Speaker 0 (0s): Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the true life podcast. We are here and we are going through the amazing book. You've had six different reasons to buy it. And now we're going to give you a number seven, for those of you that might be feeling a little, a little sloppy out there. Dr. David Solomon, the book is called seven deadly sins, and we are talking about sloths. Would you like to maybe have a little opening monologue or intro to people who may not be familiar with?

Speaker 1 (27s): Sure. So, well, not familiar with me. So I I'm, I'm, I'm currently director of undergraduate research and creative activity at Christopher Newport university in Newport news, Virginia. And I am a scholar of medieval and Renaissance literature, religion, and culture, and have written a bunch of books. Most recently, this book on the seven deadly sins, I I'm originally from New York city and very happy and grateful to George for this very nice series of, of interviews that we've done about this book and, and, and coming to a, to an end here with the seventh sin, and then we'll tie things up next week.

But I think the sin of sloth is one of the ones that people are perhaps most confused about because they don't know what that, what it is. And it is an interesting one because it has the definition for it has changed over time. Basically we think about sloths as being laziness, and that's not entirely accurate because there's a question of whether or not the, the engaging in this sin, if you will, is an active pursuit or is it something which happens?

And this is where the, the real debate comes in regarding the definition as being also sadness and depression. We can talk more about that.

Speaker 0 (2m 3s): Yeah. You mentioned in your book that I think it was Pope Gregory who conflated the two, and that's a pretty interesting story. Would you mind starting with that one?

Speaker 1 (2m 12s): Sure. So Evagrius, pontic S who's really the, the, the monk who we credit with coming up with this list of sins. Originally, he had eight and it was Gregory the great in the, in the fourth century who conflated two of them into Slav. He conflated what a vagary is called a CEDIA, excuse me, which essentially was a kind of apathy and Gregory combined that with sadness and, and came up with a sin of Slav.

And it's interesting to look at the, the distinction between those two things, and also certainly how we have confronted them in our modern world and our attitudes them. But I really do think that it is, it is more the sense of a CDN, which is a kind of an apathy, a listlessness, you know, what kids used to call the bylaws, right?

Where you just sort of have this just general malaise and somebody like Paul, Valerie, and DH Lawrence, who I quote extensively in the book. They would really look at that as being a, sort of a characteristic of our, of our modern culture, that kind of, of spiritual malaise, it's something which they noticed as early as the turn of the 20th century. And it's something which we certainly I think are confronted with an even greater ways today.

Speaker 0 (3m 52s): Yeah. It's interesting to look back in the past and see the way in which it was defined, how it was conflated, and then to think about how it's kind of mixed messaging in the modern day. You know, you mentioned you go, you go in depth into how sadness can be depression and how it's mentioned in the DSM-V. And can you talk a little bit about the modern day depression versus what some people may think slot was back then?

Speaker 1 (4m 19s): Yeah, well, I mean, and, and I'm not a psychologist, but, but certainly it seems like that word depression is thrown around an awful lot in our world today. And we hear people say I'm depressed, quote unquote. And it isn't until you start to really look at what it means to be clinically depressed, that you really start to understand what depression is all about depression. When people say I'm depressed, they more often mean that they've got that sense of malaise and kind of block off clinical depression is, is at a much greater and more powerful level.

And it is, it is certainly the case. And the studies show this constantly now that the rates of depression in our culture are on the rise, especially amongst younger people and children. And it's important to understand what those studies are saying when they are using that word depression, are they talking about clinical depression and how that is diagnosed, or are they talking just about this sense of the bylaws?

We saw a lot of it through COVID and now we're seeing the effects of it coming out of it, especially as I say, with, with children.

Speaker 0 (5m 52s): Yeah. You know, as you, as you were talking, it got me thinking about modern doctors who can diagnose people with depression. And then we go back to the middle ages, or when the, you know, when the church was powerful, they too had the power to diagnose people. And while they may have had different remedies, they sometimes they've worked for both of them. You know, it's interesting how those two have changed places as far as the definition has.

Speaker 1 (6m 16s): And, and of course the, the, the interpretation of what mental illness is right. Has changed. So significantly, just even my gosh, over the last probably 25 years, nevermind, 2000 years, you know, in the middle ages, if someone were deemed mentally ill in general, in the Western world, it indicated that they were under the possession of the devil and the re the resulting therapy quote unquote for that was to, to drill a hole in your head to let the demons escape, because the real concern was the salvation of your soul, your spiritual self.

And if in the process, your physical self died well, that was okay because you were saving the soul, which is the eternal part. And that attitude about, about the, the demons in our mind is something which we still, you know, we still use as a metaphor, but it's a powerful one. And as we've talked about before, I mean, the power of a metaphor and the power of symbols is, is not something to be sort of just shrugged off.

It is significant. And it's interesting the way that the role of the cleric and the role of the physician have kind of played an intersected over the years. And really there has been such a strong attempt in the west to separate them. And we don't see that as much, of course, in the east, or even in, in, in places like native American religions where, you know, the, the priest and the, and the doctor are often the same, the same person.

You know, I reminds me of there's a, in the closing act of Shakespeare's Hamlet, there's confusion, because there is a, a figure there who in some texts is referred to as the priest and another's as the doctor, because he really is serving both roles. And the distinction between care for the physical self and care for the spiritual self is something which is relatively modern.

Speaker 0 (8m 35s): Yeah. It's, there's so much in there that makes me think about just different topics. You know, when we think of a CDA and we think of mental illness, it's not, to me, what comes to my mind is someone who has a lot of time on their hands. Not because they're lazy, not because they're there they're stupid or think that just because maybe they have, they have abundance maybe. And so now that they almost create these problems in their mind, whether it was back in the past, if it was a person of the court, or today, maybe it's a daughter of say Paris Hilton or something like that.

Not that she is, but just saying someone that has so much stuff. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, I think you talk a little bit about the idle hands doing the devil's work.

Speaker 1 (9m 18s): Exactly. So, I mean, you know, there is a point at which you can have too much time on your hands and being thoughtful, rational human beings. We oftentimes then have that idle time and use that in order to explore things that perhaps might not be so good to dwell on, on, on our problems. And to basically, you know, as our, as our grandparents and parents used to say, build mountains out of molehills, right.

And make more of something than it might really be. But again, you know, we fall into that trap, again of who's to say, right. Objective versus subjective, right. I mean, I can't get into your head and know what your pain is. I can never do that. Pain is not something which can be objectively assessed as much as the, the health insurance companies wish it could be, but it can't be, it is a purely subjective emotion.

And the attempt to try to objectively assess someone's pain is, is really foolhardy. But nonetheless, because we are a, a data-driven society, we have something like the DSM, which will delineate, you know, the characteristics of someone who is clinically depressed and a physician, a practitioner is able to check off a bunch of boxes on a form, and that will get you, you know, the, the, the drugs that you need in order to feel better.

But it is a curiosity of our modern life. That, I mean, as you say, you know, idle hands, but on the flip side, everyone seems so busy. How do we have any time to have to be like that? And so there's an interesting sort of conundrum there where we live in a world that's so fast paced and so busy. And yet we often fall into the trap where we sort of sit back and say, what am I doing?

You know, what is this, what w what's going on here am I, is what I'm doing really meaningful? Does it have any effect? And, you know, I think that as we've talked in other episodes, that sort of self-reflection is, is definitely a positive thing. The problem is that you become so self obsessed and you fall into, you know, the other sins of pride and things like that, that you can't get out of it.

And you really then become unable to objective, really view the world. Everything is seen only through your lens and as a result, you know, because you're having a bad day, everything is just a disaster. And, and I suppose that in some ways, folks who are plagued with, with this issue of slaw and note, I'm not saying guilty of a sin because I ha I have a hard time thinking about it in that, in those terms, the folks who are plagued with that, it's, it's a very difficult thing to, to get out of.

You really do get stuck in the mire, you know, and that, that metaphor of, of, you know, your, your feet being stuck in the tar and you just, you can't move. But there is a, there is a point at which I think the writers would say that we can prevent that from happening, but it has to be active. It has to be an active effort at prevention on our part left untended.

It can, can grow and, and, and really fester. And that's what a lot of the early writers, the early monks, particularly Benedict in his rule. That that's what he's worried about with the monks is that they're going to get, they're going to be sitting around. They're not going to have anything to do. They're going to just be kind of apathetic. And, oh, I don't care about this. And I don't want to do that. And from Benedict's perspective that will possibly have them fall into some of the more serious sinful behavior.

Speaker 0 (13m 55s): Yeah. It's, it's interesting. Cause I, I really think it depends on, on how you're wired sometimes. You know, it seems like somebody sins that the people that fall the furthest have the opportunity to become our greatest heroes, you know, there's nothing more engaging and more beautiful to me than the man or woman who should have never rose to the top because they had all these demons, you know, or they are afflicted by so much. And then when you hear that story, like I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

Cause I know what's possible. And I, I, I'm a huge fan of Joseph Campbell, probably the big reason, you know? And, but I, I think that that particular power dwells within every one of these sets and especially slot slot is the, the ability, if your feet are stuck in the tar and you are being pushed down, you know, what better way than to rise above or find the courage or to find God or to find inspiration, doesn't have to be God, but it can be any sort of power that you can harness.

And then part, I think when that happens, you know, it, it, it helps make you a whole person. And one way you talk about that is you, there's an interesting relationship between envy and slog. Can you fill people in on that?

Speaker 1 (15m 13s): Yeah. Well then they seem sort of opposites don't they, you know, slot is, I don't care about anything. And envy is, you know, I care about everything that you've gotten and, and right. All I have that stuff. Right. And so they really do seem almost like polar opposites. And isn't it interesting that, that we live in a world in which we're, we're kind of battling both of those issues. I mean, we talked about last week, you know, social media envy is, is, is at the forefront and with sloths, that can be as well.

I mean, you know, we, we, we, I'm sure we all have Facebook friends and I use friends in the, in the loosest way possible who are, you know, just guilty of that kind of slot that they they've lived their entire existence on, on social media. And that I think is, is a slothful behavior because as a lot of the, the, the intellectual throughout time have told us that the, the real indication of, of an active mind is engaging with other human beings is exploration of the self is a movement.

And it doesn't even have to be a movement necessarily forward. Right. You can move backwards too, but, but that movement, I mean, I think the danger is the, is the stagnation and the feeling that you're, again, you know, that image of just stuck in the tar. And I just, I can't move. I can't go forward. I can't go backward. And that is a, it's a horrifying image. And for folks who are really experiencing that in, in serious clinical depression, in terms of that, it, it can be incredibly, incredibly painful to experience.

Now, we're lucky. We're fortunate now that we have discovered enough about the brain that we understand some of the pathology about what goes on there, and that for many people who are experiencing this, it is a, it is a drug imbalance in the brain. It's a problem with the chemistry. And that can be, if not corrected, at least augmented to the point where you can begin to, to feel better. But we also know that there are lots of people who experienced this kind of depression or put on medication, and either don't notice an immediate change, which we know it doesn't work that way.

It takes on average, I believe it's about six weeks for the meds to sort of level out your brain chemistry, or they stay on them and then they start to feel better. So they stopped taking them. Right. So that's, I, you know, I, I, over the years, I've always had students who've come in, you know, who say, you know, they, they, they weren't feeling good. They were, they were depressed. They were, went to a therapist, they were diagnosed, they were put on Prozac or Lexapro or one of them. And they took it for a couple of months and they felt better.

And then they come into me the next semester and not feeling so good. And I say, so you still on your meds? No, I stopped taking them. You know, why? Well, I was feeling better. It's like, well, maybe you shouldn't stop taking them. But, you know, I, I, part of this is also our, our ability to, to admit that we are not in total control. You know, part of this is, and I'm thinking about things like AA and the 12 step programs.

That's one of the first things that you do, right, is, you know, I can't control this and there's a, there's something greater than me. And for a lot of people that the hesitancy against getting help against, certainly against being put on medication is either a sense of pride in that I should be better than this. I should be able to do this myself, or it's that sense of shame that if I do this, it means that I'm a failure because I couldn't cope on my own when it's become very clear that for a large portion of folks who are struggling with this type of a malady, it, it really is a brain chemistry issue.

I think one of the greatest things that's happened in the last 50 years is, is, is that discovery on a, at a, at a metal level that really, you know, for a lot of people, it's just a misfunctioning brain chemistry. And luckily we have medicine that can correct that, but you gotta take it. And, and I, I do think, you know, for some folks it's difficult to surrender yourself and to admit that and to admit that, you know, yes, I need to be on this medicine every day.

Speaker 0 (20m 17s): Yeah. It's, it's difficult to, to admit that, you know, you, you have a problem because then that means all these things in the past that you did, might've been your fault. So it's not like you're admitting to this one thing in your head. It's like, Hey, everything in my life is my fault. You know, that that's a, that's a tough pill to swallow, but, you know, I think if someone, I think all of us have to swallow that pill at some point in time and it's, it can be bitter, you know, sometimes you got to take a once a week or once a day sometimes.

Speaker 1 (20m 47s): Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because you, I mean, you allude to it, you know, and I talk about this in other parts of the book is our, our issue would, would the issue of responsibility right? About who is responsible for this? Am I responsible for my own behavior? Or can I, you know, perhaps in, in a way that that might not be positive, blame it on? Well, my, my brain chemistry is just screwed up now, you know, if, if I'm depressed, I think that that would be okay.

We see this used a lot though, now in the legal world, right. It's not my fault. I'm not responsible because bop about, about right. My, my, my brain chemistry is wrong. Or, and I think just there's a danger here. We, we we've entered a time period in our history as a human species where we are really struggling with how much of what goes on in the world.

Are we responsible for as human beings? I mean, you know, if you just think about it on the, on, you know, think about climate change, right. I mean, oh, are we responsible for that? Hell yeah. Right. I mean, look at the studies, look at the studies, look at the history, look at the facts, but it's difficult for us to take responsibility for that. And, you know, watching what's going on in Ukraine, I was watching a lot of the news last night. I happened to be watching a good deal of it last night.

I've been trying to stay away from as much as I can of that, the cable news on this, because it's, it's 24 7 and it's unrelenting, but it is, it is just ugly. And what are we going to do? Who's responsible for this, who's responsible for stopping it, which of course is, was, you know, a major question and world war II, right? I mean, who's responsible for stopping this. And I saw, I think it was early this morning.

One of the, the higher government officials in Ukraine, not the president, but one of his, his next in line was, was lamenting the fact that, you know, where is Europe, they're not doing anything to help us and, and these people are being destroyed. And so, you know, I think we really do struggle with this question of who is responsible at that level.

And also then just down at the, at the level of the good Samaritan, right. And how I take care of my neighbor, something, something as silly as, you know, do I hold the door open for somebody just because that's a kind thing to do. But I feel that as a responsibility is just, that's what makes us human.

Speaker 0 (23m 47s): Yeah. I agree. I, I, I think the answer is that we're all guilty of it. Like all of us have played a role in this and, you know, be it apathy or ignorance, like we're all guilty and it doesn't feel good. And you know, there's so many moving parts and there's so much, there's so much death and destruction of innocent people that like, you know, it makes me want to cry. Yeah. I don't. And maybe that's part of the problem is that it seems like such a big problem.

People say, what can we do? And then no one does anything, but you're right. I think deciding to do something nice every day can have radical changes, not only in your life, but in somebody else's life. It's like that little pebble you throw in the pond. Right. It puts a little wet little wave, but if everybody does that, I think that that's how the world gets better, you know? And, and if you hold the door open for somebody that could be a little boy that sees that and he's like, oh, that's what I'm supposed to do. And he does it forever because you did it like,

Speaker 1 (24m 47s): Yeah. I mean, there's been something about modeling behavior for the next generation, but there's also, you know, I mean, I I've said for my entire career, a pat on the back doesn't cost anything. Right. You know, just to say to somebody, you did a good job that doesn't cost anything, but it can make a big, big difference. Right. I mean, we talk about all these morale issues at corporations that are in an organizations, but a lot of it just comes down to, you know, appreciating the job that people are doing when they are working hard.

And, and, you know, I think the hope is that if you do that, then then more people will work hard because they, they understand that they're going to be appreciated. I mean, if you're not appreciated and what's the motivation. Yes. You know, it sounds great to say, well, it's just the, the, the, the feeling of, of doing a good job, you know, and that sounds wonderful. But the reality is we want some kind of affirmation, right? We want external affirmation. And I mean, it can come down to just, as I say, somebody just sending an email and saying, you know, I saw what you did today.

And, and you know, that was great, you know, glad you're glad you're here. And that makes a huge difference.

Speaker 0 (26m 8s): Yeah. It reminds me, I was talking to Dr. Thomas Verny the other day who wrote a book called the embodied mind and it gets into epigenetics. And I'll just give you this one little tidbit from it. You know, the idea of Schrodinger's cat, how, if you observe something, it changes, right. He makes the claim in his book that what you're seeing now is what we know that when you observe something, it fundamentally changes. So what has been the, the fallout and it's the wrong word?

What has been the repercussions of all of us beginning to look at and observe ourselves? And he goes in depth in it. I think it's a profound statement because it brings together, you know, some of the seven deadly sins, but it also brings together the idea of observation, maybe a greater power watching us and some of the Eastern tradition. And if you look at the radical change that's happening in our world, you could make the argument that it is because so many people are getting beginning to self reflect with just the little soliloquy right there that we had about what we can do.

Hey, here's what I've done. Here's what I think like, just us talking about observing ourselves is going to have a shift. You know, if one or two people see this, or, I mean, I bet you all, your students are better people because you're their teacher. You know, you have a great observation. You're always there for people. You know, I, I think that you're making the world better and we have observing is better

Speaker 1 (27m 33s): Being self-aware right. And then encouraging others to be self-aware. And I think that that is something that we have largely lost in, in recent years is, is that self-awareness, we become so focused on the external that we've neglected the in-term we obsess about what's exterior and neglect the interior. And, and that's, that's just a lot of this is just getting back to old practices.

Right. But the problem is today, of course, we've got so many other things complicating it and our world is so much more complicated. You know, I was talking with my students the other day about, about Thomas Aquinas and talking about his literary output, which was monumental and, you know, my God that this guy. Right. And it was just like, you know, as much as he wrote, you wonder, you know, what else did he do? But he did a lot. And, you know, it's almost this kind of thing where you, you, you talk about them and then you say, and what did you do today?

Because I think that we have fallen into that kind of sloppy slothful behavior, where by we, and, you know, at the end of the day, when I assess what I did today, and I do that just about every day, and I think most people do, it can be a really enriching and positive experience, or it can be pretty miserable.

And you realize, you know what, I didn't do anything today. I sat around and, you know, binge watched something on Netflix. And, and that was the extent of my, my, my output. You know, my, my literary output for the day was I was writing down on a piece of paper or get milk and, you know, buy bread. But if we fall into the trap of, of that kind of behavior, we have to be active. We have to be moving.

We have to be engaging with others. That is part of what makes us human beings. And I just, I, you know, now I say that as an extrovert, I understand introverts have a completely different take on this something, which I've been trying to appreciate. My wife is an introvert, but I really struggle with it because even during, when we were during the lockdown at the beginning of COVID and I was working from home, oh my, I mean, it just drove me nuts.

And every day I had to go out and get in the car and just even just drive to the convenience store to get a soda, because I got to see other people, but that's me as an extrovert. So I think that people engage in maybe in different ways. And I think folks who are introverts also engage just in a different way. That's, that's not as, as, as obvious as it is for an extrovert where, you know, well, I want to be around people, but boy, it, and of course the extrovert introvert thing goes, you know, I mean, they're all grows out of union psychology and psychological types and, and the looking at your various characteristics.

But it just seems to me that we are social beings

Speaker 0 (31m 17s): And it reminds me of I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (31m 18s): No, go ahead.

Speaker 0 (31m 19s): You know, there's, there's one of the funniest quotes from a very funny individual. I have it written down, but I should let you read it because it's a beautiful quote from Woody Allen. Did you have it on your right there?

Speaker 1 (31m 31s): Is which one is it the one about the shark?

Speaker 0 (31m 34s): It is the one about the shark.

Speaker 1 (31m 35s): So this isn't the end of, of, of Annie hall. Yes. Yes they are. I'm flying back on the plane. He N and Diane Keaton is Annie hall. And he says to her that, you know, basically it seems like the whole relationship has, has stalled. And he makes the analogy that relationships are like, like sharks and sharks always have to be moving in order to, to remain alive.

And, and I think the line is what we have on our hands is a dead shark. Is that what

Speaker 0 (32m 13s): It is? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32m 14s): And, you know, I think that there there's something to that. There's something to that. The, the, and this is what the monks were afraid of with a CEDIA is that you were just going to basically stagnate you, weren't going to do anything. And that's why Benedict in his rule, devises a program of work and prayer, right. That the monks needed to engage in. It was a balance. It wasn't just all prayer. They had to work too. So you had to be active.

And, you know, that might mean, you know, raising sheep, it might mean baking bread. It might mean whatever the case may be, but there needed to be both because he understood that we are spiritual and physical beings. Both. We can't only focus on the spiritual because we're neglecting a whole part of what we are. And I think that an Eastern philosophy, I think you see this as well. You know, you see it in the, upon a shots, you see it in, in the, in the, the, the writings about the Buddha and, and the fact that yes, it is important to reflect and meditate, but it is also just as important to, to be active physically.

And even if that's just, you know, the, the, the, the monastic practice in, in a lot of Eastern temples of just, just walking, literally walking, just back and forth while you are meditating and praying, but you are moving in, in, in the, the, the Jewish synagogue. I remember when I was a kid, we attended a, an ultra conservative synagogue. And the old men, when they prayed, standing up would, would rock.

It was, was called davening. And there was something to that. I never really understood what that was all about. I was like, why are they doing that? And I thought, well, maybe it's because there's a chanting going on. Maybe it was something about keeping rhythm. Now it wasn't that it was more about that, that movement about feeling that, that being alive, because that's the only way you feel it.

Speaker 0 (34m 32s): Yeah. That's a great point. It's the mind body connection, you know, they, they have to work together. Sometimes. I feel when you write stuff down or when you're exercising and thinking, it's like, your, your body is giving permission to your mind to finish the thought.

Speaker 1 (34m 50s): Yeah. That's excellent way to put it. Yeah. Excellent way to put it. I have an absolutely brilliant student right now. Who's graduating in a couple of weeks who has been working on a long-term project with me on a young and Augustan. And she's been, re-upped, she's writing actually about the mind body specifically about that and the connection between the two in both of their writings.

Speaker 0 (35m 12s): I can't wait to read it.

Speaker 1 (35m 13s): Yeah,

Speaker 0 (35m 14s): That's so awesome. It must be really rewarding too, to get to work with, with young minds that are curious and agile and, and full of vigor

Speaker 1 (35m 24s): Absolutely. Is absolutely. And who are, who are eager to learn. That is just such an absolute treat. And, and just, you know, I, I always say the, the, the active mind is, is active always. Right. And in all ways, and always, and, and so that, that just that yearning and desire to, to learn, which is what I mean, education, that's what we kind of get off on.

Right?

Speaker 0 (35m 58s): Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that brings me to one of your quotes from William Blake that says the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. He who desires, but acts not breached pestilence. The busy bee has no time for sorrow.

Speaker 1 (36m 13s): Yeah. And there's also a line of better expect poison from stagnant water.

Speaker 0 (36m 18s): Yeah. That's a good one. Can you maybe tell the people, like how many different directions you can go from that little up? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36m 23s): It's all about, you know, it, I mean, Blake was brilliant on these little, these sort of one-line aphorisms that poisoned from standing water. If you just think about that. I mean, it is, it is a truth, right? I mean, if you were, if you are hiking and, and being Bronx from the Jew, I don't hike, but if you are hiking and you need to find some water, I mean, you do not drink from stagnant water because it could be potentially poisonous running water as opposed to stagnant water.

But then of course the metaphor of, you know, we just need to be active and moving. And, you know, I think it's interesting that these, these quotes oftentimes come from these minds who were anything but stagnant. I mean, just incredible, incredibly active minds. It's, it's, it's really just amazing. And the more that I study, some of these, these folks, the more that I just Marvel at what they were able to accomplish and, and reflect on, you know, how did they, how did they do wish?

How, how did they find the time and the energy to be able to accomplish what they did? You know, I mean, I study starting study call young. I mean, his collected works is 22 volumes, and that doesn't even include everything. You know, just the notes from his seminar on Nietzsche run to about 800 pages. It's just incredible. And then the men still had time to, to paint, To draw and to build his, his, his house in, in .

It's just, it's, it's just incredible. I, I, I don't know. I don't know how they did it. I don't know how they did it. And we read about them. And I don't, I don't know, I've been reading a memoir of Paul Valery, a short little piece written by Igor Stravinsky of all people who, whose, whose paths over his path overlapped with Valerie's at one point.

And so he wrote this short five page memoir about Valerie. It, it seems as those often are to be more about Stravinsky than it is about Valerie, but, but he's talking about, you know, how they, how he would run into him. And, and he initially says, you know, I don't know how our paths hadn't crossed prior to this point. And it's quite interesting to see the way that some of these folks, historically, some of these intellectuals, how their paths overlapped and intersected in very, almost serendipitous ways, you know?

And, and again, that's one of the, you know, I mean, I, I'd never, would've met George Monte if it weren't for the fact that I'd written this book and my, my publicist, you know, contacted me about being on the podcast and I, you know, but, and that has enriched my life now. And so I think if we look at the serendipity of our existence, oftentimes we can celebrate that. And if we get too hung up on everything that needs to be planned and regimented and timed out my gosh, you know, then you're never going to have the joy of just an accidental meeting with somebody.

Speaker 0 (40m 5s): Yeah. It's like in the mystic traditions, they say, if you're ready, the teacher will appear.

Speaker 1 (40m 9s): Absolutely. You know, absolutely.

Speaker 0 (40m 11s): It's interesting to think about it. You know, speaking of Carl Young, he had an interesting take on Slav as almost a gateway drug.

Speaker 1 (40m 19s): Yeah. He was concerned that that, that, that kind of behavior was going to result in other negative behaviors, particularly he, he he's, I think thinking about lost, one of my favorite quotes from, from young is in, is in the conclusion to the book, which we'll talk about next week, where he says, it's almost ridiculous prejudice to assume that existence can only be physical.

Speaker 0 (40m 49s): Wow. That's I just,

Speaker 1 (40m 50s): I love that quote because it, it, for me encapsulates just so much of what I believe and what I've worked on, and this idea that, that the only thing that we can actually understand is the physical universe. And that's all there is just seems foolhardy to me. I was, I was reading something this morning and someone was reflecting about the FA oh, it was, it was a, a review of Jennifer Egan's new books, that candy candy house, I think it's called her new, new novel.

And she was talking about the fact that she had had a dream about someone that she knew. And I believe then she realized that day that the person had died two days earlier. Wow. And so, you know, there is a lot that goes on in the universe that we don't understand that exists in just this, this spiritual ether. And, you know, for my students who initially come in very skeptical about that, I have a very easy exercise that I have them.

Do. I have one student on one side of the room calling other student on another side of the room, on their cell phone and say, how did that, how did, how did that work? So there's no magic Because that seems magical to me. And so they start to think about, oh, well, wait a minute, you know? Yeah. So we've got these two physical things, these two cell phones, but they never touched each other. They never, they're not connected. How did that work as supposed to just start to encourage them to think about some more of the mysteries of, of existence?

The things that the, as you say, the mystics were, we're really interested in the things that I think we're all interested in. Even those who work in the physical sciences are still interested in those. Some of the most spiritual people I know are actually physicists, Which, you know, seems just oxymoronic, but, but it's true. You know, I mean, I know that I know there's a professional organization for Catholic chemists.

I know that that organization exists and I'm sure that there are others. So, you know, it seems inconsistent to have that kind of belief and then subscribed to the laws of the physical universe. But it is again, part of that sort of acknowledgement that there's a physical existence and there's a spiritual existence and that both of them are really what make the world go around.

Speaker 0 (43m 41s): Yeah. I just, I read a little blurb, I've got to look more into it, but there's some like, just mind blowing work with this guy. Hameroff and then Roger Penrose that are talking about microtubule, I think I'm saying that right. Micro tube, tubular owes or something. And it's like, these it's based on the idea of quantum mechanics, but they're like these tiny little tubules that you can do. People communicate with trees and rocks and plants. And it's, it's the reason why, if, if you have a dream, something happen to your friend, like, you know, you're connected in this, in this spiritual, which is probably another way to describe spiritual connection, but it's still fascinating to think about all these ways.

It makes me realize, like, maybe we are kind of like actual sloths, like we just don't understand yet, you know, we're kind of in the trees still.

Speaker 1 (44m 29s): Well, yeah, of course. It's the thing about this, this, this sin of cloth is when I started writing about this, a friend of mine sent me an email with a picture of a Sloss, you know, here you go. And so I looked at that one day when I was working on this chapter and I was like, why did we, why do we call them slots? What the heck is going on there? And so I actually looked into it a little bit to figure out, you know, what is the history of this loss and discovered some interesting things about them, which is that they, they actually conserve energy by, by moving that slowly, that they can actually move rather quickly in the water when they have to.

And I think that, you know, it, we look at them and we look down at them and think about it as a negative thing. We talk about sloths as a negative thing, but maybe, you know, we are like the, the sloths sitting up in the tree, just trying to figure it all out. You know, I mean, some of us would aspire to have that kind of time, although I don't know if it would necessarily be a good thing, but I, I know, you know, when I, when I stopped teaching full-time and took this position where I am now, which is largely administrative, I used to joke and say, you know, I just want to be able to sit around all day and just read, you know, Valerie and Andres you need and all these, you know, I just want to be able to, just to do just for the heck of it.

And I like it. And I was thinking about that the other day, because, you know, I, I do that some of the time, but I'm certainly incredibly busy with the rest of the time. And I, and I don't think it's my nature to, to just sit and, and, and do that 24 7. I don't think I could get away with that. And part of it is just as my, my extroverted personality and my need to engage with other human beings. But, you know, I certainly know plenty of, of, of scholars who do that, that just 24 7, they exist in their minds.

And, you know, for some of them, I think it could be a beautiful place for others. It might not be, but, you know, I it's, it's, it's funny. I was showing, I showed an image of the other day. I was doing a workshop for students on graduate school. And we were talking about letters of recommendation and why it's so important to get good letters of recommendation from people who really know you, and you can find it on the internet. There's a great letter of recommendation that was written for the mathematician, John Nash, a beautiful mind.

And it, it it's, it's written on an index card and it says something to the effect of I've, I've known him since he was 19. He's a mathematical genius. This it's like three lines. That's all it says, you know? And it, it just, it, it, it amazes me that somebody like John Nash, somebody like Einstein, you know, some of these, these scientific thinkers in particular of the first half of the 20th century, who were able to, to grasp the meaning of existence in the universe and put it into terms that were mathematical, that could make some sense out of things in a rational way.

You know, I, I, I love the story about Einstein being in Princeton. And they used to have a graduate student follow him around because he had a habit when he was walking around just when, when something would occur to him, he would just Dodge into an empty classroom and scribble a bunch of formulas on board. And so they had a graduate student following him around to copy all that down, you know, but there's also a great story about, about Einstein in Princeton, walking down, Nassau street, eating an ice cream cone and the ice cream dripping down his hand because he, so inside his own head and then he's got the ice cream cone in the sand.

And, you know, someone used to joke that they thought that should be the statue to Einstein in downtown Princeton because there's the, the, the quintessential absent minded professor.

Speaker 0 (48m 54s): Yeah. It's, it seems, there's an interesting relationship with people that have fundamentally changed the world, whether it's philosophers being in prison, or, you know, mathematicians, eating ice cream cones or mathematicians running down the street after their bath naked, you know, There's quite a few, quite a few interesting, but I think that's part of it, right? You have to see the world different in order to be able to relay it in a way that makes sense or make sense in your head first, before you can give it to someone else.

Speaker 1 (49m 28s): That's why I tell my students that, you know, all research involves creativity and all creativity involves research, right? I mean, it's it, they're both. And, and I think folks think that if you are involved in research, it, they think about it as being very mechanical and there's no creativity involved, but I mean, when you are working and, and, and for listeners who work in the, in the hard sciences, if you're working in a, in a, in a, in a microbiology lab, you can't tell me that there's not some creativity that's going to be involved in the work that you do.

It isn't just mechanical. If it were then quite honestly, anybody could do it, just write down the instructions and they'll do it. But there is something to research that is creative very much. And there certainly is a lot of, a lot of creativity that, that a lot of research that goes into creativity as well. You know, I, I know novelist friends, you know, people think that when P folks write novels, it's all about inspiration, right?

You sit at the computer and you wait for the, the, the clouds to open and the bright light to appear. But the reality is you speak to most novelists. There's a lot of research that goes into their books. I had a friend I used to teach with who had written a novel. It was a Western novel. And for a semester, he actually had gone and gone to Germany because one scene in the book was to take place in Germany and he'd never been. And the thing was that for some reason, I don't know why German culture has always been really kind of intrigued by the stories of the old west, in the U S.

And so we went over there to explore that, and it was an incredible research trip and a change. The book probably made the book. I'm sure it made the book better, but there was a tremendous amount of research that went into this creative pursuit of writing a novel.

Speaker 0 (51m 28s): Yeah, it seems to, I know it's happened to me on both sides where you, if you're sitting around in a, in a group or something brainstorming, or you've, you've worked together with these people for a long time, a lot of the times it's difficult to come up with a new idea until you bring in someone new to the group that, you know, if you work for say, I don't know some organization, and you guys are all collaborating, you work well together. When it gets along, you get kind of stale. You got to bring in someone who knows nothing about it, or who may know something, but has never studied with you or vice versa.

It can be that person.

Speaker 1 (51m 60s): Yeah. Someone had to shake things up, somebody who's got a new perspective, you know, w w I'll often talk about, you know, bringing somebody else who doesn't have a, a stake in this and see what they have to say, right. Because oftentimes you end up in an echo chamber otherwise. Yeah. Right. And, and, and you can't hear anything new, but you know, you, you open the door and let somebody new in, and oftentimes they'll bring a very different perspective to the table. We were just talking about this last night in my museum studies course, because talking about the fact that in the museum world, it's so important to have all the different players at a museum involved in projects.

So it's not just about the curators, curating an exhibit. You also should have folks there from fundraising and folks there, patron services and folks there who, you know, run the book, stop shop. I mean, all of that, it's important to all be on the same page and contribute something because those folks are going to see something that, that you probably wouldn't, because you're not used to thinking in that way.

Speaker 0 (53m 13s): Yeah. I agree. I, to bring it back, just a slot there for before we finish up, like what, what part? I think there's two good parts I want to cover. One is how Socrates feared the effects of writing on memory. Yeah. Then there was the death of the scribe and the evils of the printing press. And can you talk about how that relates to Slav?

Speaker 1 (53m 36s): Yeah. Well, it's this attitude again towards technology and remember technology doesn't necessarily have to mean computers and cell phones. Right, right. Right. I mean, for, for Socrates, I mean, it was a technology, the invention of writing. And if we think about technology and in that, in that sense, right. Think about the actual, the Greek, meaning of the word technology and, and explore what, what somebody like, like Heidegger has to say about it and in his brilliant essay on it, it's, it's a connection for Socrates to memory.

And the fact that if we are offloading a lot of the responsibility for memory onto the technology, he was worried about what that was going to do to us. And, you know, I think the, the, the interesting book end to that is an essay that we've talked about before, by Vanover Bush. The, as we may think written in 1945, where Bush basically predicted the internet and the desktop computer and his attitude about it was, yes, we are going to offload our memory onto this technology.

And that is a good thing. It will free our minds to the higher level thinking that human beings are capable of, and the great lament in the, in the now what, 60, more than 60 years since Bush wrote that essay is we have done that, but we haven't really engaged with that higher level thinking. And instead we are, you know, forgive me for saying it pissing a lot of it away. We're not using it the way that we, that we could and the way that we should, we're not taking advantage of it.

And I think this is, you know, a callback to what Socrates was really worried about is that by doing this, we were going to really damage our ability to remember things now, Bush, you know, so many years later says, okay, that's a good thing. We don't need to remember this. I don't need to know all these dates. I can easily look those up on a computer. Right. I mean, that's why I never quiz my students on dates.

I think it's the dumbest thing to have people remember. I mean, sure. There are certain things dates that you want people to know important dates, but in general, to know specific dates of things is it's really not necessary because we can look it up just at the snap of a finger. But the benefit of that is what are you going to do with that ability now in your mind? So, so we've cleared out that space, you know, metaphorically, right?

You don't need to have space to remember those dates anymore. What are you, how are you going to use that space? What are you going to do with it? And I don't think we figured that out yet as a, as a, as a species, what are we going to do with that and how to best do it? You know, we, we talk a lot about approaching the singularity, right? Where will you be able to download our minds to a computer? And then at a later date upload our minds to a new human body or a restored human body.

It's an interesting idea. And it's interesting for technology, but from the philosophical perspective, I think the question is to what end, what's the point? Why, why would you want to do that? What would be the purpose of it? What would be the use and many of our, of our technological advances go along with that. I mean, in, in, in the chapter, on Slav, I talk about how in the 1950s, when the remote control was introduced, right, the TV remote control, which, you know, initially it was looked at as like, you know, I think I forget what it was called and the ads it was actually referred to with, with a euphemism as being, let me find it here.

I'm sorry. Here it is Lazy bones. They were called lazy girls, right? It, it, the, the advertisement in 19 50 51 called that miraculous. But then by the time we got to 2012, when the inventor of the first wireless remote control died in his obituary, in the Washington post, it noted that sometimes people blamed Thermo control for contributing to obesity.

So, you know, positives and negatives. Right. And how do we balance that out? And certainly with a lot of technology, I still think we struggle with that. How do we find the balance? How do we find the middle way, right. The middle way that the mystics wanted us to find, right. How do we find that?

Speaker 0 (58m 39s): You know, and it, it makes me wonder if instead of us clearing up space by downloading stuff onto the computer. Is it possible that like, if the brain is a muscle, maybe you need to build that memory so that you can have high order thinking. Maybe we have went ahead and eliminated our ability to have higher level thinking to be like Carl Young, because we can't pass the first step anymore. And you look at, and stuff like the brain chip, like, okay, we're just going to try to put back in our head what we already had, but it'll be, it's a computer version, you know, it's like, yeah,

Speaker 1 (59m 11s): Yeah, no, I think you're right. I mean, and, and the, the, the, the sort of cultural obsession with, with, you know, downloading apps to your phone that are brain games, right. To keep your brain active. Right. I mean, it just seems, it's just a kind of funny thing, isn't it? But I, I do think that there is something to that. And certainly there are lots of writers in the middle ages in particular. And it's going into the early years of the Renaissance who are really concerned with our, not only our ability to retain things and have memory, but our potential loss of that, the great medieval scholar, Mary Caruthers wrote several, several really good books on this, on, on memory, particularly in medieval thought and how really, we just changed our idea of what that was all about.

Moving from a kind of faculty psychology idea where memory lived in one section of your brain, literally to understanding that it's much more complicated than that.

Speaker 0 (1h 0m 22s): Yeah. There's a, there's another interesting. I heard, I heard Peter teal talking about technology. He was him, and I think it was Eric Weinstein. They were talking about, you know, we have all these ideas about technology and how great it is and how advanced we are, but they made the claim. If you just took out every screen out of your room, be it a phone, a tablet, or a computer, that room would look the same as it did in 1950. So really we've talked about technology, but where is it?

Speaker 1 (1h 0m 48s): Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, it you're right. I mean, you know, I'm, I'm just looking around my own office here, when you say that and yeah, you're right. I mean, I've got my phone sitting here and my computer, but other than that, I have a bunch of lamps. There really isn't any other technology in this room and the way that we think of technology today, of course, electricity itself as a technology. Sure. But yeah, it, it, it, it you're right. The way that it has sort of insidiously crept into our lives now with smartphones and, and, and, and smart watches.

And these wearable devices is, is interesting. I mean, I remember when Google glasses came out several years ago and it was a horrible disaster because they were terrible because who wants to be on the internet 24 7, like that. And that's what it was basically.

Speaker 0 (1h 1m 44s): Yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, we, you know, we, we talk about sloths, but like you, you've done a really good job of, of equating the world of online, living in the world of technology and how there are some very dangerous aspects of that. And I think in, in this chapter, you do a good job of, of linking sloths to it, like, be it memory, or be it be it, people in a slothful behavior, looking online and other people who are in a slothful behavior being envy of that slot world.

Speaker 1 (1h 2m 17s): I mean, I see, I see my friends who were on, then, you know, why can't you have a vacation? What are they doing? I see pictures of their feet. Cause they're laying on the beach and taking pictures and posting it on Instagram. It's just such a strange, strange phenomena

Speaker 0 (1h 2m 36s): That is will doctor. I want to be mindful of your time. Do you want to leave us with anything else we've got next week coming up, but

Speaker 1 (1h 2m 42s): We will, we will wrap up with a conclusion on the whole thing and, and, and try to come up with a positive message for the, for the future on all this.

Speaker 0 (1h 2m 50s): Yeah. And what about, what do you have a blog coming up that you're going to talk about something?

Speaker 1 (1h 2m 54s): Do I have a bar blog coming out probably in about a week and a half? It will be posted a new posting, a new blog, and it will be a lot about a lot of these issues about really re where the blog comes from is the, the statement that we hear so often, which is no one reads anymore. And what does that mean?

Speaker 0 (1h 3m 16s): Fantastic. I'm looking forward to it. Okay, doctor. Well, that's it for this week, everybody. Thank you for watching and listening. And you can see all of Dr. David Solomon's links in the show notes below and reach out to him and we'll be back next week to do it again. Aloha.

Speaker 1 (1h 3m 32s): Thanks, George.