Do I, intrinsically matter? Do you? Based on...what? There is almost a saturation of information and ideas on what purpose is and having purpose in your life. But if you dig down, I find purpose to primarily be a pursuit to...matter. Do we matter just because we exist? Many religions say so, but I generally find the religious scrambling to prove they matter in the same ways everyone else is. So does that testify that we have to do something to matter? This is the episode. I sat down with renowned philosopher and intellectual, Rebecca Goldstein. Rebecca is an award-winning philosopher and writer. She is the author of ten books of acclaimed fiction and non-fiction. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Princeton University and has taught at Yale, Columbia, NYU, Dartmouth, and Harvard. In 2015, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama. In many ways however, from all of Rebecca's philosophical pursuits, the concept of mattering is her culmination of wisdom. Her new book is called, The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us. In this conversation we dive straight into how we perceive mattering, what we generally do to matter, and what actually results in feelings of mattering. We discuss the cultural and relational conflicts we have around what and who we think matters most. Rebecca then identifies four psychological types based on how people pursue mattering, which in itself begs the question: We generally pursue proving that we matter. Belying we think mattering is earned. I found the conversation very revealing and bringing me to consider my core motives for my life.

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