04.580)
it comes out in a really wooden way, the way you're saying,
Susan Cain (1:01:07.060)
like the emotion's gone.
Lex Fridman (1:01:08.620)
But once you really know it,
Lex Fridman (1:01:10.060)
so you've internalized the words,
Lex Fridman (1:01:11.780)
then all the emotion comes back,
Lex Fridman (1:01:13.820)
and you can say them in a completely different way.
Lex Fridman (1:01:16.020)
And you're really speaking it from the heart.
Lex Fridman (1:01:17.780)
But you have to know it so well before you can do that.
Lex Fridman (1:01:21.860)
I would never recommend it,
Susan Cain (1:01:23.420)
because it's just like, it's so time consuming.
Lex Fridman (1:01:25.540)
It's an inch, well, in your case, it works out beautifully.
Susan Cain (1:01:28.340)
Like when it all comes together,
Lex Fridman (1:01:30.420)
it is a theatrical thing.
Susan Cain (1:01:32.900)
It's like a musical or whatever.
Lex Fridman (1:01:37.740)
I think I'm gonna come out with a one man show on Broadway,
Susan Cain (1:01:41.120)
singing now, I'm inspired.
Lex Fridman (1:01:43.540)
For real, where are you gonna talk about Hitler and Stalin
Lex Fridman (1:01:47.300)
and everything you're learning?
Lex Fridman (1:01:48.140)
Me too.
Susan Cain (1:01:49.020)
Have you ever thought of using the medium
Lex Fridman (1:01:52.500)
of just speaking into a microphone, but without the video?
Susan Cain (1:01:57.880)
I'm curious about this,
Lex Fridman (1:01:58.720)
because I fell in love with podcasts originally,
Susan Cain (1:02:02.960)
before there was ever this whole video component to it.
Lex Fridman (1:02:05.900)
And I realized there's something so primal and magical
Susan Cain (1:02:09.280)
about having someone's voice in your ear.
Lex Fridman (1:02:12.380)
And my favorite kinds of interviews still,
Susan Cain (1:02:14.620)
very few people do it this way nowadays,
Lex Fridman (1:02:16.600)
but my favorite kind are when you're just talking
Susan Cain (1:02:19.780)
into the microphone.
Lex Fridman (1:02:20.980)
So it's not over Zoom, it's not in person,
Susan Cain (1:02:23.780)
it's just you in the microphone
Lex Fridman (1:02:25.620)
and the other person in the microphone
Lex Fridman (1:02:26.940)
and they're in your ear.
Lex Fridman (1:02:28.340)
It's like the ultimate in intimacy.
Susan Cain (1:02:30.820)
Oh, you mean from the interviewer perspective,
Lex Fridman (1:02:32.540)
that's still your favorite.
Susan Cain (1:02:33.580)
Yeah, but it would be interesting also
Lex Fridman (1:02:36.700)
with the kind of thing you were talking about
Susan Cain (1:02:38.220)
of just speaking, like just you and the mic.
Lex Fridman (1:02:40.660)
I would love to be in person,
Lex Fridman (1:02:42.140)
but you can't see the person.
Lex Fridman (1:02:43.420)
I wonder what that's like.
Lex Fridman (1:02:44.580)
What do you mean, like they're all there,
Lex Fridman (1:02:46.300)
but behind a curtain?
Susan Cain (1:02:47.140)
No, you just have your eyes closed.
Lex Fridman (1:02:48.800)
You're just talking, you have your eyes closed
Susan Cain (1:02:50.480)
or whatever you have,
Lex Fridman (1:02:51.920)
because I think you still have to get
Susan Cain (1:02:53.620)
the same kind of chemistry,
Lex Fridman (1:02:54.580)
because it's not just the visual.
Susan Cain (1:02:56.700)
I don't even know that,
Lex Fridman (1:02:58.100)
because obviously I have trouble making eye contact.
Lex Fridman (1:03:01.140)
But I don't know if the visual stimulation
Lex Fridman (1:03:03.060)
is the necessary thing.
Susan Cain (1:03:04.660)
There's something about the way audio travels
Lex Fridman (1:03:07.400)
that captures the intimacy,
Susan Cain (1:03:08.900)
where some people actually have headphones on,
Lex Fridman (1:03:11.660)
like Joe does this, have headphones on.
Susan Cain (1:03:13.300)
That's really intimate.
Lex Fridman (1:03:14.960)
Like there's something about that sound
Susan Cain (1:03:16.660)
going directly into your ear.
Lex Fridman (1:03:18.460)
Yeah, there is something primal there.
Susan Cain (1:03:20.500)
Yeah, for sure.
Lex Fridman (1:03:23.840)
I've thought about it, definitely.
Lex Fridman (1:03:25.380)
And some of my favorite podcasts are like that,
Lex Fridman (1:03:28.040)
WTF with Marc Maron, that's audio only.
Susan Cain (1:03:31.420)
There's a few audio only podcasts that I just love.
Lex Fridman (1:03:34.740)
What is that?
Susan Cain (1:03:35.580)
I still go on Clubhouse, that was a social media platform
Lex Fridman (1:03:40.420)
where it's audio only.
Lex Fridman (1:03:41.900)
And it's so interesting that people,
Lex Fridman (1:03:44.260)
the interesting thing about Clubhouse in particular
Susan Cain (1:03:46.300)
is people from all walks of life can tune in,
Lex Fridman (1:03:48.500)
and they just have,
Susan Cain (1:03:50.740)
it's something you need to do some research
Lex Fridman (1:03:53.480)
in terms of introversion on that one,
Susan Cain (1:03:55.020)
because I don't feel any of my introvert
Lex Fridman (1:04:00.540)
like triggers happening.
Susan Cain (1:04:03.060)
Because nobody can see you, it's just audio,
Lex Fridman (1:04:06.220)
and nobody is offended if you're just sitting there
Susan Cain (1:04:10.340)
quietly just listening.
Lex Fridman (1:04:12.700)
So you can participate whenever you want or not.
Susan Cain (1:04:16.140)
Yeah, it's like the ultimate social freedom.
Lex Fridman (1:04:18.180)
You can listen as much as you'd like,
Susan Cain (1:04:19.820)
you can participate if you want,
Lex Fridman (1:04:21.140)
but you don't have to, it's no big deal.
Susan Cain (1:04:22.740)
Yeah, if I'm actually at a physical party,
Lex Fridman (1:04:25.980)
somebody's gonna look at me and be like why,
Susan Cain (1:04:29.300)
there'll be that pressure to speak,
Lex Fridman (1:04:30.740)
but you don't have to in that kind of audio setting.
Lex Fridman (1:04:34.380)
And there's that intimacy.
Lex Fridman (1:04:36.100)
Like you can, when it's audio only,
Susan Cain (1:04:38.300)
it feels like you can reveal a lot more of yourself
Lex Fridman (1:04:40.620)
in some kind of honest way.
Susan Cain (1:04:43.700)
I don't know what that is.
Lex Fridman (1:04:44.740)
What is that?
Lex Fridman (1:04:45.580)
What is that?
Lex Fridman (1:04:46.400)
I don't know, but I assume it's tapping into something
Susan Cain (1:04:49.140)
really ancient.
Lex Fridman (1:04:49.980)
Like we used to tell stories around the fire,
Susan Cain (1:04:51.880)
like our whole storytelling tradition was oral originally.
Lex Fridman (1:04:56.620)
So maybe it's that.
Lex Fridman (1:04:57.700)
But we used visual stuff, like.
Lex Fridman (1:05:00.460)
That's true, you could actually see the person
Susan Cain (1:05:01.940)
on the other side of the campfire.
Lex Fridman (1:05:03.780)
It seems like the visual element's so fundamental
Susan Cain (1:05:06.260)
to the social interaction,
Lex Fridman (1:05:07.520)
but there's something primal about audio.
Susan Cain (1:05:11.820)
I wonder what that is.
Lex Fridman (1:05:12.660)
And still, that's why, I mean,
Susan Cain (1:05:14.140)
most people listen to podcasts, I think, audio only.
Lex Fridman (1:05:17.360)
They have it in their ears while they're doing stuff.
Susan Cain (1:05:19.460)
Yeah, that's how I do it.
Lex Fridman (1:05:21.020)
And then there's, yeah, that's how I do it too.
Lex Fridman (1:05:22.660)
And that's where the friendship, like, is formed.
Lex Fridman (1:05:26.780)
It's weird, that deep connection with other humans.
Susan Cain (1:05:30.240)
It's formed because they're in your ear.
Lex Fridman (1:05:34.820)
And you get to see them grow.
Susan Cain (1:05:35.820)
You get to see them be bored, experience excitement,
Lex Fridman (1:05:39.420)
and anger, and fear, and all those kinds of things.
Susan Cain (1:05:42.420)
It's fascinating, it's fascinating.
Lex Fridman (1:05:45.100)
The world of podcasting is fascinating
Susan Cain (1:05:46.900)
because we're in this world of essentially radio,
Lex Fridman (1:05:51.280)
even though we all have all this high definition content,
Susan Cain (1:05:55.060)
all this, like, TikTok style fast stuff and still podcasting.
Lex Fridman (1:05:59.020)
I know, and we still choose to do this.
Susan Cain (1:06:01.240)
It's weird.
Lex Fridman (1:06:02.080)
Because at the end of the day,
Susan Cain (1:06:02.900)
I think that's really what people want most,
Lex Fridman (1:06:04.520)
is just to talk to each other
Lex Fridman (1:06:06.260)
and to know what people really think.
Lex Fridman (1:06:07.740)
And podcasting of all the media that I've ever seen
Susan Cain (1:06:10.780)
is the one where people come closest
Lex Fridman (1:06:12.540)
to telling you the truth.
Susan Cain (1:06:15.500)
And, you know, just telling you, like,
Lex Fridman (1:06:17.620)
the good and the bad and the bitter and the sweet
Lex Fridman (1:06:19.440)
and all of it.
Lex Fridman (1:06:20.280)
Especially long form, there's not enough time.
Susan Cain (1:06:21.900)
Yeah, exactly.
Lex Fridman (1:06:23.020)
I had to explain this to people.
Susan Cain (1:06:24.840)
Like, you talk to CEOs and stuff.
Lex Fridman (1:06:27.400)
They don't understand,
Susan Cain (1:06:29.940)
they're starting to understand much better.
Lex Fridman (1:06:31.980)
Now, as a hard requirement with, like, CEOs and stuff,
Susan Cain (1:06:35.980)
it has to be three hours.
Lex Fridman (1:06:37.260)
I say, like, this is...
Susan Cain (1:06:39.340)
Wow.
Lex Fridman (1:06:40.180)
Because there's something,
Susan Cain (1:06:42.680)
they can't be doing marketing stuff for three hours.
Lex Fridman (1:06:46.500)
They break.
Susan Cain (1:06:47.700)
They start being human, they start joking,
Lex Fridman (1:06:49.380)
they start relaxing.
Lex Fridman (1:06:50.460)
And if they can't, that also tells a kind of story.
Lex Fridman (1:06:53.420)
But I do that kind of torture for CEOs only.
Susan Cain (1:06:56.140)
Anyway.
Lex Fridman (1:06:56.980)
Yeah, when I was getting,
Susan Cain (1:06:58.780)
my publishing house did media training with me
Lex Fridman (1:07:01.360)
before Bittersweet came out.
Lex Fridman (1:07:02.980)
And they were preparing me for, like,
Lex Fridman (1:07:07.140)
the five to seven minute interview that you might have,
Susan Cain (1:07:10.300)
you know, if you go on some quick TV thing
Lex Fridman (1:07:12.020)
or something like that.
Lex Fridman (1:07:13.340)
And God, I hate that.
Lex Fridman (1:07:14.580)
It's like, it feels like you're basically having
Susan Cain (1:07:19.060)
to not tell the full truth somehow
Lex Fridman (1:07:21.260)
because you can't tell it in such a short amount of time.
Susan Cain (1:07:24.660)
Well, the other...
Lex Fridman (1:07:25.500)
So to me, podcasting is just the best thing
Susan Cain (1:07:27.180)
that's ever happened.
Lex Fridman (1:07:28.340)
The other downside of the seven minute interview
Susan Cain (1:07:33.040)
is I think you could do a really good job with that,
Lex Fridman (1:07:35.140)
but the dance partner has to be very good.
Susan Cain (1:07:37.840)
It's actually challenging for everybody involved.
Lex Fridman (1:07:39.860)
It's much harder for everybody involved.
Susan Cain (1:07:43.620)
Because if you can do, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:07:45.460)
I can imagine like a Christopher Hitchens type character
Susan Cain (1:07:48.300)
who's just super witty,
Lex Fridman (1:07:50.980)
then you could do a seven minute thing.
Susan Cain (1:07:52.900)
You can get to the core of Bittersweet.
Lex Fridman (1:07:55.340)
You can get to the core of the book
Susan Cain (1:07:57.100)
without asking those generic small talk questions.
Lex Fridman (1:07:59.300)
Because too many people in that short form interview
Susan Cain (1:08:03.780)
are just asking very generic questions.
Lex Fridman (1:08:05.780)
They're doing small talk for seven minutes.
Susan Cain (1:08:07.900)
It's like, all right, you only get seven minutes.
Lex Fridman (1:08:11.020)
You only get one interesting question.
Susan Cain (1:08:13.540)
Go ask the weirdest, the deepest question
Lex Fridman (1:08:16.540)
that also energizes the other person.
Susan Cain (1:08:20.740)
It's an art form that people don't take seriously.
Lex Fridman (1:08:25.020)
I think the seven minute thing, five minute or even less.
Lex Fridman (1:08:29.140)
And then the commercials, which I...
Lex Fridman (1:08:31.860)
Yeah, and I've noticed that many of the best podcasters
Susan Cain (1:08:37.080)
are ones where when you're on my side of the table,
Lex Fridman (1:08:39.940)
you feel like it's more of a conversation
Lex Fridman (1:08:42.060)
and less like an interview
Lex Fridman (1:08:43.700)
where you're answering all the same questions
Susan Cain (1:08:45.220)
you've answered a million times before.
Lex Fridman (1:08:47.780)
It's really interesting how different the experience is.
Lex Fridman (1:08:51.020)
And you're right, the audio thing,
Lex Fridman (1:08:52.920)
if you can lose yourself in that, the intimacy of that.
Lex Fridman (1:08:57.840)
And you don't even remember what stupid stuff you said.
Lex Fridman (1:09:00.520)
People, I've seen that, I mean,
Susan Cain (1:09:03.160)
people don't give them enough credit as...
Lex Fridman (1:09:05.160)
You might not be aware, might not be a fan,
Lex Fridman (1:09:08.880)
but Joe Rogan is an incredible conversationalist
Lex Fridman (1:09:12.520)
in that he makes you forget that anything's being recorded,
Susan Cain (1:09:18.400)
that you're talking at all.
Lex Fridman (1:09:20.560)
He makes you forget time and you just enjoy yourself.
Lex Fridman (1:09:23.860)
And that's whatever that is.
Lex Fridman (1:09:28.040)
And then you plug into that primal connection
Susan Cain (1:09:30.920)
to other humans.
Lex Fridman (1:09:34.520)
What's your favorite Leonard Cohen song?
Susan Cain (1:09:36.180)
Famous Blue Raincoat.
Lex Fridman (1:09:37.480)
Do you know that one?
Susan Cain (1:09:38.320)
Yeah, maybe I'll play it.
Lex Fridman (1:09:40.040)
Yeah, for people who don't know Leonard Cohen
Lex Fridman (1:09:43.640)
and this is your first introduction to him,
Lex Fridman (1:09:45.760)
it's gonna sound so gloomy, but it's so good.
Susan Cain (1:09:49.520)
He's got this deep, rich voice.
Lex Fridman (1:09:52.960)
Tony Amos covering Famous Blue Raincoat, yeah, yeah.
Susan Cain (1:09:55.480)
No, we want the original.
Lex Fridman (1:09:58.680)
Just like Hallelujah, Jeff Buckley covered Leonard Cohen.
Susan Cain (1:10:02.160)
That was a really good one.
Lex Fridman (1:10:03.160)
That was a really good one, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:10:04.760)
And I also really like Rufus Wainwright's cover.
Lex Fridman (1:10:07.980)
But Famous Blue Raincoat, for people who don't know it,
Susan Cain (1:10:10.120)
it's basically about a love triangle
Lex Fridman (1:10:13.880)
and it's told from the perspective of a man
Susan Cain (1:10:17.100)
whose wife has just been with another guy
Lex Fridman (1:10:20.680)
who is also his friend.
Lex Fridman (1:10:23.380)
And he's writing a letter to that other guy
Lex Fridman (1:10:26.200)
and he's reflecting on the way
Susan Cain (1:10:28.740)
that all their relationships have changed
Lex Fridman (1:10:30.480)
in the wake of this event.
Lex Fridman (1:10:34.920)
So they're still friends.
Lex Fridman (1:10:36.080)
So they're still, well, he refers to him
Susan Cain (1:10:38.180)
as my brother, my killer,
Lex Fridman (1:10:40.220)
which is such a Leonard Cohen thing to do
Susan Cain (1:10:42.040)
because it's always like, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:10:44.040)
it's light and it's dark, all at once.
Susan Cain (1:10:48.480)
Nothing is ever all one thing.
Lex Fridman (1:10:59.920)
Yeah, I love this song.
Lex Fridman (1:11:02.040)
Yeah, right?
Lex Fridman (1:11:02.880)
I mean.
Susan Cain (1:11:03.700)
He just speaks in it.
Lex Fridman (1:11:05.700)
It's four in the morning, the end of December.
Lex Fridman (1:11:12.700)
And the fact that it's four in the morning
Lex Fridman (1:11:14.900)
and it's the end of December,
Lex Fridman (1:11:16.220)
like those are transitional moments, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:11:18.700)
It's night going into day
Lex Fridman (1:11:20.700)
and it's December going into the new year.
Lex Fridman (1:11:23.700)
And it's the end of December and it's the end of December.
Lex Fridman (1:11:27.700)
And it's the end of December and it's the end of December.
Lex Fridman (1:11:31.700)
And it's December going into the new year.
Susan Cain (1:11:34.700)
It's not an accident.
Lex Fridman (1:11:39.700)
There is something about December.
Susan Cain (1:11:41.700)
Whatever, there's certain scenes you can paint in your mind.
Lex Fridman (1:11:46.700)
There's a poem by Charles Bukowski called Nirvana.
Susan Cain (1:11:50.700)
It's a young man traveling through the middle of nowhere
Lex Fridman (1:11:53.700)
in the snow.
Susan Cain (1:11:54.700)
There's something about the snow,
Lex Fridman (1:11:55.700)
either the rain or the snow
Susan Cain (1:11:57.700)
can put you in a certain kind of mood
Lex Fridman (1:11:59.700)
that just, what is it, James Joyce?
Susan Cain (1:12:02.700)
The dead, the snow is falling on Dublin.
Lex Fridman (1:12:06.700)
Yeah, it can put you in a place.
Susan Cain (1:12:08.700)
I mean, David Yaden,
Lex Fridman (1:12:10.700)
he's a researcher in psychedelics and consciousness
Susan Cain (1:12:13.700)
at Johns Hopkins.
Lex Fridman (1:12:15.700)
He's a great guy.
Lex Fridman (1:12:16.700)
And he's done research that has found
Lex Fridman (1:12:18.700)
that when people are in their transitional moments of life,
Lex Fridman (1:12:22.700)
and it could be a career change,
Lex Fridman (1:12:24.700)
it could be a divorce,
Susan Cain (1:12:25.700)
it could be that they're nearing the end of their life,
Lex Fridman (1:12:28.700)
that they very often will say,
Susan Cain (1:12:30.700)
those are their most meaningful moments
Lex Fridman (1:12:32.700)
and their most spiritual moments.
Lex Fridman (1:12:34.700)
And so I feel like that's what Leonard Cohen
Lex Fridman (1:12:36.700)
knows how to tap into instinctively.
Susan Cain (1:12:38.700)
The year after he died, his son, Adam Cohen,
Lex Fridman (1:12:42.700)
made a memorial concert for him
Susan Cain (1:12:44.700)
where all these famous musicians came to Montreal
Lex Fridman (1:12:46.700)
where they had lived and performed his music.
Lex Fridman (1:12:50.700)
And my husband, who's not a Leonard Cohen fan
Lex Fridman (1:12:53.700)
and he's not a bittersweet type at all,
Lex Fridman (1:12:55.700)
but he knows how I feel about him,
Lex Fridman (1:12:56.700)
he's like, you should really go to that concert.
Lex Fridman (1:12:59.700)
And I felt so ridiculous.
Lex Fridman (1:13:01.700)
The whole family went all the way to Montreal on a Monday.
Susan Cain (1:13:05.700)
On a Monday.
Lex Fridman (1:13:06.700)
On a Monday.
Susan Cain (1:13:07.700)
It was just like a random Monday.
Lex Fridman (1:13:09.700)
And we got on the plane.
Lex Fridman (1:13:10.700)
So everyone's out of school,
Lex Fridman (1:13:13.700)
just so I can go to this concert.
Lex Fridman (1:13:17.700)
And I got there and at the beginning,
Lex Fridman (1:13:20.700)
I was feeling like, this was all a terrible mistake
Susan Cain (1:13:23.700)
because it's all these other musicians playing this music
Lex Fridman (1:13:27.700)
and I don't actually really want to hear them.
Susan Cain (1:13:29.700)
I'd rather listen to him on YouTube.
Lex Fridman (1:13:31.700)
And then a musician named Damien Rice came
Lex Fridman (1:13:37.700)
and played Famous Blue Raincoat and he sang it.
Lex Fridman (1:13:40.700)
And he did the most amazing thing at the end.
Susan Cain (1:13:44.700)
The whole thing was amazing.
Lex Fridman (1:13:45.700)
But then at the end, he sang this musical riff
Susan Cain (1:13:48.700)
that was like, all I could say is that it was like a musical lamentation of the ages.
Lex Fridman (1:13:55.700)
And the whole audience just rose silently to its feet.
Lex Fridman (1:14:00.700)
And it was one of the greatest moments that I've ever had.
Lex Fridman (1:14:04.700)
There's sometimes certain artists in a cover can capture
Susan Cain (1:14:07.700)
in some kind of deeper way,
Lex Fridman (1:14:09.700)
like carrying the thread of the power of the song.
Lex Fridman (1:14:13.700)
So I've been listening a lot to Johnny Cash Heart, which is a Nine Inch Nails Trent Reznor song.
Lex Fridman (1:14:20.700)
You talked about it on your podcast with Rick Rubin,
Susan Cain (1:14:22.700)
which is when I reached out to you.
Lex Fridman (1:14:24.700)
I love that interview and I love that song also.
Susan Cain (1:14:27.700)
Yeah, so there's that.
Lex Fridman (1:14:30.700)
There's the Kennedy Center Honors where they celebrated certain artists.
Susan Cain (1:14:33.700)
They did that for Led Zeppelin and I forgot what her name is,
Lex Fridman (1:14:36.700)
but the lead singer of Heart performs There We're To Heaven.
Lex Fridman (1:14:41.700)
And it's like, if you're like, all right,
Lex Fridman (1:14:44.700)
you take one of the great sort of rock songs of all time, what do you do?
Susan Cain (1:14:48.700)
Oh, the cool thing is you get to perform this in front of the artist
Lex Fridman (1:14:53.700)
while they're still there, you know, they're still alive.
Lex Fridman (1:14:55.700)
So you get to watch you sort of perform,
Lex Fridman (1:14:58.700)
and in that case, the president and President Obama's there
Lex Fridman (1:15:00.700)
and she's just knocked it out of the park.
Lex Fridman (1:15:03.700)
But at the same time, without outdoing the original,
Susan Cain (1:15:10.700)
somehow you're just making it your own.
Lex Fridman (1:15:12.700)
You're making it your own, but not departing completely,
Susan Cain (1:15:16.700)
not departing from the spirit of the original.
Lex Fridman (1:15:19.700)
It's tough because the original Halu by Leonard Cohen,
Susan Cain (1:15:24.700)
it's just not, it's so powerful,
Lex Fridman (1:15:27.700)
but it's just not as good as some of these covers.
Susan Cain (1:15:31.700)
Well, I think it's the words and the melody
Lex Fridman (1:15:34.700)
and then the covers take it to a different place.
Susan Cain (1:15:37.700)
The thing that Leonard Cohen seems to do well,
Lex Fridman (1:15:39.700)
I don't think he did it on Hallelujah
Susan Cain (1:15:44.700)
because he was almost being playful on Hallelujah.
Lex Fridman (1:15:47.700)
Like, I don't know, as opposed to that deep melancholy,
Susan Cain (1:15:52.700)
like painful longing thing that Jeff Buckley did and others do too.
Lex Fridman (1:15:58.700)
I wonder if it's because in a way he, I don't mean that he over edited it,
Lex Fridman (1:16:03.700)
but he apparently worked on that song for years
Lex Fridman (1:16:05.700)
and went through gazillions of verses and checked most of them out.
Susan Cain (1:16:08.700)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:16:09.700)
So I wonder if we're hearing his version
Susan Cain (1:16:11.700)
after he's like a little tired with that process.
Lex Fridman (1:16:15.700)
Yeah. Well, that's the other thing is like maybe from a book tour, you know,
Susan Cain (1:16:21.700)
it's like you get tired of saying the same thing over and over and over and over.
Lex Fridman (1:16:24.700)
You forget, you forget the...
Susan Cain (1:16:26.700)
You forgot like the initial, like the heart of it.
Lex Fridman (1:16:29.700)
Yeah. But I actually got a chance to hang out with Dan Reynolds,
Susan Cain (1:16:34.700)
who's the lead singer of Imagine Dragons, this incredible band, Super Pop.
Lex Fridman (1:16:42.700)
Yeah.
Susan Cain (1:16:43.700)
The most played band on like Spotify or something.
Lex Fridman (1:16:45.700)
Is that right?
Susan Cain (1:16:46.700)
His kids went through a huge Imagine Dragons phase,
Lex Fridman (1:16:48.700)
so we were listening to their music a lot.
Susan Cain (1:16:50.700)
It was so surreal to be hanging out with him and he's such a good,
Lex Fridman (1:16:54.700)
like very few people I've met in my life are just as good of a human being.
Lex Fridman (1:16:59.700)
And that has to do with the fact that he struggles.
Susan Cain (1:17:01.700)
He struggles, he still I think struggles, but he struggled for a long time with depression.
Lex Fridman (1:17:06.700)
And so out of that pain, you see born this really good human being,
Lex Fridman (1:17:12.700)
this really good relationship with his wife.
Susan Cain (1:17:15.700)
Like when times are good, they lean on each other for like,
Lex Fridman (1:17:20.700)
they're deeply grateful for those precious moments.
Lex Fridman (1:17:23.700)
So it's beautiful to watch.
Lex Fridman (1:17:25.700)
But he said that it's really important to feel the song every time.
Susan Cain (1:17:33.700)
Otherwise people know.
Lex Fridman (1:17:35.700)
People are really good at detecting your bullshit.
Susan Cain (1:17:38.700)
You can't fake it.
Lex Fridman (1:17:39.700)
Yeah.
Susan Cain (1:17:40.700)
You really have to feel it every time.
Lex Fridman (1:17:41.700)
You have to feel the emotion of it, whatever the emotion is,
Susan Cain (1:17:44.700)
of the original time you wrote it.
Lex Fridman (1:17:48.700)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:17:49.700)
So it's just interesting because it put, I thought you could maybe fake it,
Lex Fridman (1:17:54.700)
but he believes personally because he played in front of the gigantic crowds
Lex Fridman (1:17:58.700)
and over and over and over and over and over.
Lex Fridman (1:18:00.700)
He's like, no, every time you have to be there.
Lex Fridman (1:18:03.700)
But there's got to be times when he's about to go out and he's not feeling it
Lex Fridman (1:18:07.700)
and he has to figure out some way of getting himself into that heart space.
Susan Cain (1:18:10.700)
Well, that's what he's saying.
Lex Fridman (1:18:11.700)
You have to, otherwise you're just, that's the job.
Susan Cain (1:18:15.700)
Don't take the job then.
Lex Fridman (1:18:18.700)
And he loves it.
Susan Cain (1:18:20.700)
He says the biggest struggle, in fact, is the come down from that,
Susan Cain (1:18:24.700)
which is like you have such a beautiful experience of connecting with this large number of people,
Susan Cain (1:18:30.700)
sharing a song that you love, and then it's just a rush of connection.
Lex Fridman (1:18:36.700)
And then you have to, you know, when you get off stage, you're now back to normal life.
Lex Fridman (1:18:43.700)
And that's why a lot of musicians get into heavy drugs and all that kind of stuff
Lex Fridman (1:18:46.700)
because you're looking for that rush again.
Susan Cain (1:18:49.700)
It's very tough to like then go into this, speaking of introvert,
Lex Fridman (1:18:53.700)
because he probably is an introvert, is like you have to find that calmness.
Lex Fridman (1:18:58.700)
And how do you find the calmness when you were just playing in front of tens of thousands of people
Lex Fridman (1:19:03.700)
or hundreds of thousands, whatever that number is, that rush of connecting.
Lex Fridman (1:19:07.700)
And everybody, there's love in the air.
Lex Fridman (1:19:09.700)
And you still have to find that like inner peace and calm.
Susan Cain (1:19:12.700)
That's interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:19:13.700)
So I don't know if this is the introvert in me talking and the writer in me talking,
Lex Fridman (1:19:18.700)
but I don't know.
Lex Fridman (1:19:21.700)
Like I love most the moments where let's say I'll get a letter from a reader
Susan Cain (1:19:26.700)
who will tell me what something I wrote meant to them.
Lex Fridman (1:19:29.700)
And they'll talk about having had that kind of moment of, you know,
Susan Cain (1:19:32.700)
the communion between the writer and the reader.
Lex Fridman (1:19:34.700)
And obviously I wasn't there physically when it happened,
Lex Fridman (1:19:36.700)
so I wasn't getting that kind of rush that a musician would get in a concert.
Lex Fridman (1:19:40.700)
But just the knowledge of that having happened out there in the world
Susan Cain (1:19:45.700)
to do just something that I added to it is the most amazing thing.
Lex Fridman (1:19:49.700)
You love it.
Lex Fridman (1:19:50.700)
But imagine reading like thousands of those letters,
Lex Fridman (1:19:54.700)
and then it's such a strong rush and everything else doesn't.
Susan Cain (1:19:59.700)
It could be overwhelming I guess.
Lex Fridman (1:20:01.700)
But like anything else, you have to come down and find a calm place.
Susan Cain (1:20:06.700)
Like for example, the danger with getting letters like that,
Lex Fridman (1:20:09.700)
you start taking yourself too seriously.
Susan Cain (1:20:11.700)
You think like you are a special person somehow.
Lex Fridman (1:20:14.700)
But you really want to avoid that feeling too.
Susan Cain (1:20:19.700)
Yeah, I don't actually experience it as that much different
Lex Fridman (1:20:22.700)
from when I'm on the other side of it.
Susan Cain (1:20:24.700)
Like if I'm the reader and some other writer has made me feel that way,
Lex Fridman (1:20:28.700)
to me it's the same thing.
Susan Cain (1:20:29.700)
Yeah, me too.
Lex Fridman (1:20:30.700)
Yeah, it's a cool, it's a virtual hug.
Susan Cain (1:20:34.700)
I think it's like I was just listening to something
Lex Fridman (1:20:36.700)
about the different Russian writers.
Susan Cain (1:20:42.700)
I was mentioning him to you, this academic.
Lex Fridman (1:20:44.700)
His name is Gary Salmorson, and he studies Russian literature.
Lex Fridman (1:20:48.700)
And he was talking about, I don't know if I'll be able to get this right,
Lex Fridman (1:20:51.700)
but basically that the people misunderstand a work like Anna Karenina
Lex Fridman (1:20:55.700)
and that we think of it as telling us that you're supposed to live,
Lex Fridman (1:21:02.700)
you're supposed to have like these grand, tempestuous romances
Susan Cain (1:21:08.700)
that might end in death or despair or whatever it is,
Lex Fridman (1:21:12.700)
but you should be in it for the intensity of the emotion.
Lex Fridman (1:21:15.700)
And he's saying actually that's exactly not what Tolstoy was saying,
Lex Fridman (1:21:22.700)
that actually it was the opposite,
Susan Cain (1:21:24.700)
that he was really advocating for everyday life.
Lex Fridman (1:21:27.700)
He was saying it's scenes from everyday life.
Susan Cain (1:21:29.700)
He was juxtaposing Anna Karenina with all these other couples
Lex Fridman (1:21:32.700)
who were just living happily and quietly day by day.
Lex Fridman (1:21:36.700)
And that was what he believed was the ideal,
Lex Fridman (1:21:41.700)
as opposed to the grand rush and as opposed to the intensity.
Lex Fridman (1:21:45.700)
I wonder if he, is there a romance just at day to day?
Lex Fridman (1:21:52.700)
I think there is a romance to the day to day, absolutely.
Susan Cain (1:21:55.700)
Don't get distracted by the dopamine rollercoaster ride
Lex Fridman (1:21:58.700)
of the grand romantic notions.
Susan Cain (1:22:00.700)
Yeah, and enjoy it while it's happening,
Lex Fridman (1:22:02.700)
because those are real life experiences also,
Lex Fridman (1:22:04.700)
but not to mistake those for being everything.
Lex Fridman (1:22:07.700)
Where is he from?
Susan Cain (1:22:09.700)
He's a professor at Northwestern.
Lex Fridman (1:22:11.700)
At Northwestern.
Lex Fridman (1:22:12.700)
And apparently his lectures are like the most popular on campus.
Lex Fridman (1:22:15.700)
Wow, people love him.
Susan Cain (1:22:17.700)
Gary Saul Morrison is an American literary critic and slobist.
Lex Fridman (1:22:21.700)
He's particularly known for his scholarly work
Susan Cain (1:22:23.700)
on the great Russian novelists Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Lex Fridman (1:22:28.700)
Morrison is Lawrence D. Professor in the Arts and Humanities
Susan Cain (1:22:31.700)
at Northwestern University.
Lex Fridman (1:22:32.700)
Yeah.
Susan Cain (1:22:33.700)
Wow, and there's a lot of incredible work.
Lex Fridman (1:22:35.700)
And then I'm sure looking through the lens of Russian literature
Lex Fridman (1:22:38.700)
and the romance of all of that, he's looking at the modern world.
Lex Fridman (1:22:41.700)
Yeah.
Susan Cain (1:22:42.700)
I think you should have him on your podcast.
Lex Fridman (1:22:44.700)
And Quiet Flows the Vodka or When Pushkin Comes to Shove
Susan Cain (1:22:48.700)
the curmudgeon's guide to Russian literature and culture.
Lex Fridman (1:22:51.700)
This is one of the silly books he has on the list.
Susan Cain (1:22:54.700)
Okay, cool.
Lex Fridman (1:22:55.700)
What were you saying?
Susan Cain (1:22:56.700)
I'm sorry.
Lex Fridman (1:22:57.700)
Oh, no, I was just saying, yeah, like I find that when I take photos
Susan Cain (1:23:01.700)
on my phone, I hardly ever take photos at the moment you're supposed to.
Lex Fridman (1:23:05.700)
Like everybody's gathered for some event.
Susan Cain (1:23:07.700)
I'll forget to take the photo.
Lex Fridman (1:23:09.700)
But I take a lot of like scenes from everyday life
Susan Cain (1:23:11.700)
because that's what I actually want to remember in the end.
Lex Fridman (1:23:15.700)
Yeah, yeah, I'm the same.
Susan Cain (1:23:18.700)
The same.
Lex Fridman (1:23:19.700)
It's actually concerning because it's bad for productivity
Susan Cain (1:23:23.700)
because I love everyday life so much.
Lex Fridman (1:23:26.700)
Then why do any ambitious big thing?
Susan Cain (1:23:29.700)
Your productivity is pretty good.
Lex Fridman (1:23:31.700)
I don't know that you have to worry about it.
Susan Cain (1:23:33.700)
I do.
Lex Fridman (1:23:34.700)
So I want to launch a business.
Susan Cain (1:23:36.700)
I have a dream outside.
Lex Fridman (1:23:38.700)
This is like a fun side thing that there's been a lifelong passion.
Susan Cain (1:23:45.700)
Anyway, I like building.
Lex Fridman (1:23:47.700)
I like building stuff and I haven't been doing that as much as I would like.
Susan Cain (1:23:50.700)
That's because largely because I like sitting in silence
Lex Fridman (1:23:55.700)
and enjoying the beauty that is just nature and life.
Susan Cain (1:23:59.700)
When there's people, there's people.
Lex Fridman (1:24:01.700)
I love people.
Susan Cain (1:24:02.700)
I love everything.
Lex Fridman (1:24:03.700)
So when you love everything, why go through hell to build a company?
Susan Cain (1:24:08.700)
Yeah, that's a valid question.
Lex Fridman (1:24:11.700)
I mean, I think you have to have a really good reason for wanting to do it.
Lex Fridman (1:24:14.700)
But then your heart calls you for the certain.
Lex Fridman (1:24:16.700)
Sometimes you look out into the mountains and you say,
Susan Cain (1:24:19.700)
for some reason I long to go there even if it means leaving the tribe
Lex Fridman (1:24:23.700)
and putting yourself in danger and doing stupid shit.
Susan Cain (1:24:27.700)
That's the human imperative for exploration.
Lex Fridman (1:24:31.700)
Yeah, absolutely.
Susan Cain (1:24:32.700)
Like when we were talking about this idea of longing being like the source code of humanity,
Lex Fridman (1:24:38.700)
I think that's also the source code of our creativity.
Susan Cain (1:24:42.700)
It's the same longing for Eden.
Lex Fridman (1:24:44.700)
It's like you're always reaching for something that you want to get to
Susan Cain (1:24:48.700)
or that you want to build.
Lex Fridman (1:24:50.700)
It's the best of us.
Lex Fridman (1:24:52.700)
What do you think?
Lex Fridman (1:24:55.700)
You write about creativity and sadness.
Lex Fridman (1:24:59.700)
Practically speaking, how should we leverage sadness for creativity?
Lex Fridman (1:25:05.700)
Is that sort of in the artist domain, in the writer's domain,
Lex Fridman (1:25:09.700)
in the engineering domains and so on?
Lex Fridman (1:25:12.700)
It's definitely in those domains, but it's in all domains.
Susan Cain (1:25:17.700)
We're all going to face pain in this life at some point,
Lex Fridman (1:25:20.700)
and we all have the ability to weather it and withstand it and live with it for a bit
Lex Fridman (1:25:28.700)
and then try to transform it into something that we find beautiful.
Susan Cain (1:25:34.700)
It's very easy to notice the grandeur of the painting hanging on the gallery wall
Susan Cain (1:25:43.700)
or the new company that's just been created, but it takes a thousand different forms.
Lex Fridman (1:25:48.700)
You could bake a cake or in the wake of the pandemic,
Susan Cain (1:25:53.700)
we've had more people applying to medical school and nursing school,
Lex Fridman (1:25:56.700)
and after 9.11, you had people applying for jobs as firefighters and teachers.
Lex Fridman (1:26:02.700)
So there's something in the human spirit that takes pain and turns it into meaning
Lex Fridman (1:26:07.700)
when we're at our best.
Lex Fridman (1:26:09.700)
And when we're not at our best, we deny the pain
Lex Fridman (1:26:12.700)
and then take it out on ourselves and on other people.
Lex Fridman (1:26:15.700)
So there's a kind of fork in the road of what to do with it.
Lex Fridman (1:26:18.700)
But we know, I mean, there's all these studies that I go through in the book.
Susan Cain (1:26:22.700)
There was one where the researchers had people watch different movies,
Lex Fridman (1:26:29.700)
like happy movies, sad movies, bittersweet movies,
Lex Fridman (1:26:32.700)
and they found when people watched Father of the Bride,
Susan Cain (1:26:35.700)
which is like the ultimate bittersweet, you're walking your daughter down the aisle kind of feeling,
Susan Cain (1:26:41.700)
that was, they would give them creativity tasks after watching these different movies,
Lex Fridman (1:26:46.700)
and the people who had been primed for bittersweetness were the most creative.
Susan Cain (1:26:50.700)
They were like primed to remember finality, you know, like love and finality, basically.
Lex Fridman (1:26:55.700)
Love and impermanence.
Susan Cain (1:26:58.700)
There's something about that that gets us to our most beautiful state.
Lex Fridman (1:27:03.700)
I wonder if it is, I mean, there's studies like that, there's a,
Susan Cain (1:27:06.700)
I don't know if you looked into terror management theory.
Lex Fridman (1:27:09.700)
Yeah, that's really interesting stuff.
Lex Fridman (1:27:11.700)
So they, especially intensely, have you focused on not just sad but traumatic, like death,
Lex Fridman (1:27:19.700)
prime you with death and see how that changes your mind.
Susan Cain (1:27:23.700)
Like both, like, I don't know if there's creativity studies,
Lex Fridman (1:27:27.700)
but they have interesting, I think a little bit tainted by political bias, but maybe not.
Susan Cain (1:27:35.700)
Psychology is a complicated field, but they study like who are you likely to vote for,
Lex Fridman (1:27:41.700)
if you're primed by existential, like by thinking about death.
Susan Cain (1:27:45.700)
Like the fear of mortality.
Lex Fridman (1:27:46.700)
Fear of mortality.
Susan Cain (1:27:47.700)
I forget what the conclusions are, but.
Lex Fridman (1:27:49.700)
I think they find that people become more tribalistic.
Susan Cain (1:27:52.700)
Yeah.
Susan Cain (1:27:53.700)
You know, like there was one study where they found that after they primed people that way,
Susan Cain (1:27:58.700)
that they would then give them the chance to put hot sauce on a meal
Lex Fridman (1:28:03.700)
that their political opponents were going to be eating,
Lex Fridman (1:28:05.700)
and they put way too much hot sauce on after they've been primed to worry about death.
Lex Fridman (1:28:11.700)
I think at the core, we're simple creatures.
Lex Fridman (1:28:15.700)
So I actually, like in the book, I spent a bunch of time with people who are working on
Lex Fridman (1:28:21.700)
radical life extension, you know, or the quest to live forever.
Lex Fridman (1:28:25.700)
And people ask them a lot questions like, you know, the kinds of questions you were talking about earlier.
Susan Cain (1:28:30.700)
Like how are you going to feed everybody and how is there going to be space for everybody
Lex Fridman (1:28:33.700)
if everyone really could live forever?
Lex Fridman (1:28:36.700)
And what about conflict?
Lex Fridman (1:28:38.700)
Won't we have an intensified conflict?
Lex Fridman (1:28:40.700)
And their answer to that is they point to terror management theory.
Susan Cain (1:28:45.700)
You know, and they say because it's the fear of death,
Susan Cain (1:28:49.700)
they're basically saying it's the fear of death that are causing our conflicts in the first place.
Lex Fridman (1:28:52.700)
And that if we remove the fear of death, we'd have less conflict to contend with.
Lex Fridman (1:28:58.700)
And that, I don't really buy that.
Susan Cain (1:29:00.700)
It's possible that that's true, but are you also, how does the expression go,
Lex Fridman (1:29:05.700)
throwing out the baby with the bathwater?
Lex Fridman (1:29:07.700)
Are you also going to remove basically any source of meaning and happiness in the human condition?
Susan Cain (1:29:16.700)
Like it's very possible that death is fundamental to the human condition, the finality.
Susan Cain (1:29:22.700)
Yeah, that's the great philosophical question.
Lex Fridman (1:29:25.700)
And I went to a conference of people who are working on this,
Lex Fridman (1:29:29.700)
and I thought that they were going to be talking about those questions all through the conference.
Lex Fridman (1:29:33.700)
But the MO is much more like we're so happy that we're here with people who have gotten past all those quibbles.
Susan Cain (1:29:41.700)
You know, we just know there's going to be meaning no matter what.
Lex Fridman (1:29:44.700)
The basic assumption is let's try to extend life indefinitely,
Lex Fridman (1:29:50.700)
and then we'll figure out if that's a good decision.
Lex Fridman (1:29:53.700)
Or more like we're sure it's a good decision.
Susan Cain (1:29:55.700)
Or at least that was what I felt.
Lex Fridman (1:29:58.700)
It's either we're sure it's a good decision,
Susan Cain (1:30:04.700)
or we're sure that it's good to believe that it's a good decision.
Lex Fridman (1:30:08.700)
Meaning like there's no downside to that, even if we find out it's wrong.
Lex Fridman (1:30:14.700)
But yes, there's a kind of certainty.
Lex Fridman (1:30:16.700)
Obviously you want to extend human life, that's the kind of assumption.
Susan Cain (1:30:19.700)
That always seemed, now it could be true,
Lex Fridman (1:30:25.700)
but just like the people who over focus on colonizing other planets,
Susan Cain (1:30:33.700)
it feels like you neglect the beauty and the struggle of our life here on Earth.
Lex Fridman (1:30:40.700)
I have sort of the same kind of criticism,
Susan Cain (1:30:42.700)
whether it's thinking about Valhalla or any other afterlife,
Lex Fridman (1:30:46.700)
is you can have, if you're not careful, forget to make this life a great one.
Susan Cain (1:30:55.700)
Whatever happens afterwards.
Lex Fridman (1:30:57.700)
So yeah, definitely.
Lex Fridman (1:30:58.700)
But from an engineering, from a biology, from a chemistry perspective,
Lex Fridman (1:31:01.700)
it's very interesting to think how do we extend this thing.
Susan Cain (1:31:05.700)
Because it does seem that nature, the way it designed living organisms,
Lex Fridman (1:31:09.700)
it really wants us to die.
Susan Cain (1:31:12.700)
Because that's part of the selection mechanism.
Lex Fridman (1:31:15.700)
This part seems to be fundamental to evolution.
Susan Cain (1:31:18.700)
It gets people young, they need protection.
Lex Fridman (1:31:23.700)
Once they're a young brain, they get to explore a lot,
Susan Cain (1:31:26.700)
get to figure out the world, they come up with their own novel ideas,
Lex Fridman (1:31:29.700)
how to adapt and how to respond to that world.
Lex Fridman (1:31:33.700)
And then as they get older and older, they get like stubborn and stuck in their ways.
Lex Fridman (1:31:38.700)
So we need them to die so we make room for new life that's able to adapt to the changing environment.
Susan Cain (1:31:46.700)
If the old doesn't die, then you're going to get stale
Lex Fridman (1:31:51.700)
and not be adaptable to the changing environment.
Lex Fridman (1:31:55.700)
But maybe it doesn't have to happen so soon.
Lex Fridman (1:31:57.700)
Yeah, maybe it doesn't.
Susan Cain (1:31:59.700)
Listen, I'm a big fan of pressing snooze on the alarm clock in the same way.
Lex Fridman (1:32:06.700)
I'm one of the people that believe it's, or I don't definitely believe,
Susan Cain (1:32:13.700)
of course, I don't know, but I think death is a fundamental part of life.
Lex Fridman (1:32:22.700)
But yeah, if I'm on my deathbed, I would sure as hell press snooze as many times as possible.
Susan Cain (1:32:27.700)
Yeah, I know.
Lex Fridman (1:32:29.700)
And it's interesting because in some ways I share your instinct.
Susan Cain (1:32:33.700)
There was one scientist who I spoke to at that conference, he's one of the leading advocates,
Lex Fridman (1:32:38.700)
and he said, you know, that's a story that we've invented for ourselves because we have no choice.
Lex Fridman (1:32:45.700)
And if you really believe that you have no choice, then it's adaptive to tell that story,
Lex Fridman (1:32:50.700)
that death gives meaning to life.
Susan Cain (1:32:52.700)
Good point.
Lex Fridman (1:32:53.700)
But if you really think you could triumph over it, would you still be telling that same story?
Lex Fridman (1:32:59.700)
And I've been thinking about that question ever since.
Lex Fridman (1:33:02.700)
Yeah, yeah, no, they got a good point.
Susan Cain (1:33:05.700)
They got a good point.
Susan Cain (1:33:06.700)
No matter what, as an engineer in the scientific pursuits, it's a beautiful one.
Susan Cain (1:33:11.700)
In your own personal life, if we can go there.
Lex Fridman (1:33:14.700)
Sure.
Lex Fridman (1:33:15.700)
What have been some dark places you've gone in your own mind?
Susan Cain (1:33:19.700)
Grief, loss, sad moments, moments of sadness that have made you a better writer,
Lex Fridman (1:33:30.700)
a better creator, a better human being?
Susan Cain (1:33:33.700)
Well, I mean, I've been through a lot of bereavement just in these last couple of years with COVID,
Lex Fridman (1:33:39.700)
but even before that, I mean, there's all kinds of stuff.
Susan Cain (1:33:45.700)
I write about it in the book, and in some ways I feel like I can write about those kinds of things
Susan Cain (1:33:50.700)
better than I can speak them.
Lex Fridman (1:33:52.700)
But I had a really complicated relationship with my mother growing up where we had a kind of Garden of Eden
Susan Cain (1:34:01.700)
during my childhood.
Lex Fridman (1:34:02.700)
We were intensely, intensely close.
Lex Fridman (1:34:05.700)
And my mother, because of some vulnerabilities that she had, reacted with a lot of trouble to my adolescence
Lex Fridman (1:34:20.700)
and to growing independent from her and starting to have different religious views and different political views
Lex Fridman (1:34:27.700)
and all kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (1:34:29.700)
And we had a pretty intense break that I describe in the book, and it was so intense that even though after that
Susan Cain (1:34:41.700)
we still would get together for holidays and talk to each other on the phone and all that,
Lex Fridman (1:34:47.700)
there was a sense in which it was over at that point.
Susan Cain (1:34:51.700)
The relationship was over.
Lex Fridman (1:34:53.700)
The Garden of Eden was no more.
Susan Cain (1:34:55.700)
Yeah, yeah.
Susan Cain (1:34:56.700)
It was like a feeling of like, yeah, I know what Eden was like, and it's not there anymore.
Lex Fridman (1:35:05.700)
And I think it was all the more confusing because if you lose someone to actual bereavement,
Susan Cain (1:35:10.700)
you go through a mourning process, and people have thought for thousands of years about how to do that.
Lex Fridman (1:35:15.700)
But with something like this, there's no process because you're not even admitting to yourself,
Lex Fridman (1:35:20.700)
especially when you're in your teens and 20s, that you're mourning something.
Lex Fridman (1:35:27.700)
But it was the case that for decades, for decades, I could not answer even the simplest question about my mother,
Susan Cain (1:35:34.700)
like where did she grow up, without tears in my eyes, or more than tears in my eyes, like embarrassing tears.
Lex Fridman (1:35:42.700)
So I would just try to steer the subject in another place.
Lex Fridman (1:35:47.700)
But I will say two things happened.
Susan Cain (1:35:50.700)
One is that I've spent the last six, seven years writing this book about joy and sorrow and loss and love and all of it,
Lex Fridman (1:35:59.700)
and I've really come to terms with all of it.
Lex Fridman (1:36:02.700)
And then the second thing that happened is my mother now has Alzheimer's.
Lex Fridman (1:36:07.700)
And in her Alzheimer's, she's still actually the same person, like she's forgotten most things,
Lex Fridman (1:36:15.700)
but she still has these conversational lanes that you can travel down that are like the way she always was.
Lex Fridman (1:36:20.700)
And the way that she was when I was a kid, which was like so incredibly loving and so connected
Lex Fridman (1:36:28.700)
and so warm and sweet and funny and all of it, all the things I remembered, like it's all come back.
Lex Fridman (1:36:35.700)
And for all these decades, I had been wondering whether that Garden of Eden I remembered had actually happened,
Susan Cain (1:36:45.700)
or whether that was just like the fantasy of a child, and maybe it was always difficult and I had not seen it.
Lex Fridman (1:36:52.700)
But I'm seeing her now, and I realize that it was all true, everything I remember, it was all true.
Susan Cain (1:36:59.700)
It all happened, because it's happening again.
Lex Fridman (1:37:04.700)
And you return to the Garden of Eden for a time.
Susan Cain (1:37:08.700)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:37:09.700)
And to childhood. It's always a question of whether you can return to that place.
Susan Cain (1:37:14.700)
Well, I don't know. I don't even know if I'd say I've returned, because I'm a different person now, and I don't need her.
Lex Fridman (1:37:21.700)
Are you sure?
Susan Cain (1:37:22.700)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:37:23.700)
So you're different than the 10 year old? You feel different?
Susan Cain (1:37:29.700)
No, I mean, I'm the same person in terms of my need for love and love of love and all of that, but I don't look,
Susan Cain (1:37:38.700)
I'm not dependent on my mother for it the way I was then, and that makes the experience really different.
Susan Cain (1:37:43.700)
Yeah, when you're younger, she's a god figure.
Lex Fridman (1:37:48.700)
What is that, that the roots, the parents, such a funny civilization will live.
Lex Fridman (1:37:54.700)
And there's a depth of connection to parents that's probably more powerful than anything else in terms of its formative effect on who you are.
Susan Cain (1:38:02.700)
I think it's the most powerful. And in fact, when this started happening, I got to college and I took a class in creative writing,
Lex Fridman (1:38:10.700)
and I tried to write a story, a fictionalized version of what was happening.
Lex Fridman (1:38:15.700)
And I called it The Most Passionate Love, because of what you just said.
Susan Cain (1:38:19.700)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:38:20.700)
And the teacher actually said to me, she was like, you know, you should put this story in a drawer and not take it out again for 30 years because you're way too close to it.
Susan Cain (1:38:28.700)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:38:29.700)
So I've now finally written it 30 years later.
Susan Cain (1:38:36.700)
Yeah, you're probably still too close to it though.
Susan Cain (1:38:40.700)
I don't know, though. I mean, I do think everybody goes through experiences in this life where you're experiencing a fundamental pain of separation and desire for a union.
Lex Fridman (1:38:53.700)
And it takes so many different forms. And this was my primal form of it.
Lex Fridman (1:38:58.700)
But for someone else, it's a betrayal or a bereavement or an exile from a country of their birth or whatever it is.
Lex Fridman (1:39:07.700)
And then you get to solve that puzzle for the rest of your life.
Susan Cain (1:39:11.700)
Yeah, the fact of like, I really do believe that the original love that we long for, like that one of the great things that you learn as you grow older is that the love exists in some plane that's more general than the particularized form in which you first knew it.
Susan Cain (1:39:29.700)
Yeah, I mean, that's why, despite all the creepy interpretations, even though Sigmund Freud is probably wrong in the details, he was the first one to sort of suggest that our experiences...
Susan Cain (1:39:42.700)
I mean, he said that that was really controversial at the time when young people, they start having sexual thoughts like at age two or something, whatever the hell he said.
Lex Fridman (1:39:53.700)
So you develop this kind of connection to the opposite sex or whatever, to your mother, to your parents.
Lex Fridman (1:40:00.700)
And I think while a lot of that is shown to be probably not true, what is like a deeper truth there is your first early experiences of love or depth of connection are probably somehow strongly formative of your conception of love and your definition of the perfect thing you're reaching for for the rest of your life.
Susan Cain (1:40:22.700)
Yeah, I think that's right. And you can really see it when you become a parent, too. You know, you can just see like, there's...
Lex Fridman (1:40:29.700)
Don't screw it up.
Susan Cain (1:40:31.700)
You know, I have to say, like, I mean, knock on wood, I actually feel like, like, we're doing pretty well. Like, my kids are teenagers now. And I really had thought that I wasn't going to repeat the issues that I had been through with my mom. And I can say, I really am not.
Susan Cain (1:40:49.700)
Yeah, like, my mom, for various reasons, just had a lot of trouble with my independence. And I just don't feel that at all. So...
Susan Cain (1:40:58.700)
Yeah, there might be other things you're totally blind to.
Lex Fridman (1:41:03.700)
I guess that's possible.
Susan Cain (1:41:04.700)
Isn't that the way of parenting? You solve the problems of the past.
Lex Fridman (1:41:08.700)
But there's some other new one. I guess I'll find out in 10 or 20 years. But like, so far, so good.
Lex Fridman (1:41:14.700)
What wisdom about parenting can you give from your own experience and from your writing?
Susan Cain (1:41:20.700)
Yeah, well, oh my god, there's a lot to say. So, on the bittersweet side of things, the wisdom that I would give is that, especially for kids who are growing up in relative comfort with everything going pretty well, they get the idea that real life is when things are going well.
Lex Fridman (1:41:47.700)
And when things don't go well, it's like a detour from the main road, as opposed to understanding that it's all the main road.
Lex Fridman (1:41:55.700)
And I tell this story in the book of this time that we went on this family vacation where we rented a house in the countryside.
Lex Fridman (1:42:03.700)
And the house was next to this field where lived two donkeys that our kids fell in love with.
Susan Cain (1:42:10.700)
They were like really little at the time, two boys. And they're spending all this time feeding carrots to the donkeys and it's all beautiful.
Lex Fridman (1:42:18.700)
And then comes the day where they realize that we're leaving in like two days and they're never going to see these donkeys again.
Lex Fridman (1:42:24.700)
And they start crying themselves to sleep. And the usual things that parents might say at a moment like that of like, you know, maybe we'll come back or another family will feed them, will feed these donkeys.
Susan Cain (1:42:36.700)
None of that made any difference. But when we said to them, you know, goodbye is part of life and this feeling you're having, everybody has it.
Susan Cain (1:42:48.700)
You've had it before. You're going to have it again. You'll feel better in a couple of days. But this is the way it's supposed to be. This is natural.
Susan Cain (1:42:57.700)
That's when they stopped crying because I think that's when they stopped resisting.
Susan Cain (1:43:03.700)
Like it's one thing to feel the pain of goodbye and it's another thing to be feeling like this isn't supposed to be happening.
Susan Cain (1:43:10.700)
It's the resistance part of this isn't supposed to be happening that makes life really difficult as opposed to a more clear eyed view of what it really is.
Susan Cain (1:43:19.700)
This is indeed supposed to be happening. There's a show called Yellowstone that I recently started watching.
Susan Cain (1:43:24.700)
Yeah, no, I've heard of it. We actually started watching it, but only a few minutes and didn't get into it.
Lex Fridman (1:43:29.700)
So there's just a quick, it's not a spoiler of any kind, but there's a father taking out the son for the first time to go hunting and to shoot their first buck.
Lex Fridman (1:43:39.700)
And the son is getting really sad because he pulls the trigger and he took a life.
Lex Fridman (1:43:45.700)
And the father says that everybody gets killed in this life. That's the way of nature. That's the way each one of us is going to get killed.
Lex Fridman (1:43:56.700)
And it's interesting because I didn't really think of it that way because you think you die, but he really framed it as killed because he's like, there's no such thing as dying of old age.
Susan Cain (1:44:11.700)
Let's medically, let's discuss that a bit, but basically there's something, whether it's a truck or a bacteria, something's going to kill you in the end.
Lex Fridman (1:44:25.700)
And that was an interesting way to look at it because we tend to think of humans aren't supposed to be killed.
Susan Cain (1:44:33.700)
We think of murder as one of the sins, sort of one of the things that you don't do in society.
Lex Fridman (1:44:38.700)
But you know what? We do, that's a more technical discussion, whether we ultimately get killed by something in the end.
Lex Fridman (1:44:45.700)
But to some degree that's true, at least for most of us, that there's something that gets us, whether it's cancer, those kinds of things. It's interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:44:53.700)
But yeah, it's that reframing of it's not, it's supposed to be, this is the way of the world.
Susan Cain (1:44:59.700)
Yeah. So it's funny. I mean, you know, at the same time that I just wrote a whole book about the fact that this is the way it is, like I really do believe this is the way it is.
Lex Fridman (1:45:07.700)
And with this reality, there's an intense beauty that comes along with it.
Lex Fridman (1:45:12.700)
So we have to accept the reality to get to the beauty. I believe that.
Lex Fridman (1:45:16.700)
And at the same time, there's a part of me that's just like, yeah, but give me the magic wand to make the world different.
Lex Fridman (1:45:23.700)
Yeah. Yeah.
Susan Cain (1:45:26.700)
I don't know. I don't know how much of this is a female thing, too.
Susan Cain (1:45:29.700)
Like I was watching with my son, my 12 year old the other day, we were watching this show about the battle of Thermopylae.
Lex Fridman (1:45:37.700)
And it was like all about, you know, valor and glory on the battlefield.
Lex Fridman (1:45:42.700)
And I said to him something like, gosh, don't you just wish we lived in a world where you didn't have to do all this in order for everyone just to live their lives?
Lex Fridman (1:45:54.700)
And he just looked at me completely puzzled.
Susan Cain (1:45:57.700)
Like, no, you know, like to him, it all just seemed self evident that the world would be structured that way.
Susan Cain (1:46:03.700)
You know, and he had like the 12 year old admiration for the valor of it all.
Lex Fridman (1:46:09.700)
But you wonder if that's nature or nurture.
Susan Cain (1:46:16.700)
I wonder what that world looks like.
Susan Cain (1:46:20.700)
We do live in a world where murder is seen as bad, but you look at a lot of the human history.
Susan Cain (1:46:26.700)
I don't know if they had the same kind of conception of that.
Susan Cain (1:46:30.700)
In terms of, you have to ask what kind of murder, you know, for what purpose, you know, war was a way of life.
Susan Cain (1:46:41.700)
It's interesting.
Susan Cain (1:46:42.700)
It's interesting if we can imagine properly a future that is different than ours in terms of operating under different moral systems.
Susan Cain (1:46:53.700)
I'd like the same with living indefinitely or living in a society with no war.
Lex Fridman (1:47:01.700)
Like how fundamental is war?
Lex Fridman (1:47:03.700)
How fundamental is death?
Lex Fridman (1:47:05.700)
I mean, I think it's so fundamental to our source code.
Susan Cain (1:47:08.700)
I just wish that our source code were different, basically.
Lex Fridman (1:47:11.700)
Like I can't get past that wish.
Susan Cain (1:47:14.700)
There's brain computer interfaces that try to merge.
Susan Cain (1:47:18.700)
We have smartphones, we're already kind of cyborgs, but greater and greater merger of computational power.
Lex Fridman (1:47:26.700)
So literally adding source code to our original source code.
Susan Cain (1:47:30.700)
There's the mushy biology that runs source code, and then there's more cold electrical systems, and then they integrate together.
Lex Fridman (1:47:41.700)
And eventually, one day we offload the magic that is human consciousness also into the machine, and then we'll get to see.
Lex Fridman (1:47:51.700)
Maybe they'll be a little bit less assholish about the whole war thing.
Susan Cain (1:47:55.700)
That'd be more.
Lex Fridman (1:47:57.700)
But there is, I think, even when I think about engineering human intelligence or superhuman intelligence systems, I feel like they also need to have the yin and yang of life.
Susan Cain (1:48:09.700)
They have to be able to be afraid and to be sad and all those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (1:48:14.700)
But maybe it's because I'm a product in this particular environment.
Susan Cain (1:48:19.700)
Maybe sadness is a useful human invention, but not a universal one.
Susan Cain (1:48:25.700)
This is what I don't know, because this is where I come back to, as I told you, the original reason that I wrote my whole book was the feeling that somehow in the expression of sad music is what other people see when they talk about God.
Susan Cain (1:48:40.700)
Like there's something so, there's like an ultimate beauty there that I don't know if we have access to without that.
Lex Fridman (1:48:48.700)
But maybe we do.
Lex Fridman (1:48:50.700)
But I can say in this world, that's a great way to get access to that state.
Lex Fridman (1:48:54.700)
Is it within the reach of science to deeply understand this, you think?
Lex Fridman (1:48:58.700)
To understand why you feel sad when you're listening to a song?
Lex Fridman (1:49:01.700)
Or why you feel so much love when you're listening to a sad song.
Susan Cain (1:49:04.700)
To a sad song, right.
Lex Fridman (1:49:06.700)
Why the sad song opens up some kind of deep connection to something you can call divine or something, whatever the heck that is.
Susan Cain (1:49:16.700)
Yeah, I do think.
Susan Cain (1:49:18.700)
I mean, we have like really early signs of it from the research, and I'm sure we're just at the scratching the surface stage.
Lex Fridman (1:49:26.700)
But I mean, like we know, for example, that the vagus nerve, which is so fundamental that it governs our breathing and our digestion,
Lex Fridman (1:49:35.700)
our vagus nerve also activates when we see another being in distress.
Susan Cain (1:49:40.700)
There's like an instinctive impulse to want to make it stop.
Lex Fridman (1:49:45.700)
And the theory is that that's an evolutionary design because we had to be able to respond to the cries of our infants.
Susan Cain (1:49:53.700)
You know, and from that ability grows the greater ability to respond to other people's cries too.
Lex Fridman (1:49:59.700)
So that's probably just, you know, like the very first step in being able to understand what all that is.
Lex Fridman (1:50:08.700)
You've already given plenty of advice, but broadly, what advice would you give to young folks today about career, about life?
Susan Cain (1:50:17.700)
Whether they want to be writers, lawyers, scientists, musicians and artists, whatever the heck they want to be.
Lex Fridman (1:50:24.700)
How can they live a life they can be proud of?
Lex Fridman (1:50:27.700)
Okay, here's what I think.
Susan Cain (1:50:32.700)
You should absolutely do that thing that you're dying to do, but you should always have a plan B,
Lex Fridman (1:50:42.700)
like a backup plan and a way of earning a living no matter what happens.
Susan Cain (1:50:47.700)
Because I feel like people, we have this narrative in our culture of like the glamorous thing is to figure out the thing you love and then risk everything to achieve that.
Lex Fridman (1:51:01.700)
But first of all, a lot of people aren't comfortable with that level of risk.
Lex Fridman (1:51:05.700)
And second, when you're living with that level of risk, that's a cognitive load too.
Lex Fridman (1:51:10.700)
And so you don't have the full emotion and heart to be able to focus on the thing that you actually really love because you're like stressed out about it.
Lex Fridman (1:51:18.700)
So I'd say like, get the backup plan in place and then do the thing.
Lex Fridman (1:51:23.700)
My advice would be the opposite.
Susan Cain (1:51:25.700)
Okay, tell me why.
Susan Cain (1:51:27.700)
Well, I think the best, the truth is be aware of the cost not having a plan B has.
Lex Fridman (1:51:37.700)
So do it deliberately if you don't.
Lex Fridman (1:51:39.700)
But I'm with Bukowski on find what you love and let it kill you.
Susan Cain (1:51:44.700)
I think you have to actually know your personality.
Susan Cain (1:51:47.700)
I know if I have a plan B, I will not try as hard on plan A and I would likely take plan B.
Susan Cain (1:51:56.700)
Because if plan A is the risky thing, I just work much better when in the state of desperation.
Lex Fridman (1:52:04.700)
So with my back against the wall and you have to know that about yourself, I think that has to do with...
Lex Fridman (1:52:08.700)
So I think we can refine it to say you actually have to really know yourself and how you respond to different kinds of risk.
Lex Fridman (1:52:14.700)
Like I would not do well in that kind of situation.
Susan Cain (1:52:17.700)
I'd be like up at two in the morning worrying about it.
Susan Cain (1:52:20.700)
Whereas if I have some, like it doesn't have to be paying the rent in some grand way, but if there's some basic way of paying the rent, then my heart's free to do the thing I really love.
Susan Cain (1:52:31.700)
That's hilarious.
Susan Cain (1:52:32.700)
For me, the only way I'm free is when I don't know how I'm going to pay the rent.
Susan Cain (1:52:39.700)
Huh.
Susan Cain (1:52:40.700)
Yeah, because otherwise I'll find a way to pay the rent that's not at all a source of deep fulfillment for me.
Susan Cain (1:52:49.700)
I see.
Lex Fridman (1:52:50.700)
So it's like if you don't have like the, what's the expression?
Susan Cain (1:52:53.700)
I don't know, something like the dog at your back.
Lex Fridman (1:52:55.700)
Yeah, deadlines.
Susan Cain (1:52:56.700)
Then you won't actually do it.
Lex Fridman (1:52:57.700)
I create real or artificial deadlines, anxiety and so on.
Lex Fridman (1:53:01.700)
So yeah, you have to know yourself.
Lex Fridman (1:53:04.700)
Yeah, so really the advice is know your triggers.
Lex Fridman (1:53:06.700)
But we're still saying the same basic thing of like do the thing you really love, but just set up the rest of your life.
Lex Fridman (1:53:14.700)
Strategize appropriately to your personality and triggers.
Susan Cain (1:53:16.700)
Exactly, exactly.
Lex Fridman (1:53:18.700)
What do you think is the meaning of life?
Susan Cain (1:53:21.700)
The meaning of this whole thing probably has something to do with whatever we feel when we listen to a sad song.
Susan Cain (1:53:30.700)
Yeah, because two things come simultaneously to my mind when you ask that question, and I've been asking it since I was four.
Susan Cain (1:53:39.700)
I remember the first time I did.
Lex Fridman (1:53:42.700)
The question is more important than the answer probably.
Susan Cain (1:53:44.700)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:53:45.700)
Just keep asking.
Susan Cain (1:53:46.700)
I don't know, the first one is beauty and I don't know why beauty is so important, but I just know that it is.
Lex Fridman (1:53:51.700)
And impossible to define perhaps.
Lex Fridman (1:53:54.700)
Is it definable?
Lex Fridman (1:53:55.700)
Yeah.
Susan Cain (1:53:57.700)
Other than you know it when you see it.
Lex Fridman (1:53:59.700)
I don't know, I mean just.
Susan Cain (1:54:02.700)
It has to do with that line that you feel something when you just see it or you hear it.
Susan Cain (1:54:08.700)
Yeah, you just see it and it's like whatever can deliver you to that mode of transcendence where you're no longer purely in your own self and you're in something higher.
Lex Fridman (1:54:22.700)
And when you're in those states of mind, you know it because you have the temporary sensation that you could die at that moment, that the people you love could die and it will all be okay because there's something else.
Lex Fridman (1:54:39.700)
So that's my first answer.
Lex Fridman (1:54:41.700)
And then my second answer is the need to relieve psychic pain, like other people's psychic pain.
Lex Fridman (1:54:48.700)
I don't know why that's just like an impulse that I have.
Susan Cain (1:54:51.700)
Psychic pain is more like suffering of any form.
Lex Fridman (1:54:55.700)
Yeah, but I mean.
Susan Cain (1:54:58.700)
Is there a particular.
Susan Cain (1:54:59.700)
Yeah, just making the world better and less pain, less pain to go around in general.
Susan Cain (1:55:09.700)
Hence your sort of optimistic desire and longing for a world without sort of destruction, without malevolent destruction.
Lex Fridman (1:55:19.700)
A world where that wouldn't be necessary.
Susan Cain (1:55:21.700)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Lex Fridman (1:55:23.700)
But yeah, like I so I had this moment.
Lex Fridman (1:55:27.700)
It wasn't so long ago I was doing some interview and somebody asked me, like, what are you longing for right now?
Lex Fridman (1:55:33.700)
And my answer at that moment was like, you know what?
Susan Cain (1:55:37.700)
I'm actually at this moment in life where I'm not longing for anything.
Lex Fridman (1:55:41.700)
I'm at this particular way station where everything is the way I want it to be.
Lex Fridman (1:55:46.700)
And of course, the minute you say something like that, you know, you're going to be proven wrong.
Susan Cain (1:55:52.700)
Because like an hour later, I get a letter from a reader who I've been in touch with over the years.
Lex Fridman (1:55:58.700)
And he was telling me about like a psychic struggle that he's going through.
Lex Fridman (1:56:03.700)
And I just felt like, oh, my gosh, if there were anything I could do to make it that his life wouldn't have been such that he would be in this position in the first place.
Lex Fridman (1:56:13.700)
And the struggles had to do with a long life history.
Lex Fridman (1:56:18.700)
So I don't know why I feel that so intensely, but I do.
Susan Cain (1:56:21.700)
It's funny, those moments when you're just at peace, there's nothing else you want.
Lex Fridman (1:56:26.700)
You feel like that's like a temporary repose, like a pause.
Susan Cain (1:56:30.700)
Exactly.
Susan Cain (1:56:32.700)
You bet your ass a desire follows that at some point, but you get to enjoy those little moments.
Susan Cain (1:56:39.700)
Yeah, and even when he asked me and I answered that way, I said, this is a way station.
Susan Cain (1:56:43.700)
Like I knew it was temporary, but I didn't realize it would be disrupted like an hour later.
Lex Fridman (1:56:49.700)
And sort of to give you pushback to your statement about the possibility of beauty and basically alleviating suffering,
Susan Cain (1:57:02.700)
there's a quote I really like from Hunter S. Thompson that pushes back against that,
Susan Cain (1:57:06.700)
which is for every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.
Lex Fridman (1:57:14.700)
But that's a very Hunter S. Thompson, and you know how he ended up.
Susan Cain (1:57:19.700)
He's not the greatest philosopher of all times, but he's certainly a beautiful, a chaotic human being.
Lex Fridman (1:57:26.700)
Well, that's true.
Lex Fridman (1:57:27.700)
And I will tell you that my nickname for my husband is Gonzo, kind of because of him.
Susan Cain (1:57:32.700)
He invented that form of Gonzo journalism where the writer is totally in the story.
Lex Fridman (1:57:39.700)
And my husband, that's his personality.
Lex Fridman (1:57:41.700)
He's in everything that he does.
Susan Cain (1:57:43.700)
He's really in it.
Lex Fridman (1:57:44.700)
He's really present.
Susan Cain (1:57:45.700)
He just lives that way.
Lex Fridman (1:57:47.700)
So his name is Ken, but I call him Gonzo like 90% of the time.
Susan Cain (1:57:52.700)
Well, then that's a beautiful way to end the season.
Lex Fridman (1:57:55.700)
Thank you for your work.
Susan Cain (1:57:56.700)
Thank you for being who you are.
Susan Cain (1:57:58.700)
Thank you for initially at least making me feel okay about being an introvert and educating
Lex Fridman (1:58:03.700)
and making the rest of us feel great about being introverts.
Lex Fridman (1:58:06.700)
It's like half the world or whatever the heck it is.
Susan Cain (1:58:08.700)
It's a lot of people.
Lex Fridman (1:58:11.700)
Thank you for being you.
Susan Cain (1:58:13.700)
Thank you for talking today.
Lex Fridman (1:58:14.700)
It was just awesome.
Susan Cain (1:58:15.700)
This was fun.
Lex Fridman (1:58:16.700)
Thank you so much.
Susan Cain (1:58:17.700)
It was so great to talk to you.
Lex Fridman (1:58:18.700)
And I think it was the, what I said to you when we first got connected is thank you for your way of being in the world.
Susan Cain (1:58:23.700)
I really, really love it.
Lex Fridman (1:58:26.700)
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Susan Cain.
Susan Cain (1:58:29.700)
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
Lex Fridman (1:58:33.700)
And now let me leave you with some words from Susan Cain herself.
Susan Cain (1:58:37.700)
The highly sensitive introvert tends to be philosophical or spiritual in their orientation,
Lex Fridman (1:58:44.700)
rather than materialistic or hedonistic.
Susan Cain (1:58:48.700)
They dislike small talk.
Lex Fridman (1:58:50.700)
They often describe themselves as creative or intuitive.
Susan Cain (1:58:54.700)
They dream vividly and can often recall their dreams the next day.
Lex Fridman (1:58:58.700)
They love music, nature, art, and physical beauty.
Susan Cain (1:59:03.700)
They feel exceptionally strong emotions, sometimes acute bouts of joy, but also sorrow, melancholy, and fear.
Susan Cain (1:59:12.700)
Highly sensitive people also process information about their environments, both physical and emotional, unusually deeply.
Susan Cain (1:59:20.700)
They tend to notice subtleties that others miss.
Lex Fridman (1:59:23.700)
One other person's shifted mood, or a light bulb burning a touch too brightly.
Susan Cain (1:59:30.700)
Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
Lex Fridman (20:02.440)
And in normal life, you have to like wade through a lot
Susan Cain (20:05.160)
before you know if people are ready to go there.
Lex Fridman (20:08.600)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (20:09.440)
Do you have that experience too?
Lex Fridman (20:10.280)
No, definitely, definitely,
Susan Cain (20:11.520)
with people that know me for sure.
Lex Fridman (20:13.520)
But you forget how many people feel like they know you
Susan Cain (20:16.200)
because of your podcasts.
Lex Fridman (20:17.480)
Oh, that's what, no, that counts.
Susan Cain (20:18.960)
Because I'm a huge fan of podcasts,
Lex Fridman (20:21.080)
and I feel like before I ever became friends
Susan Cain (20:24.640)
with Joe Rogan, I felt like I was friends with him,
Lex Fridman (20:27.800)
because I was a fan of his podcast.
Lex Fridman (20:30.160)
So like it was, I feel like it's a friendship.
Lex Fridman (20:33.160)
I know it's a one way friendship
Susan Cain (20:34.600)
with all the people I listen to in podcasts,
Lex Fridman (20:37.080)
and even people who are no longer with us, like writers.
Susan Cain (20:40.960)
I feel like I have a relationship with them.
Lex Fridman (20:42.360)
Maybe I'm insane.
Susan Cain (20:43.320)
No, I totally feel that way.
Lex Fridman (20:45.080)
That's the whole reason I became a writer.
Susan Cain (20:46.760)
Like I'm friends with Leonard Cohen.
Lex Fridman (20:48.400)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (20:50.760)
And he's not aware of it.
Lex Fridman (20:53.040)
No, but I think that's the whole reason
Susan Cain (20:56.400)
for writing or making music or whatever people do.
Lex Fridman (20:59.760)
It's to be able to have those kinds of connections
Susan Cain (21:02.880)
that don't require having to be in a room together,
Lex Fridman (21:06.120)
because there's only so many people
Susan Cain (21:07.560)
you can be in a room with in your lifetime.
Lex Fridman (21:10.760)
The hard thing is, unfortunately,
Susan Cain (21:15.040)
because I value human connection so much,
Lex Fridman (21:19.600)
and I only have, just like you mentioned,
Susan Cain (21:21.960)
sort of a small circle of people
Lex Fridman (21:23.840)
I'm really close with by design.
Susan Cain (21:26.520)
It always hurts me a lot to say goodbye to people.
Lex Fridman (21:30.280)
Like you meet people,
Lex Fridman (21:31.280)
and you can tell they're beautiful people.
Lex Fridman (21:32.720)
They're amazing.
Susan Cain (21:33.560)
There's something so fascinating about them.
Lex Fridman (21:35.480)
They're, they've had a complicated life.
Susan Cain (21:40.160)
Like you could see in their eyes
Lex Fridman (21:41.500)
in the way they tell their story in just a few sentences.
Susan Cain (21:44.760)
They've gone through some shit,
Lex Fridman (21:45.920)
but they've also found some elements of beauty,
Lex Fridman (21:49.040)
and then you get to realize,
Lex Fridman (21:50.760)
okay, well, there's a fascinating human here,
Lex Fridman (21:52.960)
and all you get to say is a few words here and there.
Lex Fridman (21:55.440)
Like a funny little joke,
Susan Cain (21:58.640)
maybe a dark joke here and there,
Lex Fridman (22:00.160)
and then you just say goodbye, maybe hug it out,
Lex Fridman (22:03.200)
and you go on your way.
Lex Fridman (22:04.360)
So like that's a hello and a goodbye,
Lex Fridman (22:06.120)
and your paths will never cross again.
Lex Fridman (22:08.040)
That makes me like a sad walk, walk away.
Lex Fridman (22:13.000)
But I guess I wouldn't have it any other way,
Lex Fridman (22:14.840)
I suppose, is the reality is.
Susan Cain (22:16.760)
In your book, you talk about that sorrow,
Lex Fridman (22:20.520)
that sadness not being such a bad thing.
Susan Cain (22:22.960)
Yeah, and when you just said that,
Lex Fridman (22:26.000)
I just thought of this one moment in my life
Susan Cain (22:29.040)
that I haven't thought of for 20, 30 years or something,
Lex Fridman (22:32.560)
but it was when I was in law school,
Lex Fridman (22:34.120)
and a classmate of mine had his friend
Lex Fridman (22:38.280)
come to visit for the weekend,
Lex Fridman (22:39.580)
and the three of us hung out a lot,
Lex Fridman (22:41.000)
and we just had an amazing time.
Lex Fridman (22:44.440)
And then this other guy who wasn't gonna be coming back
Lex Fridman (22:47.680)
anytime soon, if at all, sent a postcard to me.
Lex Fridman (22:52.000)
And the only thing written on the postcard
Lex Fridman (22:54.080)
was this quote from Oscar Wilde.
Lex Fridman (22:55.840)
And I don't remember the exact words,
Lex Fridman (22:57.160)
but it basically said that there's no pain as intense
Susan Cain (23:00.320)
as the sorrow of parting from someone
Lex Fridman (23:03.600)
to whom you've just been introduced.
Susan Cain (23:05.920)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (23:06.880)
And there was something so intense about that, and so true.
Susan Cain (23:10.680)
I think partly also because when you've just been introduced
Lex Fridman (23:13.040)
to somebody, you don't yet know their difficulties.
Lex Fridman (23:18.400)
So you're seeing the most sparkling version of them.
Lex Fridman (23:22.200)
You're seeing a platonic version of love and friendship.
Lex Fridman (23:26.560)
And your imagination fills in the rest
Lex Fridman (23:28.400)
in some beautiful way that matches perfectly
Susan Cain (23:31.040)
the kind of thing you're interested in.
Lex Fridman (23:33.000)
That's how I feel about one spoonful of ice cream,
Lex Fridman (23:37.000)
and that's why you always finish the whole tub,
Lex Fridman (23:39.880)
and then you regret all of it.
Lex Fridman (23:42.400)
You do cite, where did you write this?
Lex Fridman (23:45.400)
I think this is on your website,
Susan Cain (23:47.000)
that one of the best things in the world
Lex Fridman (23:48.560)
is that sublime moment when a writer, artist, or musician
Susan Cain (23:52.160)
manages to express something you've always felt,
Lex Fridman (23:54.960)
but never articulated, or at least never quite so beautifully.
Lex Fridman (23:58.480)
So that's the Oscar Wilde line is one line like that,
Lex Fridman (24:01.320)
but just a line from a song or maybe a piece of art
Susan Cain (24:06.760)
that just grabs you.
Lex Fridman (24:07.600)
Is there something that jumps out into memory
Lex Fridman (24:09.960)
like that for you?
Lex Fridman (24:11.840)
I don't know if I have an exact line, though.
Susan Cain (24:14.040)
I mean, that feeling that you just quoted
Lex Fridman (24:16.000)
happens to me all the time.
Susan Cain (24:17.480)
I'm just bad at recalling exact instances, but.
Lex Fridman (24:19.960)
Yeah, me too, on the spot.
Lex Fridman (24:22.760)
But the writer Alain de Botton
Lex Fridman (24:25.040)
regularly makes me feel that way.
Susan Cain (24:27.520)
He's just this beautiful essayist
Lex Fridman (24:29.980)
and observer of human nature,
Lex Fridman (24:31.920)
and he's just constantly expressing things
Lex Fridman (24:34.160)
in this gorgeous way that you've experienced yourself.
Lex Fridman (24:37.600)
And you feel like, I don't know,
Lex Fridman (24:39.720)
it's just this grand act of generosity.
Susan Cain (24:41.840)
You feel less lonely.
Lex Fridman (24:43.120)
You feel this deep sense of communion.
Susan Cain (24:45.600)
It's such an elevating experience.
Lex Fridman (24:47.320)
Even when it's like a melancholy line.
Susan Cain (24:50.520)
Maybe especially when it is.
Lex Fridman (24:52.280)
Yeah, what is that?
Lex Fridman (24:56.880)
So the Jack Kerouac on the road
Lex Fridman (24:59.240)
definitely makes me feel that way,
Susan Cain (25:01.200)
like every other line in there, forlorn rags of growing old.
Lex Fridman (25:05.760)
Do you know, I never read that book.
Lex Fridman (25:06.900)
So what was it about that book
Lex Fridman (25:09.120)
that made you feel that way?
Susan Cain (25:11.040)
Well, okay, well, since you asked.
Lex Fridman (25:13.440)
I do, I do. I'm going to linger.
Susan Cain (25:14.440)
I'm going to linger on this.
Lex Fridman (25:17.560)
So this story is kind of the book,
Susan Cain (25:21.320)
the kind of defining book of the Beats,
Lex Fridman (25:24.920)
of the Beats generation.
Lex Fridman (25:26.400)
And it's basically a story of a writer
Lex Fridman (25:29.440)
who takes a road trip across the United States
Susan Cain (25:32.840)
a couple of times and experiences a few close friends
Lex Fridman (25:37.060)
and a few strangers along the way.
Lex Fridman (25:39.220)
And there's a lot of just those melancholy goodbyes
Lex Fridman (25:42.080)
along the way.
Susan Cain (25:43.240)
You meet all these people with interesting lives.
Lex Fridman (25:46.120)
Some of them are defined by struggle.
Susan Cain (25:47.640)
Some of them are defined by drugs, drinking, women,
Lex Fridman (25:50.720)
all that kind of stuff.
Lex Fridman (25:52.120)
And still he just kind of dances around all of that
Lex Fridman (25:55.160)
and is defined by the goodbyes and the passing of time.
Lex Fridman (25:58.960)
So a lot of the really powerful lines are basically like,
Lex Fridman (26:03.440)
there's one on there, again, I don't remember exactly,
Lex Fridman (26:05.600)
but he meets a beautiful girl at a rest stop.
Lex Fridman (26:10.960)
And the girl is getting,
Susan Cain (26:14.680)
or a woman is getting on a different bus
Lex Fridman (26:17.160)
than he's getting on.
Lex Fridman (26:18.520)
And it's that feeling of falling in love for a second
Lex Fridman (26:23.520)
and realizing that fate is just ripping that out,
Susan Cain (26:28.520)
which is similar to this idea of it sucks to say goodbye
Lex Fridman (26:33.520)
just when you met, but it's especially true
Susan Cain (26:35.200)
when you fall in love just a little bit with that stranger
Lex Fridman (26:37.600)
with all the possibilities that could lay there.
Lex Fridman (26:41.600)
So there's a few lines of written down.
Lex Fridman (26:45.800)
I went down this whole rabbit hole of thinking,
Lex Fridman (26:47.560)
what are the lines that grabbed me?
Lex Fridman (26:49.840)
A couple of lines from on the road trip.
Susan Cain (26:51.960)
A couple of lines from on the road.
Lex Fridman (26:53.760)
So one is, what is that feeling
Susan Cain (26:56.120)
when you're driving away from people
Lex Fridman (26:58.200)
and they recede on the plane
Lex Fridman (26:59.560)
till you see their specks dispersing?
Lex Fridman (27:01.920)
It's the two huge world vaulting us and it's goodbye,
Lex Fridman (27:05.240)
but we lean forward to the next crazy venture
Lex Fridman (27:07.440)
beneath the skies.
Lex Fridman (27:08.600)
So this is him talking about leaving a particular city.
Lex Fridman (27:11.560)
The spoiler alert towards the end of the book,
Susan Cain (27:14.680)
rather the end of the book line I return to often,
Lex Fridman (27:18.120)
it's more poetry, but it's a feeling
Susan Cain (27:21.480)
that captures the book I would say.
Lex Fridman (27:25.120)
The evening star must be drooping
Lex Fridman (27:27.360)
and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie,
Lex Fridman (27:30.640)
which is just before the coming of complete night
Susan Cain (27:32.760)
that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers,
Lex Fridman (27:36.040)
cups the peaks and folds the final shore in.
Lex Fridman (27:38.840)
And nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody
Lex Fridman (27:42.640)
besides the forlorn rags of growing old.
Lex Fridman (27:45.200)
And it just captures this kind of
Lex Fridman (27:49.640)
in the moment appreciation of the beauty of the world
Lex Fridman (27:53.720)
and a sadness over the fact that time passes
Lex Fridman (27:56.640)
and you leave the people you love behind,
Susan Cain (27:58.560)
you leave the places you love behind,
Lex Fridman (28:01.480)
or at least the way they were
Susan Cain (28:03.320)
at the time that you really enjoyed them.
Lex Fridman (28:04.800)
And you just leave that, all that,
Susan Cain (28:06.520)
just the sadness you feel when you,
Lex Fridman (28:08.600)
something about it, like looking at a picture,
Susan Cain (28:10.960)
looking at your kids grow up,
Lex Fridman (28:12.760)
looking at old friends getting old,
Susan Cain (28:15.120)
something makes you realize that time passes.
Lex Fridman (28:18.440)
And somewhere deep in there
Susan Cain (28:19.840)
is probably a realization of your mortality.
Lex Fridman (28:22.160)
And then it just makes you somehow first sad
Susan Cain (28:25.160)
that everything comes to an end.
Lex Fridman (28:28.480)
And then that's immediately followed
Susan Cain (28:33.280)
by sort of an appreciation of the moment,
Lex Fridman (28:35.120)
like a gratitude that you get to experience this moment.
Susan Cain (28:37.760)
Yeah, I know it exactly.
Lex Fridman (28:39.120)
I mean, that's the whole reason that I wrote Bitter Sweet.
Susan Cain (28:42.400)
It's all about that.
Lex Fridman (28:43.360)
And so I know intensely what you're talking about.
Lex Fridman (28:46.760)
And by the way, my husband loves the book
Lex Fridman (28:49.040)
A Movable Feast by Ernest Hemingway,
Susan Cain (28:51.000)
which I also haven't read,
Lex Fridman (28:52.120)
but it talks about that same thing,
Susan Cain (28:54.120)
groups of people traveling around together
Lex Fridman (28:56.600)
and the group coalesces into some magical formation.
Lex Fridman (29:00.280)
And then one person leaves the group
Lex Fridman (29:01.760)
and it's never gonna be the same again.
Lex Fridman (29:03.800)
And then they move on to the next one.
Lex Fridman (29:06.240)
Yeah, I mean, I think that's the deepest essence
Susan Cain (29:09.840)
of human nature, the feeling of longing
Lex Fridman (29:15.840)
for some kind of state of perfect completeness, completion,
Susan Cain (29:20.360)
perfect love, the Garden of Eden, all of it.
Lex Fridman (29:23.920)
And the feeling that you're never gonna quite attain it,
Lex Fridman (29:28.000)
but you get glimpses of it here and there.
Lex Fridman (29:30.200)
And that those glimpses are some of the best things
Susan Cain (29:32.280)
that ever happened to us.
Lex Fridman (29:33.440)
And they're suffused with sadness
Susan Cain (29:34.960)
because they're not the real thing
Lex Fridman (29:36.680)
or they're not the full thing.
Susan Cain (29:37.840)
They're just a glimpse.
Lex Fridman (29:39.560)
It's a glimpse of what we long for.
Lex Fridman (29:42.280)
So the sadness that we might feel
Lex Fridman (29:47.000)
is always connected to the ways in which we fall short
Susan Cain (29:50.040)
from the perfect thing that we're,
Lex Fridman (29:52.400)
like there's always a thing you're longing for.
Lex Fridman (29:55.920)
And the sadness has to do with getting a glimpse of it,
Lex Fridman (29:59.680)
but not quite getting a hold of it.
Susan Cain (30:01.840)
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (30:03.160)
So it's always losing.
Susan Cain (30:04.880)
It's always losing, but it's also always,
Lex Fridman (30:07.360)
but it's not, that sounds really depressing,
Lex Fridman (30:09.320)
but it's not, you know it's not depressing
Lex Fridman (30:11.760)
because you experience this all the time.
Susan Cain (30:13.200)
It's also, those are the most beautiful moments
Lex Fridman (30:16.560)
I think life offers.
Susan Cain (30:18.400)
I mean, it's intense, intense beauty in those moments
Lex Fridman (30:22.400)
because it's getting closer to the real thing
Susan Cain (30:25.000)
that we long for.
Lex Fridman (30:26.880)
So what about like loss, losing love?
Lex Fridman (30:31.440)
Is that also a beautiful thing?
Lex Fridman (30:36.440)
Well, the moments you're talking about,
Susan Cain (30:40.440)
I think it's easier to appreciate the beauty of it all
Lex Fridman (30:44.480)
in the moment because you're experiencing,
Susan Cain (30:49.080)
you're kind of experiencing the loss and the love
Lex Fridman (30:51.080)
all at the same time.
Susan Cain (30:53.360)
Whereas if you're talking about straight up loss,
Lex Fridman (30:55.480)
like a betrayal or a bereavement or whatever it is,
Susan Cain (31:00.160)
that's, it's different, it's quite overwhelming.
Lex Fridman (31:03.720)
So losing a loved one kind of thing.
Susan Cain (31:05.680)
Losing a loved one.
Lex Fridman (31:06.680)
I mean, I will say that the truth that I think
Susan Cain (31:11.200)
that we can come to after a lot of time on this earth
Lex Fridman (31:15.560)
is the idea that love exists not only in its particular
Susan Cain (31:20.560)
forms, so not only in the form of the one person,
Lex Fridman (31:25.560)
that one person we love or that other person we love,
Lex Fridman (31:28.400)
but love itself is a state that we have access to.
Lex Fridman (31:32.040)
And so over time, the loss of person A can heal
Lex Fridman (31:37.520)
and you can tap into a kind of bigger river of love.
Lex Fridman (31:42.520)
Yeah, I mean, I had this, it comes from Louis C.K.
Susan Cain (31:46.560)
in a show, damn I love that line.
Lex Fridman (31:49.400)
I mean, there's a, he talks to an older gentleman
Lex Fridman (31:53.600)
and Louis is all like sad about losing a loved one
Lex Fridman (31:58.600)
or like getting rejected essentially, like a breakup.
Lex Fridman (32:05.600)
And then the older gentleman gives him advice saying,
Lex Fridman (32:09.080)
like basically criticizes Louis for saying,
Lex Fridman (32:13.360)
why are you moping around?
Lex Fridman (32:15.240)
Because this is the most, this is the best part.
Susan Cain (32:18.000)
Like losing love is the best part because that's,
Lex Fridman (32:21.480)
the real loss is when you forget.
Susan Cain (32:23.460)
Like feeling shitty about having gone through a breakup
Lex Fridman (32:29.740)
is when you most intensely appreciate
Lex Fridman (32:32.860)
what that person meant to you.
Lex Fridman (32:35.620)
Like you most intensely feel love in some strange way
Susan Cain (32:40.340)
by realizing that you've lost it, by missing it,
Lex Fridman (32:43.360)
wishing at this moment, I wish I had that.
Susan Cain (32:46.660)
Like that feeling, that's when you feel that love the most,
Lex Fridman (32:50.820)
the absence of it, and so the older gentleman
Susan Cain (32:54.300)
gives advice that that's the best part.
Lex Fridman (32:56.980)
And it can, if you're good with it,
Susan Cain (32:58.740)
it can last for the longest.
Lex Fridman (33:01.400)
It could be the most sort of prolonged experience
Susan Cain (33:05.540)
of deep appreciation and emotion and so on.
Lex Fridman (33:09.400)
So that's kind of a, that's a nice way to look at loss,
Susan Cain (33:14.900)
which is a reminder of how much somebody meant to us.
Lex Fridman (33:18.540)
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of truth in that
Susan Cain (33:23.680)
because yeah, you wouldn't care so much
Lex Fridman (33:26.180)
if it weren't something that mattered to you.
Lex Fridman (33:27.700)
So it's always a signpost to the direction
Lex Fridman (33:30.260)
you really wanna go to.
Susan Cain (33:32.420)
That's always what it is.
Lex Fridman (33:34.880)
Yeah, and it's interesting to see the way
Susan Cain (33:37.140)
that the mystical versions of many of the great religions
Lex Fridman (33:43.620)
all point in this direction.
Susan Cain (33:45.700)
Whether you're looking at Sufism or the Kabbalah
Lex Fridman (33:49.100)
or in Christian mysticism, you see this idea
Susan Cain (33:51.760)
that the longing for what you lack is the very thing
Lex Fridman (33:56.000)
that gives you what you're longing for.
Lex Fridman (33:58.340)
So the longing is the cure.
Lex Fridman (33:59.820)
I mean, that's the way the Sufi poet Rumi puts it.
Susan Cain (34:02.820)
The longing is the cure.
Lex Fridman (34:04.780)
And he says, be thirsty.
Susan Cain (34:05.860)
Like be as thirsty as you possibly can.
Lex Fridman (34:08.500)
That's what you wanna be.
Susan Cain (34:09.940)
The good stuff is the wanting, not the having.
Lex Fridman (34:12.360)
Yeah, yeah, of course, tell that to a person
Susan Cain (34:16.800)
that just broke up and they'll be like,
Lex Fridman (34:18.440)
shut up, asshole, advice sucks.
Susan Cain (34:21.640)
I wish I had her and back.
Lex Fridman (34:24.760)
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Susan Cain (34:26.300)
Those are the kinds of life lessons that only work
Lex Fridman (34:29.680)
when you kind of step away for a while.
Susan Cain (34:31.600)
They don't work in the moment of excruciation.
Lex Fridman (34:35.280)
There is something about the fact of knowing
Susan Cain (34:39.200)
that all humans are in that experience together
Lex Fridman (34:42.480)
that is also incredibly uplifting.
Susan Cain (34:46.700)
Well, that takes time for people to realize.
Lex Fridman (34:49.540)
Like heartbreak in your early teenage years
Susan Cain (34:54.360)
or something like that could feel like this is completely
Lex Fridman (34:57.380)
the most novel and the most dramatic pain
Lex Fridman (35:02.380)
that any human has ever felt, right?
Lex Fridman (35:04.840)
Or maybe even when you're younger.
Lex Fridman (35:07.000)
And then one of the things you realize
Lex Fridman (35:10.600)
is that everybody goes through this.
Susan Cain (35:13.020)
That can be an awakening to the fact
Lex Fridman (35:14.920)
that we're all in this together.
Susan Cain (35:16.480)
This human condition is not just a personal experience.
Lex Fridman (35:19.760)
It's an experience we all share.
Lex Fridman (35:21.560)
And that's a kind of love, the unity of it.
Lex Fridman (35:25.000)
Yeah, that's a really deep kind of love.
Lex Fridman (35:27.600)
And I feel like we are prevented from perceiving that love
Lex Fridman (35:33.560)
as it's actually like the most obvious kind of love
Lex Fridman (35:36.280)
and it's right there and it happens all the time.
Lex Fridman (35:38.480)
But we're prevented from perceiving it
Susan Cain (35:40.160)
because we're not really supposed to talk
Lex Fridman (35:41.620)
about things like that.
Susan Cain (35:42.660)
It's like there's something unseemly about it.
Lex Fridman (35:45.360)
Well, it's also in the West is this individualist society.
Lex Fridman (35:49.040)
So like there's a pressure to sort of see the individual
Lex Fridman (35:53.880)
as a distinct sovereign entity that experiences things.
Susan Cain (35:59.560)
The unity between people is not obviously sort of
Lex Fridman (36:03.160)
communicated or talked about as part of the culture.
Susan Cain (36:06.580)
Yeah, it's not part of the culture.
Lex Fridman (36:08.080)
And yet, you see it in our behaviors because we're humans.
Lex Fridman (36:12.360)
So, why do people listen to sad music?
Lex Fridman (36:15.480)
I mean, one reason is they're hearing expressed for them.
Susan Cain (36:19.120)
Like the musician is basically saying to them,
Lex Fridman (36:21.460)
this thing that you have experienced,
Susan Cain (36:24.720)
I've experienced it too, so have lots of other people.
Lex Fridman (36:28.440)
But they're saying it all without words
Lex Fridman (36:29.720)
and it's transformed into something beautiful.
Lex Fridman (36:33.000)
And there's something about that
Susan Cain (36:34.360)
that's just incredibly elevating.
Lex Fridman (36:37.460)
And people don't know it,
Lex Fridman (36:38.440)
but like there's one study that I have in Bittersweet
Lex Fridman (36:43.240)
that found that people whose favorite songs
Susan Cain (36:45.960)
are their happy songs, play it on their playlist
Lex Fridman (36:48.280)
about 175 times, but the people who love sad music
Susan Cain (36:51.500)
play them about 800 times.
Lex Fridman (36:55.300)
And they say that they feel connected to the sublime
Susan Cain (36:58.520)
when they're listening to that music.
Lex Fridman (37:00.840)
What do you think that is?
Susan Cain (37:03.280)
So, what is it in music that connects us
Lex Fridman (37:08.180)
to the sublime through sadness?
Susan Cain (37:11.840)
I mean, I have a bunch of different theories.
Lex Fridman (37:13.960)
Like the whole reason I started writing this book
Susan Cain (37:19.280)
is because I kept having this reaction reliably
Lex Fridman (37:22.480)
to sad music.
Lex Fridman (37:24.440)
And I realized that for people who I knew
Lex Fridman (37:27.580)
who were religious believers,
Susan Cain (37:29.160)
the way they described their experience of God
Lex Fridman (37:32.040)
was what I was experiencing when I would hear that music.
Susan Cain (37:36.920)
Like all the time.
Lex Fridman (37:38.080)
It happens over and over again.
Lex Fridman (37:39.680)
So, you wonder what that is?
Lex Fridman (37:42.280)
Yeah, so I started wondering what that is.
Lex Fridman (37:44.600)
And lots of people have tried to figure out
Lex Fridman (37:48.320)
what that's all about.
Lex Fridman (37:51.160)
And there are different theories that it's expressing,
Lex Fridman (37:53.560)
it's like a kind of catharsis for our difficult emotions,
Susan Cain (37:57.460)
that it's, as we were saying, a sense of being in it together.
Lex Fridman (38:02.860)
We don't react in that sort of uplifted way
Susan Cain (38:06.160)
when you just see like a slideshow of sad faces,
Lex Fridman (38:10.160)
which is something researchers have actually tested.
Susan Cain (38:12.640)
No one really cares when they're seeing the sad faces.
Lex Fridman (38:15.360)
But the sad music, they're really reacting.
Lex Fridman (38:17.440)
And also, they don't really react
Lex Fridman (38:18.920)
when they're hearing music expressing
Susan Cain (38:20.520)
other negative emotions,
Lex Fridman (38:21.940)
like Marshall music or something like that.
Susan Cain (38:24.000)
It's just the sad music that gives people
Lex Fridman (38:25.680)
this elevated sense of wonder.
Susan Cain (38:28.320)
So, I think it's the combination of the sadness
Lex Fridman (38:31.680)
and the beauty.
Lex Fridman (38:33.320)
And I think it's just tapping into the essence
Lex Fridman (38:37.480)
of the human source code,
Susan Cain (38:38.800)
which is a kind of spiritual longing,
Lex Fridman (38:40.920)
whether we're atheists or believers.
Susan Cain (38:43.340)
There's this feeling of longing for a state
Lex Fridman (38:46.680)
and a place of perfect love and perfect unity
Lex Fridman (38:49.560)
and perfect truth and all of it.
Lex Fridman (38:51.680)
And like an acute awareness that we're not there
Susan Cain (38:54.240)
in this world.
Lex Fridman (38:56.160)
In religions, we express that through the longing
Susan Cain (38:58.240)
for Mecca or Eden or Zion.
Lex Fridman (39:02.680)
And artistically, we express it with
Susan Cain (39:05.320)
Dorothy longing for somewhere over the rainbow
Lex Fridman (39:07.680)
or Harry Potter enters the story at the precise moment
Susan Cain (39:12.040)
that he's become an orphan.
Lex Fridman (39:14.760)
So, he's now gonna spend the rest of his life
Susan Cain (39:16.840)
longing for these parents who he can never remember.
Lex Fridman (39:19.800)
And there's something about that state
Susan Cain (39:23.400)
that's at our very core.
Lex Fridman (39:24.840)
And I think that's why we love it so much.
Susan Cain (39:26.800)
Well, it could be, you know, you could have
Lex Fridman (39:28.440)
the Ernest Becker theory of denial of death,
Susan Cain (39:31.360)
where at the core of that, the warm at the core,
Lex Fridman (39:35.160)
as Jung said, is the fear of death.
Susan Cain (39:38.020)
So, where the longing for the perfect thing
Lex Fridman (39:42.040)
has to do with sort of becoming immortal,
Susan Cain (39:46.040)
is reaching beyond the absurdity, the cruelty of life,
Lex Fridman (39:53.720)
that all things come to an end
Susan Cain (39:56.120)
for no particularly good reason whatsoever.
Lex Fridman (40:01.280)
One we can rationally explain.
Susan Cain (40:03.240)
I know, you know, I wonder about that all the time.
Lex Fridman (40:05.960)
Like, I know obviously there's that idea from Becker
Lex Fridman (40:09.840)
and throughout philosophy and the tale of Gilgamesh
Lex Fridman (40:12.360)
about the idea that the thing we're longing for
Susan Cain (40:14.400)
most of all is immortality.
Lex Fridman (40:17.000)
But I feel like it's not only that.
Susan Cain (40:20.320)
I think it's more so or also, let's say,
Lex Fridman (40:26.200)
a longing for the lions to lay down with the lambs finally.
Susan Cain (40:30.840)
You know, for like the fundamental calculus of the universe
Lex Fridman (40:34.480)
to just be different, where life doesn't have to eat life
Susan Cain (40:37.520)
in order to survive.
Lex Fridman (40:38.760)
And yeah, just a completely different situation.
Susan Cain (40:42.100)
I wonder.
Lex Fridman (40:42.940)
What immortality would not solve?
Susan Cain (40:45.600)
I wonder.
Lex Fridman (40:46.840)
That could be a very kind of modern thing,
Susan Cain (40:53.280)
because surely so much of human history
Lex Fridman (40:56.000)
is defined by violence and glorified violence
Susan Cain (40:59.160)
that doesn't give inklings of this lions and the lambs.
Lex Fridman (41:03.560)
So much of.
Susan Cain (41:04.400)
It's in the Bible.
Lex Fridman (41:06.980)
I mean, I know all the other stuff is in the Bible too.
Susan Cain (41:09.080)
There's other stuff in the Bible,
Lex Fridman (41:10.400)
and the Bible, that particular aspect
Susan Cain (41:12.760)
doesn't necessarily reveal the fundamental motivation
Lex Fridman (41:15.920)
of human nature.
Lex Fridman (41:17.240)
That could be deeper stuff, you know?
Lex Fridman (41:19.780)
But yeah, that is a beautiful picture,
Lex Fridman (41:23.400)
but is it just about humans or is it all about all of life?
Lex Fridman (41:28.440)
And you have to think about what does the perfect world
Lex Fridman (41:33.960)
look like?
Lex Fridman (41:34.800)
It's not just the lions and the lambs laying together.
Lex Fridman (41:37.960)
It's, you know, how many lions and how many lambs?
Lex Fridman (41:41.400)
And, you know, what, having just had a few
Susan Cain (41:46.760)
very technical conversations about Marxian economics
Lex Fridman (41:49.840)
versus Keynesian economics versus neoclassical economics,
Lex Fridman (41:53.560)
what does the economic and the government system
Lex Fridman (41:55.600)
look like for the lions and the lambs
Lex Fridman (41:57.640)
that we're longing for?
Lex Fridman (41:59.200)
So then you start to build society
Susan Cain (42:01.400)
on top of all those things, but you still,
Lex Fridman (42:04.420)
you return to this, what are we longing for?
Lex Fridman (42:08.340)
And what's the role of love in that?
Lex Fridman (42:10.000)
What's the role of that sad melancholy feeling,
Lex Fridman (42:13.520)
the feeling of loneliness?
Lex Fridman (42:14.800)
Is the feeling of loneliness fundamental
Lex Fridman (42:17.400)
to the human condition?
Lex Fridman (42:18.600)
Like, are we always striving to sort of channel
Lex Fridman (42:22.760)
that feeling of loneliness to connect with others?
Lex Fridman (42:27.120)
Like, we want that feeling of loneliness,
Susan Cain (42:28.720)
otherwise we wouldn't be connecting.
Lex Fridman (42:30.640)
Is that fundamental, that feeling like you're alone in this
Lex Fridman (42:35.200)
even when you're with other people, sort of alone together?
Lex Fridman (42:37.640)
You're born alone, you die alone.
Susan Cain (42:39.640)
Maybe loneliness is fundamental.
Lex Fridman (42:41.280)
I think the longing for union is fundamental.
Susan Cain (42:44.440)
It's just that it looks so different for different people.
Lex Fridman (42:47.600)
Right, yeah.
Lex Fridman (42:49.080)
And coming back to what we were talking about
Lex Fridman (42:51.560)
at the beginning, union looks incredibly social
Susan Cain (42:55.100)
for a lot of people and hardly social at all for others,
Lex Fridman (42:58.360)
but everybody needs some version of union.
Susan Cain (43:01.280)
Yeah, people have been telling me recently
Lex Fridman (43:02.940)
about polyamory and all those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (43:04.800)
So having probably grown up in a certain part of the world,
Lex Fridman (43:08.240)
I'm very, I think I'm very monogamy centric,
Susan Cain (43:12.880)
not in a judgmental way, just for me,
Lex Fridman (43:14.600)
what makes me happy is one person.
Lex Fridman (43:16.000)
So for my whole life, basically just dedication.
Lex Fridman (43:20.880)
Because I've just seen through relationships
Susan Cain (43:23.520)
with people and objects in my life,
Lex Fridman (43:27.680)
the longer we stay together, the deeper the tie.
Lex Fridman (43:32.720)
So that's just the empirical thing.
Lex Fridman (43:36.260)
And yes, that probably is a personalized thing.
Susan Cain (43:40.200)
That's just true for me.
Lex Fridman (43:41.200)
It could be very different for others.
Susan Cain (43:43.100)
Maybe it's connected to the introverted thing, maybe not.
Lex Fridman (43:49.040)
Who knows?
Susan Cain (43:49.880)
Before I leave, because you mentioned songs, sad songs.
Lex Fridman (43:53.360)
What are we talking about?
Lex Fridman (43:55.100)
What's a good, what song do you remember last crying to?
Lex Fridman (43:59.460)
Oh gosh, well, I mean, I literally dedicated my book
Susan Cain (44:07.320)
to Leonard Cohen.
Lex Fridman (44:08.160)
He's played such a huge role in my life.
Susan Cain (44:10.680)
I love him.
Lex Fridman (44:11.640)
I love him.
Lex Fridman (44:14.000)
And I've loved him with this crazy love
Lex Fridman (44:15.840)
that I've never been able to understand for decades.
Susan Cain (44:19.040)
I think I understand it a little better now, but.
Lex Fridman (44:21.940)
So you're better friends with him than me, I'm jealous.
Lex Fridman (44:25.120)
So does it make you, is it the musician or the human too?
Lex Fridman (44:30.360)
Because the human is a tortuous soul in a way.
Susan Cain (44:34.380)
I'd say it's the musician.
Lex Fridman (44:36.340)
It's the musician.
Lex Fridman (44:37.180)
And I actually was thinking about this the other day.
Lex Fridman (44:38.680)
I mean, obviously he's not alive anymore,
Lex Fridman (44:41.160)
but I was kind of running the thought experiment.
Lex Fridman (44:44.020)
If he were alive still and I had the chance
Lex Fridman (44:46.660)
to meet him in person, would I wanna do that?
Lex Fridman (44:50.880)
And I'm not really sure that I would
Susan Cain (44:53.200)
because he represents for me symbolically everything,
Lex Fridman (45:01.120)
well, everything, I'll end the sentence right there.
Lex Fridman (45:04.200)
And so, and I think that's okay.
Lex Fridman (45:06.600)
I think people can express something through their art
Susan Cain (45:10.080)
that they might or might not express
Lex Fridman (45:12.260)
if you were just hanging out with them and having a coffee.
Lex Fridman (45:15.680)
And I'm happy to know him that way.
Lex Fridman (45:17.600)
He can express himself, I'm sure,
Susan Cain (45:19.640)
in the way that you know him as over coffee too.
Lex Fridman (45:23.480)
It just requires like a focus of remembering,
Susan Cain (45:30.440)
of like a deep focus of connection.
Lex Fridman (45:31.960)
That's why like when I interact with folks,
Susan Cain (45:38.120)
it's so draining for me because I'm putting all my,
Lex Fridman (45:42.400)
whatever weapons I got in terms of like deeply
Susan Cain (45:45.960)
trying to understand the person in front of me
Lex Fridman (45:48.480)
and doing that dance of human interaction,
Susan Cain (45:50.560)
the humor, the intense kind of delving into who they are.
Lex Fridman (45:57.400)
Which requires like navigating around
Susan Cain (46:00.960)
like small talk type of stuff
Lex Fridman (46:02.560)
and just like compliments and so on.
Susan Cain (46:05.560)
In general, like people, depending on the culture,
Lex Fridman (46:07.880)
depending on the place, they'll sometimes flower stuff
Susan Cain (46:10.640)
with smiling and like compliments like,
Lex Fridman (46:12.520)
oh, yeah, I love you, this is great.
Susan Cain (46:15.080)
I guess that's all great, but you wanna get to the core
Lex Fridman (46:17.280)
of like, what are the demons in the closet?
Susan Cain (46:20.640)
Let's talk about it.
Lex Fridman (46:22.320)
And that can be exhausting.
Susan Cain (46:24.560)
That can be really exhausting.
Lex Fridman (46:25.740)
So from a Leonard Cohen perspective,
Susan Cain (46:27.160)
you get more and more famous.
Lex Fridman (46:29.360)
It can be hard sometimes
Susan Cain (46:31.120)
because he probably is also an introvert.
Lex Fridman (46:33.540)
I'm guessing.
Susan Cain (46:34.380)
Oh, yeah, I know he was an introvert
Lex Fridman (46:35.440)
because he actually tweeted about my book when it came out.
Lex Fridman (46:39.300)
So that was a precious moment for me.
Lex Fridman (46:41.080)
Something that we should all be listening to the quiet.
Susan Cain (46:43.120)
I can't remember exactly what he said.
Lex Fridman (46:45.840)
But yeah, yeah, no, he definitely was.
Susan Cain (46:48.680)
He struggled with depression,
Lex Fridman (46:50.960)
which I wonder if that's something
Susan Cain (46:53.320)
that's also connected to introversion.
Lex Fridman (46:56.840)
Well, perhaps not actually.
Susan Cain (46:58.160)
Perhaps they're very disjoint and also.
Lex Fridman (47:00.360)
It's connected to sensitivity
Lex Fridman (47:01.800)
and many sensitive people are introverts.
Lex Fridman (47:04.040)
So it's kind of like a Venn diagram.
Susan Cain (47:06.360)
About 80% of highly sensitive people are introverted,
Lex Fridman (47:09.360)
but then some are extroverts.
Lex Fridman (47:11.080)
And then not all introverts are sensitive.
Lex Fridman (47:13.280)
So it's complicated.
Lex Fridman (47:14.720)
But he was definitely a sensitive type.
Lex Fridman (47:17.200)
Well, there's on top of that,
Susan Cain (47:18.240)
you see like the percent of artists
Lex Fridman (47:21.520)
relative to the average that suffer from depression.
Lex Fridman (47:23.620)
So creative people is very high.
Lex Fridman (47:26.180)
Very, very high. It's crazy.
Susan Cain (47:27.400)
Yeah, and then the number of artists
Lex Fridman (47:29.120)
and successful artists who were orphaned
Susan Cain (47:31.820)
when they were young,
Lex Fridman (47:32.660)
who lost one parent or both parents,
Susan Cain (47:34.520)
it's like an astronomical number.
Lex Fridman (47:36.080)
I have it in the book.
Susan Cain (47:37.240)
I don't remember the percentage, but huge.
Lex Fridman (47:39.440)
And he was one of them.
Susan Cain (47:40.360)
He lost his father when he was nine.
Lex Fridman (47:43.040)
And his first act of poetry was he took,
Susan Cain (47:47.440)
his father made suits.
Lex Fridman (47:49.160)
That's why I thought of him
Susan Cain (47:50.040)
when we were talking about you in your suit.
Lex Fridman (47:51.960)
And he took one of his father's bow ties
Lex Fridman (47:54.680)
and wrote a poem in his honor
Lex Fridman (47:57.240)
and buried the poem and the bow tie in the backyard.
Lex Fridman (48:01.440)
And that was like his first creative act.
Lex Fridman (48:04.240)
You know that song, Chelsea Hotel No. 2?
Susan Cain (48:07.120)
Sure.
Lex Fridman (48:07.960)
Where he met, I guess it's about Janis Joplin.
Susan Cain (48:10.320)
Joplin, yeah.
Lex Fridman (48:13.080)
What a fun, intense, and cruel person she is.
Susan Cain (48:18.160)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (48:20.080)
So I guess.
Susan Cain (48:22.000)
Have you ever seen, I'm sorry to interrupt you,
Lex Fridman (48:24.020)
but have you ever seen his son Adam Cohn
Lex Fridman (48:26.560)
and Lana Del Rey perform that song together?
Lex Fridman (48:29.040)
Oh wow, no.
Susan Cain (48:29.880)
It's incredible.
Lex Fridman (48:30.960)
I have to send it to you.
Susan Cain (48:31.960)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (48:32.800)
So that for people who don't know,
Susan Cain (48:34.280)
I don't, I mean, maybe I don't know.
Lex Fridman (48:36.680)
It goes, I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel.
Susan Cain (48:39.400)
You're talking so brave and so sweet.
Lex Fridman (48:42.600)
Giving me head on the unmade bed
Susan Cain (48:46.160)
while the limousines wait in the street.
Lex Fridman (48:48.400)
There's a good line in there about being ugly.
Susan Cain (48:53.920)
Oh yeah, we are ugly, but we have the music.
Lex Fridman (48:56.560)
No, before that, from a guy's perspective, it was.
Susan Cain (48:59.880)
Oh, you told me again you preferred handsome men.
Lex Fridman (49:03.240)
But for me, you would make an exception.
Susan Cain (49:05.160)
Yeah, so good.
Lex Fridman (49:07.160)
Well, she continued that thread in later
Susan Cain (49:09.960)
because I think she said that he was lousy in bed.
Lex Fridman (49:13.600)
Oh, is that right?
Susan Cain (49:14.440)
Yeah, she publicly said that.
Lex Fridman (49:16.200)
Which is like, oh man, did there.
Susan Cain (49:20.540)
Just, okay, for people who don't know,
Lex Fridman (49:23.040)
I think this is a true story about them interacting
Lex Fridman (49:26.280)
and being together for a very brief time.
Lex Fridman (49:29.600)
I don't know, dating, but just connecting.
Susan Cain (49:31.200)
Falling in love or in this very particular way
Lex Fridman (49:35.580)
that I think famous musicians, poets can,
Susan Cain (49:39.440)
which is like, it's impossible
Lex Fridman (49:40.640)
for that kind of thing to last.
Lex Fridman (49:42.800)
But they did for a brief moment.
Lex Fridman (49:47.040)
There's like a sadness to it because it's so momentarily,
Lex Fridman (49:52.200)
but it's so epic that these two paths cross
Lex Fridman (49:55.960)
and then you just look at it, we know these famous people
Lex Fridman (49:58.520)
and it's interesting to watch.
Lex Fridman (50:01.100)
Yeah, and you don't even have the impression
Susan Cain (50:02.480)
that they're thinking it's gonna last.
Lex Fridman (50:04.400)
They more know that it's like a blaze of an intersection
Lex Fridman (50:07.560)
and the limousine's already waiting
Lex Fridman (50:09.700)
while they're in the middle of it and then it's done.
Susan Cain (50:14.520)
Yeah, and he's talked about how his music,
Lex Fridman (50:19.200)
he said something like, some people are more inclined
Susan Cain (50:22.340)
to say hello with their music,
Lex Fridman (50:23.800)
but I'm rather more valedictory.
Susan Cain (50:26.760)
That's what he said.
Lex Fridman (50:27.580)
What does valedictory mean?
Susan Cain (50:28.420)
Like saying goodbye, like the valedictorian's address.
Lex Fridman (50:31.180)
Interesting.
Susan Cain (50:33.500)
You know, so many of his songs really are
Lex Fridman (50:36.380)
about some form of parting or goodbye
Susan Cain (50:40.020)
or an imperfection or something,
Lex Fridman (50:41.980)
or like the broken hallelujah.
Susan Cain (50:45.260)
Yeah, that's songs.
Lex Fridman (50:46.100)
But the thing that's so incredible about him
Susan Cain (50:50.180)
is the way that he's taking all of that
Lex Fridman (50:54.740)
and pointing it in the direction of transcendence.
Susan Cain (50:57.620)
Like, it's not just pure sadness.
Lex Fridman (51:00.860)
It's sadness and beauty, and that's the thing.
Susan Cain (51:03.960)
Yeah, there is a feeling of transcendence
Lex Fridman (51:05.700)
in a lot of the songs.
Susan Cain (51:07.740)
It's like sadness and transcendence, you're right.
Lex Fridman (51:10.620)
It's a goodbye, but you're moving on to some bigger thing,
Lex Fridman (51:17.180)
but in a sort of ethereal way,
Lex Fridman (51:20.180)
not like a proud, arrogant way.
Susan Cain (51:23.460)
Yeah, so his favorite poet was Garcia Lorca.
Lex Fridman (51:28.020)
He actually named his daughter after him.
Susan Cain (51:30.060)
His daughter's name is Lorca.
Lex Fridman (51:31.460)
And he talks about how there's some poem
Susan Cain (51:37.060)
that Lorca had written that made him realize
Lex Fridman (51:40.420)
that the universe itself was aching,
Lex Fridman (51:44.180)
but the ache was okay because that's the way
Lex Fridman (51:46.340)
you embrace the sun and the moon.
Lex Fridman (51:48.280)
And that's what I think is,
Lex Fridman (51:52.940)
that's why I think there's this whole rich vein
Susan Cain (51:55.940)
in this bittersweet tradition that he embodies
Lex Fridman (52:00.380)
that's like the essence of beauty.
Susan Cain (52:02.060)
You know, it's the way you embrace the sun and the moon.
Lex Fridman (52:05.260)
The song Hallelujah, I return to that often,
Susan Cain (52:08.660)
have been meaning to play it.
Lex Fridman (52:11.820)
I have now a friend who wants to sing it with me.
Lex Fridman (52:15.180)
Are you a singer?
Lex Fridman (52:16.020)
Mm.
Susan Cain (52:20.860)
When somebody says they're a singer,
Lex Fridman (52:22.540)
do they have to be good?
Susan Cain (52:23.740)
Because then no, but I would say yes.
Lex Fridman (52:27.540)
I was in a band for a while.
Susan Cain (52:28.900)
I sang for a while.
Lex Fridman (52:29.740)
I was always bad, but I enjoy it.
Susan Cain (52:33.940)
I enjoy it.
Lex Fridman (52:34.780)
I enjoy lyrics.
Susan Cain (52:35.660)
I enjoy words.
Lex Fridman (52:37.180)
When sung or spoken, they capture something.
Susan Cain (52:40.620)
Like again, that moment.
Lex Fridman (52:42.840)
Tom Waits is a huge favorite of mine for that reason.
Susan Cain (52:46.660)
Although he often, his lyrics are often not that simple.
Lex Fridman (52:51.660)
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me
Susan Cain (52:54.940)
than a frontal lobotomy.
Lex Fridman (52:56.420)
He's always playing with just like these weird word play
Susan Cain (53:02.180)
that's, especially in the English language,
Lex Fridman (53:04.260)
just trickier to do.
Susan Cain (53:06.260)
I'm fortunate enough to know another language,
Lex Fridman (53:08.060)
which is Russian, so I get to understand
Susan Cain (53:10.700)
that certain languages allow for more word play than others.
Lex Fridman (53:15.780)
English, for that reason, I don't think has a,
Susan Cain (53:18.220)
like a culture of, you know what,
Lex Fridman (53:23.420)
I need to push back on what I'm about to say,
Lex Fridman (53:25.300)
but there was no culture of word play
Lex Fridman (53:30.220)
until hip hop came along.
Lex Fridman (53:33.020)
So like distorting words in interesting ways
Lex Fridman (53:37.100)
for there to be a rhythm, a rhyme,
Lex Fridman (53:40.720)
and at the same time you're capturing
Lex Fridman (53:42.320)
some really powerful message plus humor.
Susan Cain (53:46.780)
All of that mixed in.
Lex Fridman (53:47.660)
Actually hip hop does a really good job of this,
Lex Fridman (53:49.700)
but there wasn't a tradition,
Lex Fridman (53:50.980)
if you look at poetry in the 20th century,
Susan Cain (53:53.140)
there wasn't really a tradition of that
Lex Fridman (53:54.580)
in the United States, but there was in other parts
Susan Cain (53:57.580)
of the world and certainly in Russia.
Lex Fridman (53:59.600)
Interesting.
Susan Cain (54:00.440)
Empowered also not just by the language,
Lex Fridman (54:02.320)
by the fact that you go through a world war
Susan Cain (54:03.960)
where tens of millions of people die.
Lex Fridman (54:05.860)
Something about mass death of civilians
Susan Cain (54:09.740)
that inspires great literature and music and art.
Lex Fridman (54:12.840)
Yeah, absolutely, because you start telling
Susan Cain (54:14.740)
the real truth, I think.
Lex Fridman (54:16.060)
Yes, there's no more reason for small talk.
Susan Cain (54:21.620)
That's funny, I always have thought that
Lex Fridman (54:24.860)
if I could choose any other medium besides writing,
Susan Cain (54:27.300)
it would be singing.
Lex Fridman (54:29.900)
But then.
Lex Fridman (54:30.740)
Are you a singer?
Lex Fridman (54:31.560)
No, I mean like I'm really not,
Susan Cain (54:32.540)
I just love the idea of it.
Lex Fridman (54:34.480)
But then I also think, you know,
Susan Cain (54:35.620)
I'm fundamentally a shy person,
Lex Fridman (54:37.260)
so I think it's much better that my medium is writing
Susan Cain (54:39.940)
instead of singing, so like it all worked out.
Lex Fridman (54:42.540)
That said, you're also an exceptionally good public speaker
Lex Fridman (54:46.540)
and you're not supposed to be, mathematically speaking.
Lex Fridman (54:51.380)
Mathematically speaking.
Susan Cain (54:52.580)
You're not supposed to be a good public speaker.
Lex Fridman (54:54.580)
Oh, you mean because of shyness?
Susan Cain (54:56.340)
Yeah, because of shyness, because of introversion,
Lex Fridman (54:58.300)
because of all those kinds of things.
Susan Cain (54:59.700)
Oh yeah, but lots of introverts are public speakers,
Lex Fridman (55:02.540)
actually, like this is one of,
Susan Cain (55:04.060)
I knew this from the studies, but then also
Lex Fridman (55:06.780)
when I started going out on the lecture circuit,
Susan Cain (55:08.860)
I realized that all my fellow speakers
Lex Fridman (55:10.600)
at all these conferences I was going to,
Susan Cain (55:12.500)
they're all introverts, because they're all people
Lex Fridman (55:15.340)
who spent years figuring out some idea
Lex Fridman (55:18.420)
and now they're out there talking about it.
Lex Fridman (55:19.820)
Oh, they're in their head figuring out the idea?
Susan Cain (55:22.140)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (55:22.980)
So how do you explain that the public speakers,
Susan Cain (55:26.700)
would you say the good public speakers
Lex Fridman (55:28.220)
are usually introverts?
Susan Cain (55:29.860)
No, I think there's just different styles of it
Lex Fridman (55:32.100)
and I think that we just have,
Susan Cain (55:34.500)
when we hear the word public speaker,
Lex Fridman (55:36.220)
we have a really limited idea of who that person would be.
Lex Fridman (55:40.900)
So for me, I used to be very phobic about public speaking
Lex Fridman (55:44.940)
and part of the reason for it was because
Susan Cain (55:47.460)
I thought that being the kind of person I was,
Lex Fridman (55:51.180)
didn't equal being able to be a good public speaker,
Susan Cain (55:54.140)
because you're only imagining,
Lex Fridman (55:56.020)
like the super kind of out there showman.
Lex Fridman (56:00.260)
But I think there's another style of public speaking
Lex Fridman (56:02.260)
that's more reflective and thoughtful
Lex Fridman (56:05.660)
and conveying ideas and people like that too.
Lex Fridman (56:08.380)
Is there advice you can give on how to overcome that?
Susan Cain (56:10.860)
Like if you're a shy person, how to be a public speaker.
Lex Fridman (56:15.300)
I can totally give that advice because I used to,
Susan Cain (56:18.700)
before I would give speeches,
Lex Fridman (56:20.580)
if I had to do it in law school,
Susan Cain (56:22.200)
if I knew like today was the day
Lex Fridman (56:24.000)
when I was gonna get called on in a law school class,
Susan Cain (56:26.540)
I literally one time vomited on my way to class.
Lex Fridman (56:29.100)
Like that's how nervous I used to be.
Lex Fridman (56:30.900)
And yeah, the way to do it is through desensitization.
Lex Fridman (56:37.020)
It's like been figured out.
Susan Cain (56:38.300)
It's the way to overcome any fear.
Lex Fridman (56:39.860)
You have to expose yourself to the thing you fear,
Lex Fridman (56:43.080)
but in very small doses.
Lex Fridman (56:45.180)
So you can't start by giving the TED talk.
Susan Cain (56:48.020)
You have to start.
Lex Fridman (56:49.020)
I started by going to this class
Susan Cain (56:50.820)
for people with public speaking anxiety,
Lex Fridman (56:52.980)
where on the first day,
Susan Cain (56:54.820)
all we had to do was stand up and say our name
Lex Fridman (56:57.940)
and sit down and like that's the victory.
Susan Cain (57:01.020)
That's fun to watch all those people with anxiety.
Lex Fridman (57:05.540)
Okay, that's the first step and the step,
Susan Cain (57:07.500)
one step at a time.
Lex Fridman (57:08.760)
Yeah, and then like with this class,
Susan Cain (57:10.380)
you go back the next week
Lex Fridman (57:11.540)
and he would have us come to the front of the room
Lex Fridman (57:15.340)
and stand up with other people standing next to us
Lex Fridman (57:18.860)
so that you didn't have the feeling
Susan Cain (57:20.800)
of being all alone in the spotlight
Lex Fridman (57:22.500)
through others sharing it with you.
Lex Fridman (57:24.380)
And you would answer some questions
Lex Fridman (57:25.740)
about where do you grow up?
Lex Fridman (57:27.520)
Where do you go to school?
Lex Fridman (57:29.100)
And you declare victory and you're done.
Lex Fridman (57:31.580)
And then little by little by little,
Lex Fridman (57:33.420)
you keep ratcheting up the exercises
Susan Cain (57:35.580)
until you get to the point where you can do it.
Lex Fridman (57:37.940)
And then you start having successes
Lex Fridman (57:39.380)
and you realize, oh, you know, actually I can do this.
Lex Fridman (57:43.580)
What about like writing versus improvising?
Susan Cain (57:46.580)
Because I knew a few people,
Lex Fridman (57:47.980)
sort of the colleagues of mine
Susan Cain (57:49.500)
that were working on TED talks
Lex Fridman (57:50.940)
and it feels like you're supposed to like
Susan Cain (57:54.440)
write the thing like way ahead of time
Lex Fridman (57:56.860)
and you practice it and they help you
Lex Fridman (57:58.820)
and all that kind of stuff.
Lex Fridman (58:00.300)
I don't think I've ever practiced the speech
Susan Cain (58:02.500)
once in my life or a lecture or any of that.
Lex Fridman (58:04.900)
Like I know it's really good to do,
Lex Fridman (58:06.580)
but do you find that relieves
Lex Fridman (58:10.060)
some of your anxiety preparing well
Lex Fridman (58:11.940)
or are you now able to do not preparing well at all?
Lex Fridman (58:15.860)
I definitely like to prepare before,
Lex Fridman (58:19.880)
but the kind of preparation that I've done for my TED talks
Lex Fridman (58:23.260)
is completely different
Susan Cain (58:24.700)
from what I've done for everything else.
Lex Fridman (58:26.260)
Because TED talks are more like a theatrical event
Susan Cain (58:29.460)
where it's like a one person show.
Lex Fridman (58:31.500)
And of course, if you were going to go on Broadway
Susan Cain (58:34.100)
with a monologue, you'd know every word.
Lex Fridman (58:36.680)
So it's kind of like that.
Lex Fridman (58:37.900)
And so I would rehearse it over and over
Lex Fridman (58:40.420)
the way you would do that.
Lex Fridman (58:41.700)
Isn't that more anxiety, knowing every single word?
Lex Fridman (58:44.940)
It's so much anxiety because yeah,
Susan Cain (58:47.300)
you're not even so freaked out about being on stage
Lex Fridman (58:49.380)
so much as what if I forget something?
Susan Cain (58:51.620)
Yeah, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (58:52.780)
I mean, they do things like the last TED talk I gave,
Susan Cain (58:57.020)
I actually did forget something halfway through.
Lex Fridman (58:59.100)
Like I just couldn't remember the next line.
Lex Fridman (59:02.260)
And so I had to walk over, like over there were my notes.
Lex Fridman (59:05.620)
And so I did that and the audience like very kindly clapped
Susan Cain (59:10.620)
while I did that.
Lex Fridman (59:11.540)
And then I came back to the spotlight and kept going
Lex Fridman (59:13.940)
and they edit that out.
Lex Fridman (59:15.100)
Nice, so there's a failure mode.
Susan Cain (59:16.860)
It's okay.
Lex Fridman (59:18.900)
It seems really, it seems really stressful.
Susan Cain (59:21.980)
Like I'm now, I'm not sure if I'll ever publish it,
Lex Fridman (59:24.940)
but I've been, mostly it's for a personal journey,
Lex Fridman (59:30.700)
but I've been working on a series on, wait for it,
Lex Fridman (59:35.620)
Hitler and the Third Reich.
Susan Cain (59:37.740)
Sort of looking at the historical context of everything
Lex Fridman (59:40.580)
because my family was so much affected
Susan Cain (59:42.700)
by that whole part of history.
Lex Fridman (59:44.460)
So for me to rigorously, I've read a lot
Susan Cain (59:47.780)
about Stalin and Hitler, and for me to force myself,
Lex Fridman (59:51.340)
one of the best ways to force yourself
Susan Cain (59:53.380)
to really consider material is to have to talk about it.
Lex Fridman (59:56.940)
And so that's why I'm doing it,
Lex Fridman (59:59.460)
but I'm playing with ideas of some of it,
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