Grow Big Always

Have you ever looked at a super old picture and laughed at how mistaken all those people were about what they thought the we’d spend our time doing today? I know I look at pictures of myself as a kid and can’t believe I spent my time outside vs on a phone. Doesn’t sound like you? Well then maybe you were positive that the world would always adore Milli Vanilli. Regardless, it’s hard to argue that we’re incredibly blinded by the road we’re on, what’s coming and what we— as a culture— will value beyond today. Why is that? I had an interesting and hilarious conversation about that very thing with this week’s guest, famed pop-culture author Chuck Klosterman, who recently released the book “But What If We’re Wrong?” You might know Chuck, he’s got a pretty huge cult-following which started when he was a journalist for Spin, GQ, the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, and Esquire. Or maybe you’ve read his diverse, hilarious and insightful page-turning books ranging from Rock-n-Roll to Redskins, from Cereal to Serial Killers many of which have topped the New York Times Bestseller list. He's been interviewed by everyone from Seth Meyers, to the Daily Show, to Marc Maron, so I really wondered why the hell he agreed to talk to me and what fresh ground we could cover. I couldn’t have predicted he’d say yes or, in fact, that we’d talk about the things we did but maybe that’s the point of Chuck’s new book, too. While Neil deGrasse Tyson, who's in the book, may have criticized it, that may just fall squarely in Chuck’s argument that the very things we look at today as safe or nuts, can be vastly different tomorrow.

Believe it or not, MDMA is about to be legal thanks to the efforts of this week’s guest, Rick Doblin. Soon MDMA will be able to help the tens of millions of people suffering from serious trauma like PTSD in drug-assisted therapy sessions. While that might seem amazing, it’s far from Rick Doblin’s sole focus. He believes it’s a basic human right to have the freedom to decide to change your own consciousness through drugs— that politics are not only blocking science but personal experiences that could help us live more fulfilled and connected lives. In fact, there’s an argument that for our cultural survival we need to reintroduce the same use of psychedelics that was a part of human culture for tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of years. Rick started on this journey after having his own psychedelic experience in 1972 and reading “Realms of the Human Unconscious” by Stan Grof decided to be a psychedelic researcher and ultimately founded the “Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies” (or MAPS) in 1986. That means Rick has been fighting on your behalf for over 30 years, so it’s critically important you listen to not only what he has to say but pay attention to this critical infection point in history which offering a light at the end of the “us and them” tunnel.

Ever notice how frequently the word “addict” is used? Just do a Google News search on the word and you’ll be shocked just how often it’s used in a headline. Articles are plastered with mentions of drug addicts, sex addicts, gambling addicts, food addicts, shopping addicts, work addicts and internet addicts. “These people” are painted as out-of-control and often menaces to society who need to be stopped, jailed, medicated or otherwise cut off. But what if those diseased people weren’t sick at all? What if you suddenly realized you were one of them? Well, that’s what happened to me. In preparation for this podcast, I realized I’m an addict. I’m an addict who comes from other addicts, who has passed it onto my kids, too. I’m constantly looking for a way to not be with myself, a way to avoid the pain I have of not having meaningful bonds. In this chat with physician and best-selling author, Gabor Maté, we talk about the shocking truth about what causes addiction and the things we can do to address the problem. What’s cool about Gabor is that he avoids quick-fix thinking when he tackles things like addiction, ADHD, sickness and the human spirit overall. Rather, he shines lights on the often uncomfortable truths that live at the root of these things. Born in Hungry, Gabor survived the Holocaust, became a doctor and worked for over 20 years with patients with hard-core drug addictions, mental illness and HIV before writing In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, When the Body Says No, Scattered Minds, and Hold on to Your Kids (you can learn more on his website gaboremate.com). Our brief but information-packed conversation even helped me understand why I love podcasting. These conversations are sort of accelerated intimacy that create quick bonds with each person I talk to and anything that helps me bond, lessens the painful void I have from having that very thing growing up. I remember hearing somewhere that the purpose of life is to create meaningful connections with others. After this conversation with Gabor, I know you’ll have a new point of view of exactly why that’s so important and how and why we as individuals, families and cultures have strayed so far from it.

We’re born into a culture where trillions of decisions have already been made by the people who have lived before us. The entire human world is constructed of these expectations, so by the time we join that world as an adult, it’s pretty easy to feel like most of our decisions are limited and oftentimes made for us. When that operating system is screaming to go to school, get a job, buy all stuff that makes your life better, have some kids and borrow enough money to make it all happen, it can feel like your margin for independent ideas and motivation just got squashed. It’s no wonder the decisions we think we’re making don’t feel very rational. No wonder how we can completely lose the motivation to keep slaving away. If you were an alien watching our evolution, you’d see a few big decisions but on a day-to-day basis we’re blind to how the decisions we’re making affect not only our own life but the future of our culture. This week’s guest Dan Ariely, studies decisions and motivation. He is the James B Duke professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and the founder of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. Dani is also the author of three New York Times Bestsellers including Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality and The Honest Truth about Dishonesty and is preparing to release his next book, Payoff, later this year. By the end of our chat, hopefully you have some new frameworks to evaluate our own road, not to mention the many paths around you.

Language used to evolve slowly back when we were far-flung. Wide-spread human contact was made through one civilization taking over another. That’s drastically different, today. New words can take over the planet literally in minutes. While that speed is incredible, it’s even more so when you stop and think about the fact that new words and analogies are little shift our points of view— gay vs same-sex, criminals vs justice-involved, murder vs honor-killing. While new words flow like rapids, filling new spaces or displacing old ideas, and as English becomes a global platform— our human experience is shaped and reshaped within even within our own lifetime . Anne Curzan studies the history of English, the evolution of slang and it’s migration over time. She’s the author of several books on language including her latest, “Fixing English: Prescriptivism and Language History” as well as co-hosting “That’s What They Say” on Michigan’s NPR. If you’re a language nerd like me, and even if you’re not, you’ll find the quick conversation that Anne and I had super interesting. It for sure will have you stop and think next time you hear a someone on the news use a word like “friendly fire”

My friends know I have this thing with toilet humor, with poop, with butts, with holes in butts, pretty much everything rear-facing. So yeah, it wouldn’t be a stretch (so to speak) to be up front with the fact I’m completely fascinated by anuses. That “poor friend in the back” is a prominent theme at my house, certainly with having a toddler, and even around the dinner table. Heck, I use the poo emoji as my heart emoji. In fact, I poo all of you. Some people don’t find it as funny but either way, we can agree our anus and rectum is a pretty private, vulnerable, and mysterious place. For sure an uncomfortable social taboo. Unless you’re science writer Mary Roach, who has written many funny books about the science of the human body. My butt radar noticed that many of them include super interesting starfish adventures from the other side, if you know what I mean. So, I asked her to spend an entire podcast talking about our fannies— from interesting stuff that happens when we’re at war, when we have sex, when we go to outer space, when we swallow something, when we die and even the afterlife. I guess you can say, we take about why shit matters.

How do you tell the story of your life? Turns out a big part of your personality are the snapshots of experiences you assemble and re-assemble of your past and future. Of course, that means that you can curate and shape those things, refine them based on what works for you and how others respond. When you stop and think about it, we have a lot more control over the frames we choose then we think, a lot more control of how we design our own narrative and how it works with our character. The more aware we are of the story we want to tell with our lives, the clearer our choices for the future can be. That means that the narrative habits we have, the micro-stories we tell, get hardened over the years, don’t really need to be that way. This week’s guest, Dan McAdams chairs the Psychology department at Northwestern University and got his own doctorate from Harvard. Dan has written over 200 scientific articles on personality and life-span development. You can think of it as someone who has devoted their career to understanding how we develop our personal myths. He’s also written the books “The Redemptive Self” and “The stories we live by” and his work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today among others. In fact, he recently wrote the Atlantic cover story analyzing Donald Trump’s personality, which he talks about later in this episode. In this quick episode, Dan does a great job breaking down how the layers of our personality form our identity and how they work together to create our life story.

Just take a moment and ask yourself, “does my life seem gripped by an assembly line of chores which, as the years go on, create an undertow of sameness?” When you look back and curate your life story, how many exceptional experiences have you had? In western culture it’s not okay to embrace the things that don’t fit neatly into acceptable boxes, we’re meant only to be distracted and addicted with the things that fuel our capitalistic machine. But that’s not the way it is around the world. For some it’s more unusual not to have had out-of-body experiences, not to have communed with the dead, not to completely lose your identity. It’s experiences like those that add dimensionality, texture and deeper understanding to our lives. The can be sprung from the deep recesses of our brains, whether we’re asleep or whether we participate in rituals that release them. It’s been said that if psychology had a Mount Rushmore, Stanley Kripper’s head would be on it. Stanley is 83 and for the better part of the past 40 years has been a psychology professor at San Francisco's Saybrook University. I found at least 30 books he’s written or co-written on Amazon and close to 1,000 papers on subjects as far-reaching as childhood creativity, combating soldiers' post-traumatic stress disorder, and worldwide shamanistic rituals. He has won more laurels from more organizations than he can keep track of, including several lifetime achievement awards from the American Psychological Association. He’s traveled to every continent, save Antarctica, to participate in mind-altering tribal ceremonies. He’s participated in Timothy Leary’s LSD studies, and been connected to so many famous people that naming them would sound improbable. While his uber driver got lost and drove him in enough circles on the way to the show that would have many anyone hallucinate, Stanley and nothing but great things to say about her and her journey from Iran. I hope you enjoy this brief conversation with Stanley and that some of his examples of hallucinations, dreams and shamanistic ritual help you figure out if and how how they fit into your own life as you plunge ever more deeply into your amazing journey.

Imagine having truly a complete picture of humanity, having spent a lifetime experiencing hundreds of world cultures first hand, face-to-face and welcomed by each one of them. The result would be an extraordinary vocabulary of the human spirit like no other. A celebration of our differences brought to life through an enormous voice, studded with the poetry of each unique cultural experience. Wouldn’t that voice be more important to listen to than anything else you can imagine?  As giant Capitalistic cultures continue to assimilate and stamp out human diversity faster than all endangered species combined, and as these giants collide and become increasingly more homogenous— never has it been more important to step back and seek to understand and respect different people. To nearsightedly continue means irreversibly harming the treasure of human diversity. I wish I could create an introduction for anthropologist Wade Davis that did him and his work justice but given the enormity and importance, I can't. He has spoken before audiences around the world, published dozens of books including the best-seller, “Serpent and the Rainbow,” and been interviewed by many people smarter than me. What I can say is that he will, in the incredibly short time of our conversation, take you not only around the world, but to space and back. He will begin to paint the picture beyond our cultural nearsightedness in a way that will stir your heart and open your mind. The best way to introduce Wade Davis is to listen.  Wade earned anthropology and botany degrees from Harvard as well as a PHD in ethnobotany. He is a best-selling author, photographer, high-priced lecturer, has had chairs at Oxford and Cambridge, and became on of only 8 Explorers-in-Residence with the National Geographic Society and was named "Explorer for the Millennium." Wade makes trips to the edges of the world but lives with his wife Gail Percy on Bowen Island in B.C.

Usually the question “what is reality” is saved for entertainment— it’s the stuff of sci-fi movies— because if your friend cornered you and pressed you on it, you’d probably just want to slap them. Mostly because of just how frustrating it can be to rip and replace your entire perception of what’s real. That said, it’s the sort of insanely big question that the very smartest, most ambitious people have asked through generations. Just last month, Elon Musk made the argument that we’re all probably characters in some advanced civilization’s video game. It might not surprise you to know that there’s actual science focused on how to crack this huge question. This episode’s guest, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman, has not only been researching it, he’s had some recent breakthroughs that could change absolutely everything we perceive about reality. Don is a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine and he makes a very compelling case supported by lots of research and testing that the entire perception we have for reality is nothing like what we think it is.