Speaker 0 (0s): Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the true life podcast. We are here once again with the incredible Dr. David Solomon. We're talking about his masterpiece. I think it's a masterpiece. And I was just speaking with him and telling him the more that I read, the more I enjoy it. The book is called seven deadly sins. It's available on Amazon. That being said, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to get into gluttony today. And without any further ado, let me just bring in the good doctor in and ask him, maybe he could start off with a quote about gluttony.

Speaker 1 (35s): Well, I mean, the, the, the, the quote that I use as the paragraph of the chapter comes from a Hindu texts when eating do not gobble noisily or stuff in cram, your gaping now express yourself with modesty, for acting otherwise it's impolite excess.

Speaker 0 (53s): That is a it's interesting because in today's world, people that consume so much media, which I'm sure we'll get into later, we tend to think of gluttony the way it's portrayed as someone that's obese, or there has a problem with that. However, I think it's when I read this chapter, I realized that it's a lot more than that. What do you think is a good place to start on this?

Speaker 1 (1m 14s): I think that the, the, the best places, the idea that really gluttony isn't just about, about overeating, it is more, I think, in, in a modern context as a Senate least more in line with almost an idolization of appetite and that can present itself in overeating, but it can also present itself in things like eating disorders, where there's a body dysmorphia and, and, and, you know, not eating enough.

So it really is kind of any situation in which appetite is put at the forefront of, of one's self.

Speaker 0 (1m 59s): Yeah. It really struck me in the beginning. When you started this chapter, you gave to comparing and contrasting ideas, one about an academic conference, and then one about you sitting down with the student and talking, would you mind sharing those stories?

Speaker 1 (2m 12s): Sure. Yeah, the, the, the first is a conference that I was at as academics. We go to conferences and I decided I was going to buy the full buffet breakfast at the hotel, which is if I remember correctly was $16. And I sat down with my, my yogurt and my fruit, and probably a bagel because I'm a good Jewish, new Yorker. And my New York times crossword, and a man walked up and I heard him say to the server, I don't like anything in my eggs and okay.

And I looked up and he was about six foot tall, but he probably weighed in excess of 400 pounds. He ended up going through the buffet line loaded, I think two or three plates brought them back and sat down. And he ended up sitting almost directly opposite me on the other side of the dining room. So it was in my line of vision. And as he sat there, the first thing he did was pulled out a watered up tissue from his pocket and spilled out this array of pills onto the table that he was going to take.

I don't know if they were vitamins. I don't know if it was diabetes medication. I don't know what it was for, but I sat there just wondering about this man. And it really brought me to think about whether or not the condition of what we would usually refer to as gluttony. Is that a conscious choice or are there issues that come into play? So is someone who is characterized as glutinous, always intentionally overeating, or are there, and could there be psychological issues at play pathological factors at play?

And the, like, not too long after that I was on campus and I was eating in the dining hall. I was going to have lunch in the dining hall, which I try to do on occasion to eat with the students. And one of my students who was, is one of the happiest people I've ever met, walked by and said, hello to me. And I, I watched the, she went up to the salad bar and I was curious as what she was going to come back with because she was a very, very thin young woman and sure enough, she walked past me and, and, and nodded and on her plate, I think she had a couple of cucumber pieces, an olive and maybe a celery stick or something.

And it turned out in fact that not that long after that she did confide in me that she had had an eating disorder and was, was dealing with it. Her had pretty much struggled with it, our whole life and that student who I'm still in touch with today is, is, has become very successful and is doing fine. But, but it's still a, you know, an eating disorder is the equivalent of an addiction. You don't really get past that. You learn how to live with it. And, and I think that's true as well for someone who overeats.

I know I'm, I'm, I'm guilty of that at times. I've struggled with my weight, my weight, since I was 10 years old and overeating is, is one of the things that has always sort of really derailed any kind of diet that I'm looking at. I can remember years ago, I had gone on, on one of those low carb diets, because carbs are my thing. If I could eat only bread, I'd survive on bread, and it would be fine, you know, th th th th th the to punishment, and we're going to put you on bread and water.

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

I mean, it was just, it was heaven. And so are, you know, a lot of what I deal with in this chapter is about our sort of uncomfortable relationship with food.

Speaker 0 (6m 45s): Yeah, it's interesting. That's the first time I saw it in that light, I was speaking with my wife this morning, and I had never thought to equate that with addiction or with maybe somebody that has anorexia or bulemia it's, I myself have been a victim of the images or the definitions that people want me to think about. And that would be the gluttonous approach as far as it being heavy and stuff like that. And, you know, then there's always this guy, George, at the holiday party, that's putting away cakes, you know, why is it always uncle George putting away the cakes?

You know,

Speaker 1 (7m 19s): I don't mind, my cousin used to drive me crazy because he's always been thin and in very good shape. And he eats anything he wants and always drove me nuts. And because I can't do that. And so there is something about individual metabolism and individual biology, which is, which has to be a factor here. But by and large, you know, someone is going to look at that gentlemen, who I was in the dining hall with who was, you know, the 600 pound man eating three plates of food, they're going to probably look down their nose at him and say, oh, he's overeating.

You know, as if it's his choice when it may not necessarily be entirely into his control.

Speaker 0 (8m 4s): Yeah. That, and that brings up an interesting point. If indeed it is some sort of personality effect, you know, I don't know how to ascribe fall to that, but you can see it move not only in food or eating, but throughout all kinds of behaviors. You know, if it's it's, I believe maybe you defined it too, as, as excess in today's world. However, there's an interesting definition that was given to it in the middle ages about the king of the belly or something like that.

Could you share that part with us?

Speaker 1 (8m 36s): Yeah. Well, this, this idea that you're ruled by your stomach and it it's, it's a dangerous thing. You know, it's interesting because over our history, as a species, our days have, have changed our, our, our, our, our time, our clock has changed. And I mean, by that is, you know, I remember growing up, I mean, I, and you probably too, George, you know, thinking there was breakfast, there was lunch and there was dinner, but sometimes we call that supper.

And actually they're two different things because separ is a late night meal. And it used to be before the age of electricity, really, before the 20th century, that folks would usually go to sleep and would actually wake up around midnight or 1:00 AM and have a little snack. And that was supper. Now, part of the reason for that waking up was the nourishment part of it was also a defense mechanism to wake up, to make sure everything was safe, different worlds, right?

And so, you know, today now we, we do breakfast, lunch, dinner. Some people still do supper. Some people call it dinner, supper. Some people call it lunch dinner for that matter. But I think that our eating habits are much more all over the board today. And, you know, that's been really exacerbated by the incredible availability of things like fast food and processed food, which has not done us any favors.

It has knocked on the semi favors, but you can see exactly what's going on with it. I mean, you know, it, it, it, it, in the, in the chapter, I talk about what happened after world war II with the baby boom generation and the fact that my parents who I suppose they would be considered, they would have, would have been considered baby boomers, probably early ones. My father was, was, was, and the service right at the end of world war II. And they got married in 61.

And for them processed food, which was all the rage at the time was a reflection of affluence of success. And so, you know, the, the, one of the fundamental examples of that is, is breastfeeding. When formula was introduced in the 1960s, it was introduced with, with the idea that, you know, well, I can afford to breast feed my child formula. I don't have to breastfeed like my grandmother did in those primitive days.

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

About whether or not you should eat food that was considered, you know, a whole food versus a food which has been processed and then had the nutrients reintroduced. Right. You know, you, you see these white breads on the shelf and it's enriched. It's like, well, why did it have to be enriched? What was because they took everything out of it to begin with to make it white, because it looks pure. And it's a lot of it's optics.

Speaker 0 (12m 27s): Yeah. It's, it's interesting to think about the etymology of words and how, if you just look back a few generations ago and listen to the words people use, you can get an idea of how they live. Like when I think of breakfast, it's like break fast. Yeah. And then there was the old quote of it's the best thing since sliced bread, you know, like that's probably when they went from making their own bread to, Hey, look, it's already sliced. I can make stuff. And it's fascinating to think about the moving forward into two fluence and different countries you wrote in your book, and you just spoke briefly about sometimes being a little heavier set can denote a fluence.

And I think that that's the case in some third world countries, you, you give an example of going to different places and, and maybe seeing different cultures. Can you give an example of that?

Speaker 1 (13m 19s): Yeah. I mean, my favorite is, and I, I think I actually, yeah, I do still have the picture hanging up here on my wall. It was the first time we visited the United Kingdom and we were walking down a little small street in Wales. And I was so struck by the sign that I took a picture of it. It was for a buffet restaurant. And instead of the sign saying, as it would in the us, all you can eat, which is implies, just eat until you explode. It says eat as much as you like.

And it's a very subtle difference there, right? I mean, the one is encouraging you to ovaries. The other is eat as much as you'd like. Right. It's it. You know, and so buffet is, are one of the, you know, I mean, if anything is destroyed diets, it's, it's the buffet and the combination with, with, with the fast food restaurants, which just seem to just completely dot the landscape now. I mean, it, it's just crazy that you can't really drive in most areas more than a couple of miles without passing one or more of the fast food restaurants.

Speaker 0 (14m 28s): Yeah. It's amazing how advertisement has just tapped right into some of these sins. Just mainlined it right into the veins

Speaker 1 (14m 34s): It has and kids are indoctrinated early. Right. I remember there was, there was a study done by psychologists maybe a decade ago, and they gave kids carrots, carrot sticks to eat, and they wanted to see whether packaging made a difference. And so to one set of kids, they gave carrot sticks just on a plate. And they were kind of blah, about that. Not really very interested and to another, they gave carrot sticks in a McDonald's French fry box and they scarf them down.

And I mean, you know, you can ask any, any little kid, you know, about, about corporate logos and they recognize those golden arches don't they? Because it, it, as you say, I mean, it's kind of, we're just indoctrinated, it's part of our blood in the U S too, to know those corporate logos specifically when it comes to things related to food and fast food.

Speaker 0 (15m 36s): Yeah. That's a great point. One day we should do something strictly on symbology and how powerful symbols are like, It's like, McDonald's is the new mystery school with all their symbols and stuff. It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (15m 49s): I mean, and, and, and that whole, the logo business, right. I mean, it is a business, right. So much so that, you know, in, in recent times now people even talk about branding themselves. Right. What's your brand. Right. And, and, and you hanging out, I have a brand. And what goes along with that usually is some sort of a, of a symbol, a logo, right. That symbolizes you.

Speaker 0 (16m 11s): Yeah. That can be interesting. We're going to talk more about that. I really like that idea. I remember when I remember on a side note, going to Mexico for the first time I used to live down there for awhile and some of the younger kids, like they were pretty heavy and you could see the beaming, you know, in their, in their mom's eyes, you could see like, Hey, my kid is bigger, you know? And, and that was just also that sign of influence

Speaker 1 (16m 36s): What we were told as kids clean your county. Yep. You know what I mean? You know, the, the, the politically incorrect clean your plate, they're kids starving in Africa.

Speaker 0 (16m 45s): That's so true. Right.

Speaker 1 (16m 47s): You know, and I mean, it was always a sign of, of, of affluence that you could, you had that much food to eat and you don't want to waste it. And I think what happened was as American plates literally got larger and American refrigerate refrigerators got larger. We really bought into the idea that we, we still need to clean the plate, which is, you know, one of the tricks of course, for a lot of diets is to, is to put your food on smaller plates, right. Smaller portions.

But if you, if you go out to a restaurant and they bring you one of these 15 inch plates, and it's filled with food, you feel the, the, the th you know, I hear my mother in the back saying, you know, lean your plate, right. No dessert, if you don't clean your plate. And it's just, that has stuck with us. I mean, you know, I, I, in many ways, I mean, the issues that I have with my weight, I can, I can pretty much point directly to my upbringing in the sixties and seventies with parents who wanted to, to present that they had done well as being really a lot of the cause, eating processed foods.

I mean, you know, I can remember as a kid in elementary school, I used to go across the street to the deli and sometimes my lunch, and I'm not proud of this today was a whole dill, pickle, and a package of Twinkies, you know, breakfast of Jewish champions. And now, I mean, Twinkies, I don't know if there's anything more sort of horrible. I try, I actually bought a package, not that long ago. And just because I wanted to, I used to love them.

Oh, it was, it was awful. It's greasy. And just, you feel like you brush your teeth afterwards. It's just really just horrible. But I, you know, and so in one way, you know, if you look at the market today, people are trying to get back to eating so-called whole foods, not, not, not the, not the chain, but, but the concept of whole foods, but it's difficult. It's hard to do. And in most cases, in some strange irony, it's more expensive than it is to eat processed food, which is why someplace like McDonald's and taco bell are, are doing so well because it's cheap.

And so they're catering to an audience that can't spend a lot of money on food and can bring, you know, their family to a McDonald's and feed the whole family for, you know, whatever it is. I mean, even, even there, the prices have gotten ridiculous, but it's still, it's still a bargain and they're encouraging you to do it. I, I mean, I'm a vegetarian and when burger king brought out their impossible Whopper, I mean, I remember eating a Whopper when I was a little kid.

I've been a vegetarian since 98. And, but I have eaten the impossible burger and I it's good. And they, they can't with the impossible Whopper and I thought, oh, great. And so, I mean, on occasion, I will get an impossible Whopper and I really enjoy it. But I went in there a couple of months ago and they were doing two for $6. Now one usually costs about $6. So it was basically buy one, get one free. Now, what am I going to do with the other one?

You know? And so there are, it's almost like they're, and I don't want to, to come out wrong, but it's almost like they're forcing us to do this because, you know, it's not going to keep, I'm not going to put it in the refrigerator. I'm not gonna throw it out. And I had nobody else to give it to. So it, it, it's in many ways, it's very frustrating the way that the food industry has, if not contributed, certainly really facilitated this problem.

And I don't see that changing.

Speaker 0 (20m 56s): Yeah. That's a huge issue. I often wonder how large corporations can talk to us about sustainability when their business model is built on excess consumption. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21m 7s): It's, it's, it's interesting, isn't it? I mean, you know, someplace like a cheesecake factory, which at one point had something on the menu, I forget what the calorie counter was, something outrageous. And, and people complained and said, you know, how can you serve this? It's terrible. It's so high in calories and fat. And their response was what we, we also have salads. And so they're, you know, again, it's, they're, they're putting the responsibility in the, the, the hands of the consumer, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It's just when they're enticing you with something, which is high in calories and low in fat, and it's half the price of the salad, which isn't nearly as attractive. What are people going to eat? I mean, come on, you know, it's again, it's the kid with the, you know, you're going to have the carrots on the plate or would you rather have them in the McDonald's container? I'll take them in the McDonald's container. Makes it feel like I'm eating French fries.

Speaker 0 (22m 4s): Oh yeah. There's, there's a fascinating book by Cass Sunstein called nudge. And in there, they talk about the strategies in which they get people. They should probably call it shove. Cause it's kind of in your face. You know, however, they talk about a similar project where they went to some schools and they put all the healthy choices, they put the carrots and the fruit upfront, and then they hit the candy in the back. And just, just out of presentation, children and people were able to make better decisions.

Speaker 1 (22m 31s): Sure. Yeah. I mean, and I think that that is a real, a reality. I mean, even if you go into a grocery store, I mean, part of it is, is what one writer called the tyranny of choice, right? Oh

Speaker 0 (22m 41s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22m 41s): You go down the cereal aisle and the corporations that sell the cereal by the shelf space. So the healthier choices are usually at the bottom or all the way at the top. They're not an eye level. What's at eye level is the high sugar stuff. And unless you are a discerning consumer and understand the way that that works, you're not going to know, you know, so, I mean, I know when we walk into a grocery store, in most cases, I know the stuff that's eye level is not what we're really going to be buying.

It's the stuff that's either on the top shelf or on the bottom bombshell.

Speaker 0 (23m 17s): Yeah. It's amazing how, and then they got you go to the checkout, all the, all the candies right there for the kids to see,

Speaker 1 (23m 23s): And so much so that, do you remember when they started doing some grocery stores still do what I think where they did intentionally that some checkout lines that didn't have any candy because parents were complaining and they didn't want the candy there and they didn't want all the other impulse item things that the kids would cry about. And so there were some, some, you know, checkout lines where they would, you know, have a up and say it was, you know, candy for, or whatever the case may be. But yeah, I mean, that's one of the easiest things. It's the impulse right there and that's why they call them impulse items.

It, it, it, they're impulsive buys. They're not things that you necessarily plan to buy, but you're standing there waiting and, oh, look a candy bar, you know, and then you start thinking, well, what time is it? And you know, when am I going to eat next then? And you, you start doing that, that kind of weird math in your head to justify whether or not you should, you should buy it. And that's, it's, it's, it takes a lot of self-control, which most of us don't have my phone.

Speaker 0 (24m 26s): Yeah. I agree. Do you think that impulsivity is tied to gluttony and if so, how?

Speaker 1 (24m 31s): It certainly can be. And I think it's, it's that question of self-control right? Because again, we're going back to the very concept of all of these sins of being sensitive, excess, right. Can you control yourself? Can you control your, your, your feelings of desire or are you going to be guilty of lust? Can you control your, your feelings of, of hunger and appetite, or are you going to go over the line and become a glutton? And so a lot of it does deal with our psychology, which is such a mystery still today, right?

As to why people do what they do. And, you know, I can, I can speak from experience because I will often eat something and I, I don't even know why I'm eating it, it it's, it's, it's, it's either, you know, some people call it bored, eating, right? There's bored, eating, or stress eating. We've got all of us, all those different vernacular for it now. Right. But it all comes down to sort of shifting the responsibility and saying, well, it's not really me.

I'm stress eating, or it's not merely me. I'm bored eating because I don't have anything to do. And so, so many of these issues, I think come back to us, really regaining responsibility for our own actions in every venue. And we too often and too easily want to shift the blame onto someone or something else and say, well, it's not me. It's, you know, my overactive thyroid, which, I mean, it's a real thing. I don't mean to belittle people who have that condition, but people who have an overactive thyroid will tend to overeat, but it's easy.

It becomes an easy crutch to kind of pass it off and say, well, it's not my fault. I gotta do this. You know, it reminds me of, of, of, you know, when women are pregnant and they say, well, the baby needs a Pop-Tart. Right. You know, and it's, you know, it's funny, but, and they, they have cravings. Right. But, you know, my favorite is, you know, I, I, I had a good friend years ago who, when she was pregnant, she used to say up the baby needs a Pop-Tart and she'd have to go down and get a Pop-Tart because that's what she was craving, oddly enough.

Speaker 0 (26m 50s): Yep. You know, if this may be, I don't think it's a bridge too far, but let's say that the sins and particularly gluttony, they're there to teach us something. And if we can overcome them, what lessons do you think they're there to teach us?

Speaker 1 (27m 6s): Well, I mean, if we can, if we can learn from it and learn control, which, you know, of course, we're going back again to the, to the very Eastern idea, right? I mean, the Shanti Shanti Shanti control, right. If you can have that control that self control over your physical self, over your emotional self history has shown through various figures that we become better human beings and more able to fulfill our potential in that case.

And so, you know, if you take a look at the stories of the Buddha, for example, and dealing with these issues, it really is about learning how to control self. And that's a hard thing to do, especially today, when, as we've already mentioned, you know, we're bombarded with everything, images, data, and it's, it's often really hard to do that. I mean, this morning I was, I was doing about 10 things at once and I got to say, I was just feeling jittery.

And I was like, I got to slow down or I'm just gonna gonna burst. It was like the pressure cooker, you know? And so I, I closed the door to my office and, and put something on the internet. And as something that I enjoy watching and just sat here for about 10, 15 minutes and just did some breathing to try to regain that control because I felt like I was losing it, you know? And we, we use that phrase, right. I'm I'm going to lose it. Right. What are you going to lose? You're losing control. Yeah.

And so a lot of it is about, about figuring out how to gain that control. And I, and I do believe, again, I I'm very much a, a subscriber to young Ian thought that that will assist you on that road to individuation and, and more clear, and really conscious understanding of who you are.

Speaker 0 (29m 19s): Yeah. That's, I'm glad to hear you bring up young, like one thing, the book is called seven deadly sins. Everybody do yourself a huge favor and check it out. One thing that I, I really like not only about this book, but some of the articles and maybe speeches that you given, that you can see at your blog, which is linked down below, is that you have a very unique ability for interdisciplinary explanations. And I see this pattern you're weaving not only through the past, not only through symbolic poets of France, but through your personal experiences.

And I think it goes even a level deeper. Like when I re, when I read this chapter, I saw you specifically gluttony, you were talking about like, you have a really good knowledge of it. And when you gave your personal experiences about the young woman, you sat down with, you gave an example of her eating disorder. And to me, that was an example of someone who's really knowledgeable about it. Someone that's going through it and the inner connectedness, the interplay of relationships that can help both people understand what it is. That is something that you like, I don't know if you give yourself enough credit for that, but that's something that is, I don't see that too often.

And it, it really is interdisciplinary, but yeah, I don't, even if there's another word

Speaker 1 (30m 33s): It is being, being open and not viewing yourself as existing in a kind of a disciplinary silo, right. Too often, people will say, well, I'm a psychologist. And, and, and that's the kind of the pigeonhole they've put themselves into. And so they don't really pay attention to things that are going on outside their own discipline when they don't realize that especially today, really we are living in very interdisciplinary transdisciplinary times.

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

We were right in the middle of the pandemic at that point, COVID-19 on the table, metaphorically in the middle of the room, and now we're all going to approach it from our own discipline. Now there are issues related to COVID that are medical and biological to be sure, but there are issues that are social and sociological, economic, philosophical, artistic, even, you know, th there's a lot going on there. And oftentimes when we can look at an old problem through a new lens, we see it in a completely different way.

And what an incredible gift that could be if we could do that. You know, I mean, I I'm, I'm, I'm amazed by people who my wife had LASIK surgery several years ago. One of my students is actually getting it next week and she's, she's excited a little bit nervous and, but she's always had poor eyesight and I'm like, wow. I mean, what is this going to be? Look, you're going to see the world in a whole new way. And you know, what, what an amazing gift that could be.

And I think that people who are willing to shift disciplines and look at things through the lens of different dif disciplines, I know this guy who lives in Alaska, he won't mind me talking about him. He's a little loopy. He's, he's got six PhDs in completely different areas. That what I tell students that they look at me like I'm insane. And sometimes I think he's insane. Six PhDs. I mean, one was certainly enough for me, but he was able to look at the world from very different perspectives and blend those together.

And, you know, what, what an amazing ability that is.

Speaker 0 (33m 34s): Yeah. I think that I would put your work in there, like being able to see the same problem from different times, you know, and, and different authors, and not only that, but different languages, you know, you and interpretation means the same as I forgot if you interpret something, you also give it meaning to, I can't think of a word, but yeah, it's, it's, it's fascinating how gluttony can also not just be food, eating disorders, but in today's modern world, we kind of have a problem with technology.

What do you think about that?

Speaker 1 (34m 11s): We are, we are gluttons for information, right? We are gluttons for information. And I think in this chapter I mentioned, and some listeners will remember a movie from the 1980s called short circuit, which had a robot in it who wanted more, more information, more informed, more data, more information, more input. He says more input. And because that's all what he learns. And we are in a, in a unique kind of position at the moment because we have access to more information than human beings ever have had before.

And the way that we process that information, the way that we absorb that information and the way that we use it is probably worse than human beings I've ever done before. I mean, someone who I know is, is, is near and dear to your heart and mind as well. I mean, if you compare a modern thinker, would Thomas Aquinas, I mean, in what Thomas Aquinas was able to accomplish this fourth century, given what he knew about the world and think about if Thomas Aquinas lived today and the access to information that he would have today and what that would mean for him, but human beings, we don't do that.

I mean, it's, it's, you know, one of my favorite essays is an essay by Vannevar Bush. It's called, as we may think. I think I've mentioned it before in 1945. And he basically predicts the internet and his whole thing was, you know, in the future, we're going to have these machines, basically personal computers that will allow us to store information and essentially store memory. We're not going to have to re memorize dates and, and, and, and menial kinds of facts because they're going to be accessible, easily accessible.

I mean, it's, it's uncle Google, wasn't it? You know, you can ask uncle Google anything, and he'll give you an answer. And, but bushes, whole idea in that essay. It's so brilliant is, and when we can do that, who will free our minds to do higher level thinking and fulfill our potential as human beings. And instead, what are people doing? They're binge watching squid games. They're not doing it there. W we, we we've gotten lulled into this weird data.

Hum right? The data is all around us all the time. And maybe it's an inability to process it or inability to sort it and figure out what is good data versus bad data. And I mean, there may be a parallel here to information and disinformation, right. And being what we call, you know, media literate in, in higher ed. Now we use the phrase information literacy, right? That we want students to be able to, to know how to process information properly and be literate about getting their information.

And they're not, they're not, you know, yesterday morning, last night, excuse me, last night I was teaching and I almost made a comment, an offhand remark about the Oscars the night before and the will Smith, Chris rock, just the backhoe. And the fact that social media is just, just lit up with all of this. And yes, it was, it was, it was odd.

It was dare. I say interesting. It was whatever, but there are a hell of a lot more problems in the world right now. And so there's a good example of, you know, Vannevar Bush saying, you know, the internet can handle a lot of this nonsense for us. Use your brain for something bigger. Now I didn't mention it to my class last night because I, I assumed maybe incorrectly that most of them had no idea what I was talking about. I'm sure they hadn't.

Nobody had watched the Oscars. Actually, if they'd heard about the incident, they probably just seen it online. And even if, then, I don't know, I'll ask them tomorrow night. I'll be curious to hear what they say.

Speaker 0 (38m 27s): Yeah. It's, it brings up, I've been reading this philosopher named he's a Korean philosopher and the last name is Chun. And he's got a book called saving beauty. And in this book he talks about the pornographic nature of sameness. And he talks about how today's world of art specifically. I think Jeff Koons, who did the balloon dog. And if you look at the artwork today in the, in the most successful artwork, we see these smooth surfaces without any gaps.

And a lot of times it's something silvery or mirror like, and you can see yourself in that artwork and what a obscene way to see an image of yourself in something beautiful. Like, but you deny yourself to see yourself as beautiful when you see this image of it.

Speaker 1 (39m 15s): Well, what was that? That, that was it at a world's fair decades and decades ago where they, they had a, an exhibit and it was a mirror and there was a sign about, see the most dangerous animal on the, on the, on the planet. And you walked up to it and you looked in the mirror and saw you. And so, you know, I, I think you're right. I mean, yeah, the, the Coons balloons, it's kind of interesting that you do see your reflection when you look at those. And I think that the, the, the similarity and the, the repetition, oftentimes, you know, if we want to go to the art world is really kind of interesting.

I just finished watching the Andy Warhol documentary. That's on Netflix. It's very well done, but you know, Warhol is one of those figures, right? I mean, people looked at, at, at things like the early pop art that he was doing with the Campbell soup cans and things like that. And it was about repetition. It was about the sort of commercializing of our, of our, of our world. And what does sort of make us stand back and take note is when we see something that you know, is not like anything else.

Right. And I think that that's probably the most interesting thing, you know, I mean, if you go to see the Mona Lisa people are always underwhelmed, right? Because first of all, it's small and they don't think it's going to be that small it's behind glass. So you're see, you see all kinds of weird Clare and reflection, and you can't even get close to it anymore. You have to stand about six feet back behind the stanchions. But if you're in that room, watching the Mona Lisa, or watching, looking at the Mona Lisa, I would say, turn around and look at what else is around you.

Right? One of the, the, the curiosities about the up and coming generation is if you walk through a museum with these kids there, all they're doing is taking pictures on their phones. They're not having the experience. They're not having the experience. It's all about just recording it, but in recording it, they're not actually having the experience. They're almost having what, what the philosopher, John boatyard would call a simulacrum, right? It's a simulation of reality.

They didn't really experience that. They've sent pictures. And that just is. I remember when I was a kid, you know, living in, in New York, my father was, it was a huge devotee of the metropolitan museum of art. We were members. We used to go down almost every Sunday. We would go down there and he particularly loved the impressionist painters, which I grew to, to of course appreciate as well. But I remember when the king Tut exhibit came in, it must've been in the 1970s and you had to get tickets and it was timed.

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

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

He had it almost exactly right. If you want to read about memory book 10 of the Santa Augustin's confessions is genius.

Speaker 0 (43m 32s): I definitely want to read about that. On a side note, I've been talking with Dr. Paul, Valerie, who is a, one of the leading psychiatry of our time. He wrote a book about the development of unconscious, the development of memory and the unconscious child in the seventies, I think. And he recently wrote a new book called the embodied mind in this, his new theory is that our, our memories are stored in every single cell of our body. And, but it gets it. I want to bring it back to the point where the way when you said that kids go into museums and they're using their phone, and they're no longer having the experience, it's like, they're constantly searching to find the experience.

So they use media to take pictures of media, and that's almost gluttonous like a person that's consuming so much to get full, but because maybe there's no nutrients, they just have to keep eating to get the feeling of it. It's the same thing of consuming art to get that experience. But you never can with that particular medium, it's weird how those tie

Speaker 1 (44m 30s): Together. Yeah. I mean it, and I mean, psychologists show that it all comes down to that, that dopamine hit, that you get right, that the pleasure center of your brain and, you know, it studies have shown over and over again that especially kids with social media, that's, that's what they're getting. When, when they get likes on their Instagram page, it gives them that dopamine hit and that's what they're waiting for. And when they don't get it, that's how we end up with an epidemic of, of depressed children, right. Who are growing up in this kind of a media environment, and don't really know how to handle it, and don't know how to interpret what's happening in a real, proper way.

But I think you're, you're right. It's, there's, there's something about all of the, the media, the technology that gets in between us and the experience, whatever the experience might be. I mean, what's all the rage now, th th th the, the Oculus virtual reality glasses, right. Which I can't do because the motion makes me nauseous, but I I've got a good friend who absolutely loves it and will text me and say, you know, I, I climbed Mount Everest last night.

You know, he does all this incredible stuff to have. And he, and he, it's interesting because I almost just said he's experiencing it, but he's not, it's a simulation again, it's, it's, boatyards idea of a simulation. Right. And, and if you're not familiar with that idea, right. I mean, the SIM is, is sort of a landmark ex illustration example of a simulation is Disney world, right. Which is a completely artificial environment so much so that, you know, they, they empty the garbage cans from below the ground underground.

Cause they don't want people to see the garbage trucks because that would, that would break the simulation shopping malls, which are, are a dying breed. We're another example of a simulation, right? I, the inside of a shopping mall was meant to evoke a sense of the old neighborhood, right? With benches and trees and little carts in the middle. It's a simulation of an old neighborhood. And so, you know, Bellevue art is, is I, I think a real genius, although I can say I probably uncle Mr.

10% of what I've read of his is very complicated. But I do think that he, that he's right, that we increasingly, and technology has made that much worse. We've separated ourselves, ourselves, and our self from the experience, the experience of, of living and look at how we use the language, right? So I've got students who went to go see the, the, the van Gogh experience over the holiday break, right.

Where you can walk into and be sort of inside of van Gogh painting. And that's what call it the Vango experience. And they had interesting takes on it. Now these are students who are museum study students. So they have a little bit of a different critical eye. Some of them really enjoyed it and really liked it. But I think if I were to take a poem, most of them did not. They, they, they would rather, they said go to MoMA and standing in front of starry night and look at the painting rather than quote unquote being inside the painting and whatever that means.

So, you know, I think they're becoming a little bit more discerning when it comes to this, but as with anything it's going to take generations, you know, I always think my, my, my grandfather died in 1970 and I always think my God, what would he think if, if, if he were around today, look at how different the world is today, 50 years later. And it just, I don't know how he would, what he would think, how he would cope, even my own father, who, who, who died five years ago, you know, what would he think?

I mean, I remember when, when the front page of the New York times had the Mo mobile hospitals for COVID during, COVID set up in central park. And I remember getting the paper that morning and just shaking my head. And I just said, I said, my father would never believe it, you know, now, and I'm not necessarily, again, as we talked about last time, I'm not a Luddite. I'm not saying, oh, you know, progress is bad, but we also often have to ask progress at what cost and what is progress.

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

Speaker 0 (49m 44s): Yeah. That is, it's so true. I it's like the inverse of progress. We're slowly getting everything that's meaningful, stripped away from us in the name of progress. Yeah. It's and it's something that, you know, I'm hopeful that that's one reason I really enjoy this book that you get such a great idea of what definitions were in the path of how people saw things and from different, not only different times, but different places on the planet.

Yeah. And that for me has been a really good experience to, you know, see the, the Trailhead, Hey, if you want to know more, go read this book, if you want read book 10, you know, and I think that's really to do. And I, I, again, I, I'd probably banging this drum people, but the book is called seven deadly sins. It's awesome. Check it out. You'll really enjoy it. I,

Speaker 1 (50m 39s): Yeah. I mean, one of the things I I mentioned is, is Ben Franklin, right? Who in a book in 1786, it's actually called the art of procuring pleasant dreams. He wrote in general mankind since then, since the improvement of cookery eat about twice, as much as nature requires, and that's 1786. So even realizing it then of course, Franklin not known for being someone who was a verse to, to a good meal in a, in a, in a, at least one glass of wine.

I imagine that, you know, it's kind of interesting that that comes from him. But then if you, if you look at this the way that this has morphed specifically in America, after world war two, with things like TV dinners, right. Which really encourage you to just sit and lethargic only eat in front of a television, which, you know, dieticians and nutritionists will tell you is the worst thing that you could do because you're not really paying attention.

You're not doing anywhere near the kind of thing that mindful eating resembles because you're, you're just paying attention to what's on the screen while you shovel food into your mouth. But I remember I grew up on TV dinners. I remember, you know, sitting in front of the TV, watching, you know, the Flintstones five and five 30 every day on channel five in New York with my brother and my sister and my mother would make us Swanson's TV dinners.

It was easy. And again, I think for, for, for a generation, it reflected a degree of affluence and you know, where they, the most healthy things in the world, probably not. Were they, as unhealthy as some of the dinners that you see now that are being sold? Probably not, but again, sizes change and, and the, the content has changed. And just the, the, just our lifestyle has changed. I mean, if you, if you and George you've spent time outside of the U S I mean, in most, most countries outside the U S particularly European countries, most of the households still have small refrigerators and they food shop almost every day for fresh food.

It's an America where refrigerators now are the size of cars. And, you know, we've all got stuff in our refrigerator that we bought six months ago, but preservatives will keep it quote unquote fresh. Right. And it's just, it's just a different lifestyle. And am I saying that it's, that one is better than the other? Not necessarily, I'm not making that judgment.

I'm asking us to reflect on a little bit and think about what that means and what's it doing to us? I mean, personally, yeah. It's a heck of a lot easier if I go home at the end of the day and throw a microwave dinner into the microwave or four minutes and stand there and wait for it to beep down to a second and open the door so I can eat it. Right. And nobody puts it in the second time. So, you know, microwave companies don't even put that in the instructions. Nobody does that, but it would be a heck of a lot better if I went home and made my dinner with fresh ingredients, but that's time consuming.

And we are always under a time crunch. It probably is going to end up being more expensive. And in most cases it would probably require that I almost on a daily basis do some little bit of shopping. Now in a lot of villages in European countries, you have a neighborhood grocer where you can just stop and pick up fresh fruit and vegetables every day, as much as you need. And, and, and that's it here.

We tend to go grocery shopping once a week. And so we buy what we need for the week, supposedly, and that ends up being a lot of food that can, that can last, it's got preservatives. Right. And, you know, I, I get it. It's, it's, it's, it's a, it's an economic thing for a lot of people, and I'm not, I'm not as high and mighty to think that, you know, everybody should be able to do that. I know a lot of people can't afford to do that, but what does that say about our culture when it's cheaper to eat junk food than it is to eat good food, it says something about us as a culture and what we value.

Speaker 0 (55m 27s): Yeah. It, and think about what, when you're, we've started making bread here just strictly for economic reasons. And, and you know, what happens when you make bread is, Hey, I, my daughter's got sky come over here. Like, can you hand that to me? Oh, what do you need that for all? You got to add this in here. Oh, well, it doesn't look like it's gonna taste very good. Wait till we do this, you know, and there's a whole conversation that happens. And when you making something with somebody you're sharing something with somebody

Speaker 1 (55m 54s): You're experiencing it, you're sharing an experience, which you would not have if you just went down to the local supermarket and bought a pre-packaged loaf of bread.

Speaker 0 (56m 5s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56m 5s): So again, it's about the importance of the experience.

Speaker 0 (56m 10s): Yeah. You, you sum up the chapter nicely with a throwback to the, the always insightful DH Lawrence and Paul. Valerie. Do you remember how you, how you summed up this chapter?

Speaker 1 (56m 21s): I'm trying to remember, let me look through, remind myself here. Ah, yes, yes, yes. Well, I'm calling, coming back to them because of, of technology, right? So really it's, it's interesting that in our, in our gluttonous ways of dealing with data now, now we got these companies that offer digital detoxes, right? Where you can go on this kind of a retreat and unplugged your phone.

One company says that you can unplug and decompress. It's, it's a, it reduces anxiety, stress, depression, tech, dependency, fatigue, and information overload. But in many ways, we're kind of back with a lot of the ideas of somebody like Paul, Valerie, or DH Lawrence in the first half of the 20th century, who were really trying to get us to become better acquainted with who we are as human beings.

And if I'm constantly on my phone doing whatever, I I'm just, I'm throwing up a barrier. You know, I, I find it interesting when I walk around on campus and the kid, you know, see kids on their phones. And when you see somebody on their phone and I don't mean on their phone as in making a call because hardly anybody does that anymore, but they're on their phone, on social media or texting or whatever the case may be having that phone up in front of you and doing that is almost a universal symbol of go away.

Right? You may as well have a sign on the, who says, I don't want to talk to anybody, leave me alone. It's become an easy way to do that. And God, that's dangerous for us as human beings and for, for what it means to our humanity. You know, I often joke about colleagues I've had over the years, who always end. There's a great Seinfeld episode that does this, who are always looked like they are busy, busy, busy, right? They're always walking. If they're walking between buildings, they're on their cell phone.

And I always used to joke about those people were always on their way, but never arrived. It just looks like they're always, always in a rush. And there's that great Seinfeld episode where George talks about, you know, how he can, he just looks busy. And when you look busy, people think you are busy, but I, I want to get back to the experience of living. And it's hard because our culture really isn't very forgiving when it comes to that.

I mean, I'm as bad as anybody about disconnecting students will often say, you know, I respond to email almost instantly. And it's true because I don't like to have a lot of it piled up in my inbox. And I'm always worried that I'm going to forget to respond to something if I let it go by, but it gives the, the, the, the perception that I'm a workaholic and, you know, we can get my wife on and she can give you the opposing view. I don't think I am.

I don't want to be, but it's difficult not to be in this day and age because we never get to disconnect. I mean, think about our parents who didn't have cell phones when they weren't at work. They weren't at work. Now it's easy to be at work. 24 7 work goes with you.

Speaker 0 (59m 53s): Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's sometimes I think that it's almost these constant distractions. So this idea of looking busy so that you don't see the experience is not what it used to be.

Speaker 1 (1h 0m 8s): Sure. Oh, I think there, I think there's something to that. I think there's also something about, about looking and being busy, because it will prevent you from really looking at truths about yourself and about the world, which oftentimes can be really uncomfortable. Right. I mean, it goes back to that that the youngian journey, right? Of going into the cave, you have to confront the shadow self. If you don't do that, you can't get past it. You can't figure out how to reconcile that.

Then you're never going to grow. But in an effort to avoid that, we, we throw up these barriers and just say, well, I'm too busy to do that. I'm too busy to, to, to, to meditate. I'm too busy to go take a walk on the beach with my, with my spouse. I'm too busy to, you know, do whatever the case may be. And we, we are, you know, I mean, it, it, it, it's almost like that'll be our epitaph on our tombstones. Right. You know, David Solomon, he was too busy and that would be a sad epitaph.

Wouldn't it?

Speaker 0 (1h 1m 13s): Yeah. George Monte. I rather enjoy the interpretation of my fellow prisoners shadows.

Speaker 2 (1h 1m 22s): That

Speaker 0 (1h 1m 22s): Is fantastic. Doctor. I really enjoy our conversations and I feel like they're getting better. And I, I, I really thought this chapter was my favorite so far. Maybe that's because I'm getting to know you better and understand the work better. And is there anything else you would like to leave our audience with before we go today?

Speaker 1 (1h 1m 38s): No. I mean, I, my, I think you have my blog site and my website up, and if anyone's interested in and would like a signed book, just send me an email and we'll, we'll figure out how to make that happen. The next chapter next week, we're going to talk about greed.

Speaker 0 (1h 1m 54s): That's going to be a good one.

Speaker 2 (1h 1m 56s): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (1h 2m 0s): Fantastic. And I would recommend everybody go check out the recent blog posts. That was a speech you gave a week or two weeks ago. It's really, I think it kind of ties nicely to the book and in some of the material we're talking about. So ladies and gentlemen, that's what we have for today. Thank you so much for spending time with us. We enjoy all of it. And we'll talk to you next week. Aloha.