The One Question To Ask Yourself at the End of Every Day | Gary Shteyngart

Hey, everybody, welcome to the 10 Percent Happier podcast. I'm your host, Dan Harris. As you may have noticed, there's a kind of joylessness to modern life, which is so often characterized by optimization, perfectionism, consumerism, I could go on. My guest today, however, is taking a stand against this grim riptide. His name is Gary Steingart. He's an excellent novelist. He's written two of my favorite novels in the last couple of decades, one called Absurdistan and the other called The Russian Deputant's Handbook. He's out now with a new collection of essays entitled The Sensualist. Gary Steingart, welcome to the show. Great to be here. Thanks for having me, Dan. I'm honored to have you on the show. What's a sensualist? Well, I think a sensualist, and I am a sensualist, according to the book The Sensualist, but I don't know if I'm going to go that far. I'm somebody who really enjoys life as it comes toward them. You know, even when things aren't quite going right, the country you live in isn't doing great, the society isn't wonderful, a giant wave is coming your way, about to flood your city, still able to enjoy things and take pleasure in things and to find pleasure in things despite all of the difficulties. When that wave comes, at least I'll be refreshed as it sweeps past my face. I grew up in one of the least happiest societies in the world, the Soviet Union, and came here as a kid. And so all the makings of a non-sensualist were always within me. And I look at older generations of my family, and no offense to them, but they grew up with pleasure being the last thing on their mind because it just wasn't possible. So I think a lot of my life, I'm 54, which again, for a Russian male, is a really old lifetime. I've been through a lot. I feel that with each passing year, I want to grab pleasure by the horns, so to speak, and just to enjoy every single thing. Some of it costs a little money, some of it is absolutely free. Probably the best stuff is absolutely free. A lot of it, I would say, is rooted in relationships with others, friendships with others. It's easier often to enjoy things surrounded by people you love, especially friends, I would say. Also love for animals, which is a whole chapter of the book, but also is a big part of my life. The older I get, the more I just want to hug a giant rodent, like the capybara, this 150-pound rodent. And everywhere I go in the world, I just say, where's your capybara? About two weeks from now, going back to Tokyo for a visit, and one of my favorite two cappies live there. And I just go and visit and hug them in a cafe. It's that kind of life that feels so different. You mentioned the maxing optimization lifestyle. I'm the anti-optimizer. This stuff has never made anyone happy, has contributed zero to our civilization. There is nothing good about optimizing. Yeah, if you're sick, if you have a certain kind of illness and you need to, I don't know, lose weight, yeah, keep track of that. Sure, why not? Try to eat healthier, exercise, my God. One of the best sensual stuff is just walking around and looking up like a tourist. I walk around this neighborhood, we're in this beautiful Flatiron District of Manhattan. I feel like tourists, people are always trying to mug me because I'm just like, oh my God, look at that beautiful mansard roof. Do that, absolutely. Keep track of your health. But at the same time, if you just spend all your life dreaming of the better you that could be possible, you're really not living at all. I have to admit, though, I'm a recovering optimizer and I still, you know, track how many steps I'm taking during the day, look at how I slept last night on my watch. Am I a failure? You're not a failure. And I also keep track of steps, but I do it almost out of a sense of fun. So I actually walk about 15,000 steps a day. It's a lot, but it's also every time I do that, I'm like, oh my God, I walked pretty much the breadth of Manhattan or almost the length of Manhattan. I teach one semester here at Columbia. I walk from downtown all the way to Columbia and near close to Harlem. So I think of that as, oh, that's a lovely thing that just happened. And when I look at, I try not to look at my screen at all is the best part of it. But yes, once a day, I will make sure that I walk by 15,000 steps. I also love swimming. I think that's a great exercise because I do it with such a sense of lack of ambition and competition. I just swim for half an hour and then I get out, you know, I'm wet. Everything's fine. And that's it. And I know that I've done well by all of this stuff. And then I think to myself, okay, now I'm ready for that martini. I swam my butt off. I walked 15,000 steps. That martini is delicious. And a little bit of pate, maybe, well, I can't do foie gras because I love the goose so much. I don't want it to be tortured like that, but oh my God, they're doing wonders with seafood pate, sardine pate, and a little bit of martini. Maybe a strudel if I'm in an Austrian mood, you know? I think what you're saying is that we can do many of the things that dyed in the wool optimizers do, but we can do with a sense of humor. Humor and also without this sad need to check things off a list because I think that's become this big problem. Look, we are competing with machines and machines are always going to be better at being machines than we are. Yes, in a sense, we are a machine, right? There's a whole, you know, we're biological machines if you want to look at it that way. But is that how we want to live as biological machines? Now I know the idea of the soul sounds very Eastern European and slightly ridiculous and I, you know, different people have different religious or spiritual beliefs, but I really do believe that within this meat package is a very strange, interesting combination of whatever you want to call it, you know, chemical and electronic signals. I don't know what you want to call it, but it's a very particular thing and that thing needs to be addressed, not on a giant checklist of I walk 15,000 steps or I did that. But wait, did I enjoy myself today? Did I smile? And this is, you know, I can't, I'm not allowed to back into Russia anymore, but the thing that always got me when I returned, when I would return yearly to my hometown, St. Petersburg was, you know, he'd walk down the street, nobody smiles. To smile is to show weakness. It's like, what the hell happened to this person? Putin seems like such a fun guy. What a fun, fun gentleman. Well, he's the weirdest Russian because he doesn't even drink and that is beyond the conception of most people in that country. But you know, this is maybe why the older I get, the more I find myself in places like Brazil or Thailand or, you know, or South Africa. I don't know, it's farther South I go, the more people smile, the more I smile and the more I tend to sort of, and the happiest animal in the world, the capybara is, you know, Argentina and Brazil is where it finds itself most at home. So I do find myself being more and more interested in a life that's slightly less Northern, I would have to say. You said something there about that might be the right metric for doing optimization correctly, which is, and I'm saying this more of a question than a pronouncement. We can do the things we know that will keep us healthy. But the real metric to check at the end of the day is not your step count or your how many hours you spent in REM sleep. It's did I enjoy myself? Right. Look, I think if you spend your whole day, let's say you're addicted to drugs and you spend most of the day in bed and not getting any of those steps in, well, you're probably not happy. You're probably not enjoying life. The things that we need to do as humans to enjoy life often happen as part or often involve a kind of activity. So I live for a while and I may yet retire in Italy. One of the most beautiful customs there, the passaggiata, the walk after the meal across, I mean, obviously it helps if you're living in, you know, beautiful Palermo or Napoli instead of, you know, no offense to Duluth, but it gets very cold. It's very hard to do a passaggiata if you're in the middle of Duluth in January. But the Mediterranean climate obviously calls for this at all parts of the year. And so you walk for, I don't know, an hour. You stop by different cafes. People say hi, you hug, you air kiss. The act of air kissing inspires more serotonin to rise up and say hi. It's this wonderful thing. I just took my family, including my now 13-year-old son, to Andalusia, to the very southern part of Spain, which is also the poorest part of Spain, but somehow my favorite because it's all about just spending half the night going from tapas place to tapas place. Oh, this place does, you know, only does the egg of the octopus, you know, and this place only does a certain kind of jamón serrano. And so you hop from place to place. You say hi to different people. Everyone's happy to see you, you know. I was making friends by the end of this. I felt like, oh my God, am I in Andalusia already? Am I lifting my way through the rest of my life? Because that's fine with me. So, and you know, these cultures, people say, and The Economist will write and say, these are not optimal cultures because they are not keeping up with Silicon Valley or what other valley is out there. New York, you know, so yeah, these poor people in their, you know, 300 square foot apartments, how are they, you know, but I don't know. I used to, I spent a summer right out of college. I spent a summer in Valencia province outside of the main city of Valencia. And these were the, I fell in with, I was about in my early twenties right after college and I fell in with other people of my age group and it was the best summer of my life. And then I invited them to New York to, you know, say, come to New York, you know, check it out. And they were like, eh, we're happy here, you know, I'm like, but we have big buildings, you know, and bad coffee. We have everything. And they just wouldn't do it. And I get it now. I get it. Yeah. One of the hardest things about meditation is not only starting the habit, but keeping it going. A lot of people start and then they fall off the wagon and they feel guilty about it. And then they're like going down the toilet. 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And when quince asks where you heard about them, please let them know it was us. 10% happier. It's the best way to support this show. So your emphasis on enjoying sensual pleasures, I mean, I'm not opposed to that at all, but where do you draw the line between savoring the sensual and a kind of self medication? Right. So, I mean, that's interesting. And as soon as you mentioned medication, because I do think that loneliness and everything that comes off it, sadness, depression, the feeling of being atomized, these are all things that are, I think, a public health nightmare. And I think the more AI grows, the more we get, you know, robots as friends and possibly lovers. All of this stuff is not good for the soul or for our mental well-being or even for, let's say, our health, you know. But there is a way to square the difference. So, for example, I wrote this piece about my love of martinis. Now, that became an issue because I've always had high blood sugar. Am I looking out for that? Yeah, I'm always in that delightful pre-diabetic range. We're not quite diabetic and not quite completely healthy, but I like that range. I feel comfortable being pre-diabetic. It's almost like being in the anteroom of diabetes. Oh, no, not you yet. So, you know, I spoke to my doctor. I said, I love enjoying life. And what kind of alcohol can I drink that will slightly help me out? And she said, well, things like a martini. especially a very dry martini, you know, that's far better for you than, say, a beer or even a glass of many kinds of wine. There's some kinds of very dry white wine that are also not bad. But anyway, so I began to look into, well, what are the things that I can drink that are slightly better for me? Occasionally, if I'm in, you know, France and some kind of in the Loire Valley, of course I will have a beautiful red. But when I go out, I now enjoy many a martini. And again, four martinis is too many martinis. I had to, for the article that's in this collection, I, for the New Yorker, I once had to do 10 or 11 martinis in one night because I was with a gentleman, a friend of mine, Matt Kranich, who had written a book called Martini, and he was very insistent that we sample at least 10 or 11 different places. Even I, as a Russian, had to say, look, you know, I need to hydrate. And he's like, I know, I know. And then he said to the waiter, gin and tonic for this gentleman. You know, and I felt like such a wuss. But so I know there are limits and I am in no way ever saying, I think beyond a certain point, you stop being the centralist and start just being, you know, the alky. And that's not cool. I don't, I would never, that points to other different kinds of problems. There is a healthy place to be where you enjoy life. You don't castigate yourself for enjoying life. Because I think that's another part of maybe, I don't know, part of the where Anglo-American society has come from, this very Puritan culture where we castigate ourselves for pleasure. Pleasure feels like we've missed out on something. We could have been working. We could have been making ourselves better. This is this cult of self-improvement is something that, yes, oh, if you want to improve yourself in some way and you know exactly what kind of person you want to be and something's missing. Sure. Of course, find out, read a book about it. There's so many great books. But at the same time, you know, to make your whole life this cult of I'm going to be better in every metric possible, you know, it's just dumb. You're not going to feel good. And the people around you are going to be like, wow, my husband slash spouse slash, you know, parents slash child is a jerk, you know, because they aren't being human with me. They're simply being this creature that is always trying to improve. When I look at the capybara in a swamp in Brazil. It's looking out for its family. It's a very social animal. It's always making little squawks. It's very careful. It wants to protect it from the jaguar and the caiman that want to eat it. But at the end of the day, you know, it's not going to become a better capybara. It's just going to enjoy its life day by day. So the capybara and we should say there's a whole entry in your new book, which again is called The Centralist, about the capybara. It's called Capybara Moncure, which is Moncure is my heart in French, for those of you philistines out there. So you're saying the capybara is like just the right amount of anxious? Yes. Yes. I would say that this animal, which also breeds prodigiously, and I want to add this in that love is a very important part of this equation to something that really scares me about some of these young maxers optimizers is that they think of sex almost as a byproduct of all this and not something to be pursued in and of itself. Physical love is also a huge, important part of all this and certainly is a part of the culture of Spanish-Italian that I've been talking about as well, you know. So the capybara is an animal that is all about love, connections, caring and looking out for one another. But at the same time, it's an animal that spends such a great part of the day. Oh, it's hot. Now I will go into the water. And then when it's happy, its ears flicker like this, you know. And so much of encountering capybara is watching them do this, you know. And they just look at you. They have two giant teeth that never stop growing and they just pop out. They just kind of, you know, sorry, you can't. If you're listening to this, you can't see it, but mmm. It's an excellent capybara imitation. Thank you. Thank you very much. I also have an anxious animal, a dachshund, which I also find to be absolutely another social loving. But yes, it was, you know, it was bred for something it no longer has to do, which is hunt badgers. So now it always is, you know, my dachshund's name is Bernie. Bernie's always trying to figure out a new way to protect the family and keep us safe from, you know, whatever the Gramercy area of New York has to, you know, to offer, whatever dangers it has to offer. But he is also, you know, when you feed him a treat, his ears pop back and his whole snout goes, goes kind of soft. And he's like, he's just such a pleasant or scratching his belly. And he goes into, you know, we used to have to take ketamine to reach this state when I was younger. Not anymore. But yes, it's, it was a, it's, it's a wonderful thing to see. Animals are my latest in the pleasure matrix. They came very late for me, although I always wanted to have as a young immigrant, I, we were very poor. We couldn't afford a dog, but that was my big dream. But now I get to enjoy, every year I find something new to enjoy. And this year it's definitely the woof woof. I'm more of a meow meow. Although I do love cats too. You do? Okay. Absolutely. Absolutely. Mystical mystical animal. They are mystical animals. Although mine are really just morons. Oh, you found, you found. They don't exhibit anything zen like, or maybe I just have bad cats. But the point is the, the point I think you're making is there's something about the sloppiness and gusto of a cat unfurling its belly in a sunspot or a dog eating a treat that we should aspire to. We should aspire to. And, but also at the same time, it's interesting because I have friends who are basically capybaras in human form or, you know, or wiener dogs in human form. I mean, I have friends who are, this is why I love them so much is they're kind people who don't really give that much of a crap anymore about, you know, finding the best version of themselves or slotting, you know, we live in a, look, this is New York. We live in this highly ridiculous competitive society or finding the best way to optimize their careers or any of this stuff. And to me there, you know, I realized when I saw the cappy at first, I was like, Oh, this is my friend. So-and-so except it's a giant 150 pound rodent instead of, you know, 150 pound Oberlin graduates. And I think that's great too. You know? So I think it's also finding people like that, finding animals like that. And in some ways interior internalizing some of that behavior. And at the same time, I know that especially, you know, the younger people listening or watching this, I know you want to put your stamp on the world. I get it. I really wanted to put my stamp on the world, but I think I wanted to put my stamp on the world because I felt like I didn't really exist as a person when I was starting to write my first book. You know, I was writing about the Soviet Jewish immigrant experience in America and there were no books like that at the time. And I wanted to make a stamp because I thought, Oh, I'm pretty much invisible. And I had a pretty difficult assimilation adaptation to America, a period of that. But at the end of the day, you know, yes, you have to fulfill certain things to yourself. You don't always succeed at everything. I know that there's things I wanted to do with my life that I haven't and never will do. And I'm absolutely happy with that. I think that requires a real sensualist approach, because I know that the rest of my life, despite the pain, will be moments of this profound bliss. A lot of it spent with others. Some of it, you know, I was talking about, I was kind of complaining about New York before. I spent half the year upstate now in a small village. And that actually, that's the pleasure. That's the unitary or solitary pleasure that one gets there because you're in such a beautiful part of the world. So where are you with ambition personally now? Look, you know, if I'm writing a book, I want it to be the best book. You know, there's a there's a publisher publishing it, and there's people working hard to make sure it gets out into the world. And I don't want to disappoint them. And I want and I want the book to be good, as good as it can be. But I'm not going to I spent eight years before I published my first book, constantly trying to make it better and better. I don't think I did. I think it was pretty much the same damn book. I just couldn't let go of it because I thought I had this one shot and I got to get it right. How much can you abandon? How far can you go with the abandonment of ambition, given that you have two mortgages to pay? Good, but I think also, well, there I think I benefited from one thing, which was being an immigrant and thinking like an immigrant when it came to money. I think it dilutes with every generation, but somehow, despite having an enjoyable life, I managed to save up enough money where, you know, it's it's fine. I don't really have to worry that much about it anymore or have for a while. But that a lot of that required a kind of strange, you know, I'll give you an example. I walk 100 blocks because I love seeing New York or wherever it is. I'm about to go to Tokyo. I walk 100 blocks in Tokyo. But it's also a part of the immigrant part of me is like, oh, I just saved three bucks. But, you know, that's sort of a strange kind of bonus round. You know, at the same time, I could probably take a taxi, which would cost 50 dollars or more. But it's a strange all these things kind of come together in a weird way where both the things I enjoy sometimes end up saving me money. I think there's a strange, you know, the same way my docks and Bernie can smell, you know, a piece of chicken from 700 meters away. You know, I can figure out how to not spend money while enjoying myself, and that is definitely something that only exists for first generation immigrants. When you talk about relaxing your ambition, I'm like you're only a year older than you and still ambitious. You still want more. Yeah, OK. But I don't it's not making me happy and it's not improving my work. And so I'm aware that this is ancient conditioning that has a lot of momentum in my stream. That isn't really serving me. You're nailing it. I think you're nailing it. I think that's exactly right. Yes. Look, this is the point. I like reading a piece of fiction and being like, oh, crap, this person did it better than sometimes when I'm starting to write a certain kind of novel, I'll read, you know, what in Hollywood they call comps, things that are comparable. And I'll read it and I'll be like, oh, damn, this person did it better. Now, the old super ambitious competitive me would have been like, God damn it. Tearing my hair out and now I either say to myself, you know what, this person kind of did what I wanted to do. Maybe I don't even have to write this. They kind of nailed it. Or what else can I do that will make this from a different perspective, make it better, make it make it me. Right. And if I don't sell as many books as this person does or maybe win some of the same plaudits as this person, that's perfectly fine, too. And, you know, I have to remind myself, why do I write books? I started writing books for a couple of reasons. First, I had this grandmother in Leningrad where I was growing up, St. Petersburg today. But that sounds like it's in Florida, Leningrad. And she was the editor of some communist newspaper. And she she wanted me to write a hundred page novel when I was a kid because I like writing. But even then there was a sensual undertone because I also love cheese. And she paid me a piece of Soviet cheese for each page I wrote. So I was like, I got to write more because there's more and more cheese coming my way. Even today, Random House pays me mostly in cheese. And so, you know, this was a huge thing for me, this this idea already from the beginning. First of all, it was my grandmother's love and I love my grandmother dearly. And also it was, you know, this this sensuous connection. But also as I wrote, I began to laugh and enjoy myself. I write in bed. I've always written in bed. I can't believe you told me that before we started rolling. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like a less good Proust. Proust also wrote in bed. I love writing in bed because it's like it's a comfy place. It's my, you know, as they say nowadays, it's my safe space. I have my espresso maker next door next to me on the table because I'm also caffeinated. And I just the best parts of the day when I'm writing is without even noticing because I thought you fall into a flow state and I go, ha ha ha ha, you know. Sorry, that sounded very, you know, what's her name? Elizabeth Holmes, like a little bit. Oh, no. But yeah, I'm just I make myself laugh. And I remember that the first I had a really difficult adaptation. I was sentenced to eight years of yeshiva Hebrew school for some crime I didn't commit in America. And so kids would always make fun of me because I wore this big Russian fur hat and all this stuff and probably smelled like a bear or an elk or whatever. But but I started making kids laugh when I wrote a satire of the Torah called The Gunora. And so for me, it's this memory of both making myself laugh in bed or wherever I was writing it, and then also other people laughing. So when I'm walking down the streets of Manhattan, my happiest some writers hate it when people come up and say, oh, I really like your work. I love it. We will go and say your last book really made me laugh. And I needed a laugh at this point in my life. That to me is like that's the sensualist idea of perfection from you're doing something. And I also do think writing up as a very sensual kind of thing, because I write about what's my major subject, love and pleasure in all my books, even the title Super Sad True Love Story. You know, are these even these titles are full of love. And so if I can bring out this very sensual response, this, you know, laughter, then I've that's all I need. Then the ambition has been fulfilled. Nothing else really matters. I sell a crapload. Great. Then I'll get some more money, you know, by these martinis are now reaching up to 30 bucks in New York. Jesus, I make a good one myself at home. But so that's fine, too. Or, you know, I get some, you know, fall and go on some best of list or something. That's sweet. That's very sweet. But it's that connection with whatever, however many readers I have, that's really matters more than anything. You seem like the rare specimen who. who's actually achieved something close to, if not full on, enoughness. Enoughness is a good word. I'm not sure it exists, but it should, because it's, that's, that nails it, enoughness. That is a very interesting word. I love it because, you know, this is, I keep going back to my past, I don't know why, but I think there's something there. In the Soviet Union, we didn't have enough. There just wasn't enough. Like, you know, very basic stuff. There wasn't enough ham. There was always a, it was called a deficit. There was a deficit of ham or veal breast or whatever the hell, you know, so you constantly had to spend most of your day waiting in line for some piece of really crappy food. So there is such a thing as not enoughness. Then we came to America and there was this hilarious phrase that sounds way better in Russian, but it would be said of Americans, they are wild with their own fat, meaning almost the opposite. They have too much and they don't know what the hell to do with all this stuff. It's too much. It's almost like FOMO or having too many things available, right? So that maybe is the beautiful, you know, I keep talking about this median, almost liminal zone between two different things. Maybe the enoughness is the goal, but then how do you know when the enoughness hits? All I know is I've had enough enoughness that I wanted to publish a book called Essentialist, which kind of is about all the things that make me feel like I've done enough or had enough. 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Go to base44.com slash happier and sign up through our link to get 30% off the builder plan for your first year. That's base44.com slash happier. Enoughness may be one of these things that cannot be measured in an optimizer way. You can't track it on your watch, but you kind of know it when you feel it. If you're aware and awake in the moment to feel it. Yes, I think that's right. I think it's one of those things where, you know, it creeps up on you. This is why it's so important. There's so much that happens when you're not busy optimizing because whether you're, you know, sometimes I love having a long three-hour meal with a friend. Often you have to leave America to really let that happen because we are optimizing our dinner. And, you know, I just got back from Paris where I had a dinner, like one of these three-hour dinners. And I remember it was three people, a good friend of mine and a friend, and I call him a friend now, but I just met him that evening, you know. And we had finished this ridiculously long meal and there was this glorious silence. And I think each one of us was thinking about the good things we had eaten, the interesting things everybody had said to one another. And maybe we were looking out the window and watching the sunset over the 11th, I don't know, small, you know, and just enjoying that wonderful feeling of happy stasis where nothing more needed to be added. I know in the olden days, we would have each lit a cigarette and it's good that we don't do that now because that kind of, I've lost, sadly, friends to lung cancer. I know that I don't want that kind of stuff to happen. But at the same time, okay, maybe we had an extra calvadose that probably my physician would say, yeah, just, you know, because that's a very sugary drink. But overall, it was a picture of mental health, the picture of satisfaction and the kind of picture of enoughness. We didn't need anything more after that. We went our separate ways. The Metro whisked us away very beautifully to the different parts of Paris where we were staying. And it was almost miraculous compared to the kind of nightmarish dinners one is often forced into where, you know, they're looking over your shoulder like, and everyone else is just, everyone is drink maxing because they're so nervous and so unused to the quiet company of others. The dinner industrial complex, especially in New York City, is pretty intense. Yes, the dining industrial complex in places like New York, London, LA. Pick up on the calculus you made with the calvadose at the end of your Parisian meal. I think about this in my own life, too. There are many nights where I say, I'm going to sacrifice sleep tonight because I want to stay out late with my friends. And I think there are times when you want to do something that's against the rules because it's going to make you happier in some deeper way. So I am now getting, because I'm writing an article about this, weirdly enough, but I'm getting this thing that is a mattress pad, but it's apparently more intelligent than most life on earth and it will monitor my sleep to the nth degree and then issue a report. And I know that once I switch from two to let's say three drinks, which happens once a week or every once in a while, I will issue the reports and wag its electronic index finger at me and say, look, you effed up there and you didn't have the best sleep possible. And I will say, screw you, at least I'm enjoying my life. You're a mattress pad. That's as good as it gets for you. I lie on top of you. You don't lie on top of me. There's a real natural order here, my friend. And that's the attitude I'm going to bring to this goddamn mattress pad. I respect it. There are some more searing entries in your new book, which again, it's called The Sensualist, available at fine bookstores everywhere and on your digital bookseller. Help me get a martini. Yep, help Gary get a martini. It's kind of a elevated GoFundMe, really. Yeah, that's what publishing is. Fair enough. So you have this article about your parents and I think it's called, well, it's a chapter really, but I think it was based on an article, how to love your parents even if you hate their politics. And in it, you talk about the value of orphaning yourself. So can you just tell this story a little bit? It's an interesting idea because I think the newer generations, and this includes, for example, clearly my wife's relationship with our son is very close, way closer than any I had remembered growing up. And I think it's mutually beneficial because I think they have such a, and I do as well with my son, but in a different way, they have such a wonderful rapport and they really are, they share everything. But I think for those of us, and I say this not just from my own perspective, but from the perspective of growing up, you know, I went to a high school and we have our reunion on Saturday. God, 35, 40, I don't even, don't ask me. A long time. Reunion where almost all the kids were, it was a math and science high school. So of course, all the kids were from, you know, Russia, China, India, all the countries where math is done successfully. And so we all have these really hard driving immigrant parents. And every time this reunion happens, I see, I will meet kids, kids now they're, you know, 50 somethings that I went to school with and they are all still living this close to their parents. Either they live in the same big compound with them or mentally they're sharing exactly the same space. And so many of them are by metrics, you know, have optimized their lives to the point where they're made millions of dollars that are worth tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. And sometimes they, after a few of those drinks that we just mentioned, they will say, you know, my parents still think that so-and-so who's probably in the same room with us is doing so much better than me. Why can't I ever please them? And I'm like, because it's not possible. They're living in a kind of different, they're still impoverished immigrants from an impoverished country. They don't know anything other than this continual drive for more and more success. And if you let the guard down, somebody will leapfrog over you and then you'll be nothing. And that's a very, and so, and my parents, in the article, I talk about that. We have these funny things, my friend, an Indian American writer of some repute and his parents tell them, well, your muscle tone is very bad, so you'll never find love. But because of that, you should become an engineer because people will love, everyone loves an engineer. I mean, you know, maybe that made sense in the, you know, in the Delhi of 1943 or whenever that pronouncement was first generated, but it doesn't make sense, you know, in today's Park Slope, Brooklyn, right? So the idea, I think, is that, because what I wanna do is love my parents, but I have to love them for who they are because there's no other them there, you know? We always are trying to love some version of, or we convince ourselves, this is why so many romantic relationships go wrong, is we convince ourselves that, oh, this person is just so close. You know, we're dating a giraffe, but even though we don't like tall animals, we're so close to making them into a gerbil. If we just apply enough squeezing, they'll fit into this space. No, it's not gonna happen, and it's not gonna happen with your parents. And if you become a different person than your parents wanted you to be, it's not gonna happen with you. So what options are left to you if you still want to love them? And that is, in a sense, to orphan yourself, to say, look, I'm gonna make all my own decisions because as well as they mean for me, and of course they weren't the best for me, that doesn't correspond with what really is best for me. And if you come from a society or a culture where there's a kind of ancestor worship, which includes Soviet Jews, the group I came from, then that almost means a kind of blasphemy. But what are you gonna do? Are you gonna either try to please them and please their idea of who you're supposed to be and make yourself miserable, or are you gonna stop loving them because you realize they make you miserable and you begin to hate them? And you can love them even though you hate their politics. Oh, absolutely. They're Fox News watchers. Well, like all, and again, it's not like they're, in their community, they're the norm. I'm the complete weirdo. In their community, they're all super right-wing and it's always been a very... And I think in part, it's also because they came from the socialist Soviet Union, so their idea of rebelling against something is being as far right as possible, right? So I get that part too, right? And I respect that. That's fine. What do I care if they believe, I have a certain set of beliefs? What matters to me is that I see their grandson, my son, and them, and I see them horsing around. My son and my father love to box each other, not in an abusive call social services way, but I think it's adorable because my father, I was always too kind of a little weakling to box back, but I see my son, he practically punches him in the mouth. I mean, it's kind of cool to see. And I love that relationship, you know? And I just say, well, why don't I just step back and let them enjoy each other? And why do I have to, because I'm not gonna convince them, they're not gonna convince me, they always will try to convince me, but it doesn't really matter. You can love them, and at the same time, think of, I don't really have to live according to their ways, either politically, or socially, or spiritually even. It seems like the love can emerge when you stop being at war with reality. Exactly, and I think that's exactly right. It also goes back to enoughness. What do you need? I mean, you know, I went out with my parents, we had this wonderful Georgian meal, all Russians love Georgian, this Republic of Georgia nut, although I do like Southern Georgian food, too. But, you know, we had this chilled red wine, and these incredible khinkali, this incredible soup dumpling that's about the size of my head, and it has this veal inside, and you puncture it a little bit, and the soup, you think of a soup dumpling the Chinese style, this is like, on steroids, you know, and you're just sipping that delicious soup, put a little pepper on the top, on the flat surface of the top of it. I mean, and you're sitting across from somebody who gave birth to you, and you're sitting, across from someone you gave birth to or, you know, participated in the birthing process of. I will let my wife take all the credit there. But, you know, it's this it's this wonderful, almost Mediterranean feeling. Everyone is where they should be. No one is spouting off about anything. There's a veal dumpling involved. You're drinking red wine. Why not say enough? Apparently there is a Yiddish expression and I don't know if they spoke Yiddish in Eastern. Gnug. Which means enough. Enough. Gnug. Yes. Gnug. Gnug. I remember that word. Gnug. Yes. Well, Gnug is, you know, if I ever had a tattoo, Gnug would be G-U-N-U-G. It would be a really good one. It's not a bad one. It's not a bad one. Sort of North Star for existence. Yeah. Gnugness. Yes. I mentioned that the book has, it's not all let's enjoy a martini. There's some pretty searing parts to it. There's a story about how you used your watch to survive a panic attack. Can you walk us through that? Yeah. So I have been primed for panic attacks. Even sensualists can panic. Usual fight-flight response. And my main panic is claustrophobia. So I was stuck on a train that wouldn't move. And I had recently bought a mechanical watch. My first mechanical watch. Most watches are powered by batteries. So you hear this ticking sound. But a mechanical watch, you still wind it up and it slowly moves across. And so I kind of self-hypnotized by looking at the seconds hand and the very smooth churn of that. And then this obsession became even stranger. I wrote a piece for The New Yorker about this, which is included in this collection. And I ended up joining the secret watch societies around New York. Now, as a sensualist, a lot of my most sensual friends have always been women. They seem to enjoy life in a slightly less optimized and more enough kind of way that I do. But I began to find this, the watch world is so male, I began making some of my first male friends. And they were all, you know, is neurodivergence a part of that equation when you spend most of your time talking about esoteric watch movements and different styles of watches? Sure. But it's also, I think, you know, it's a sweet way for men to get together. And instead of saying, I'm lonely and don't know how to talk to other men, to be able to use this as a way to get into eating and drinking and then friendships. And the friendships are very sturdy. I remember during COVID, it was impossible to find an appointment to get the vaccine. And I called up my watch buddy, and he's like, 10am Harlem Hospital, bring the whole family. And there it was, you know. So, so now I am obsessed with this. And I go around the world, I'm sometimes invited to give talks to horological societies, you can't make this crap up. The watch I'm wearing now is a watch made by about two gentlemen. It's called Naoya Hida. It's in Tokyo. You're going to see this, I think, in two weeks when I go back there. And this gentleman, one of them, he carves the numerals, these beautiful Breguet styled numerals. The numerals are carved and the carving can take a long, long time because they're meticulously carved into a dial. The dial itself is made of German silver, this very beautiful compound that ages very beautifully over time. And then they fill it with this very special Japanese lacquer that has this incredible dark midnight blue infinity kind of look to it. I can't even describe it. And then the hands of the dial that tell you the time are put for a very specific amount of time under a source of heat so that they're heat blued. And they become a very particular kind of blue just as the numbers become a very particular kind of cashew lacquer. Now, I have gone and visited some of these Japanese craftsmen. My suits are also made, suit, I should say singular, was also made by this incredible Japanese craftsperson. And you see them at work. It's the same feeling I have when I'm in bed writing my books and where I need to be. I have a task, I'm doing the task. Oops, I made an error. This whole damn dial, that sucks. I have to get a new one. But now I'm back to doing it. Mistake has been compensated for. Now I'm doing this wonderful thing. I'm carving it. Yes, it's wonderful. Then when it's over, my tailor will say, Gary, let's go to Le Zinc Bar, which is this great bar in Shibuya, where also the next version of the excellent craftsperson steps in. This time it's a maker of martinis. He makes probably the best martini in the world. And there he is in his beautiful white jacket. And now it's our turn to enjoy what we were waiting for for so long, even as we were enjoying our work in a different way. Now comes this kind of almost reward for the greatness of what he accomplished at the sewing machine, what this gentleman accomplished making this dial, and what I hopefully accomplished taking notes for the article about both of them. Right. And then this wonderful moment of happiness and pleasure and friendship, even though, you know, the tailor's English is not perfect. There's a translator between us. My Japanese sadly doesn't exist at all. And yet somehow we all know we're friends. We all know we're friends. As I'm listening to you just talk with such relish about the craft of writing, of martini making, of watchmaking, of soup making. It's reminding me of something I believe you said to my friend Ezra Klein when you were on his podcast. There's something Buddhist about sensualism where you're enjoying the moment. You're in the moment. It's very funny you say that because I believe, I think Ezra said because he is sort of a practicing Buddhist, right? So that's how he became friends. Right. So this is very interesting because I'm not a religious person, but I've always thought that Buddhism would be if I had to have a religion, there's no question that Buddhism is where I would be. It's it's by far. I mean, everything we've been talking about, the flavor is definitely not, you know, angry, unhappy God sending thunderbolts down from heaven. It's it really is a lovely, you know, deity in a lotus position kind of sitting there watching the world pass by. I agree. I don't practice it in a kind of, you know, in a formal way. I do find myself very much. I go to Asia all the time and I will every time I go to Asia, including this upcoming trip, I will always stop by a temple and see people, you know, in their natural habitat. I love Thailand for this. I just find it absolutely, you know, here's a country that is just not wealthy by any standard. And yet I would wager that this is a happier group of people than you would find in many other parts of the world. And there you can there is no way to extricate that from religion, because that is a country where the religion is. A part of every aspect of life, because I think Buddhism, Buddhism is one of those things where you guess you can go to a temple, but you really can practice it with every breath you take, quite literally. Right. So a good friend of mine is a is a very important professor of Buddhism at Columbia, and she was listening to the Ezra Klein show, and she said. Everything you're saying, even though she said, look, there's no, you know, there's nothing about Buddhism about owning, you know, a bunch of watches, right? I don't think Buddha's like, hey, you know, you need another Patek Philippe there, buddy. But at the same time, she's like, but yet nothing you say, everything you said was kind of in a Buddhist way, because your overall approach to all this is Buddhist, right? Because it's not like, I'm not wearing this watch, because people will say, Oh, my God, nobody will ever recognize this watch. And literally, three people in the world, he only makes 100 watches like this a year. And it's not and I don't give a crap about this whole stealth wealth thing. I mean, I'm perfectly fine with people thinking I own a Timex. But it's the, when I look at this watch, I do a little bit of a mind meld with the person who designed it, who then carved it out, in the same way that what fiction is, the reason why I love literary fiction so much, and always worry about its demise is, it seems like an ancient technology compared to all the AI and all the other crap that's, you know, coming onto the scene. But what it is, is actually this incredible mind meld, this Vulcan mind meld between reader and writer. And this endless empathy machine that's so important to democracy and to just having a society, you know, instead of a bunch of atomized nerds, optimizing themselves into misery. In India, sharing space with elephants, tigers and other wildlife is a part of daily life for many communities. Conservation scientist Dr. Krithi Karanth is working on approaches intended to make those encounters safer for both the people and the animals. Her work supports families affected by wildlife conflict while contributing to research and conservation efforts concerning some of India's wildlife species and habitats. Planet Visionaries, hosted by the environmental advocate and professional climber Alex Honnold spotlights people whose work examines relationships between communities, wildlife and the environments in which they live. In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts. For both of us, the cold weather is now officially back. I, however, am not dreading it this year because I've got Bombas. They make socks, slippers and footwear that keep me warm and cozy and snug all winter long. And everything they make is great for gifting. So I'm also not stressed about the holidays. Bombas makes slippers for staying cozy inside and now they make footwear for going out and about. From fuzzy Sunday slippers for lounging around in to water-resistant suede booties that can handle the winter. Bombas socks are a winter go-to as well. Merino wool and cashmere blend socks for warmth. Fuzzy socks and plush gripper socks for cozy vibes at home. They also, of course, make socks that you can exercise in. I am a heavy user of Bombas socks for working out. I also wear them when I'm wearing sneakers out and about because they look good and they're really, really comfortable. And the best part about Bombas, for every item you purchase, they donate an essential clothing item to somebody facing housing insecurity. One purchased equals one donated with over 200 million donations and counting. Head on over to bombas.com slash happier and use the code happier for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash happier and use the code happier at checkout. The Buddha and I'm not a Buddhist scholar, but the Buddha was pretty clear about the dangers of sense pleasures, but he wasn't anti sense pleasure. He I think he had a quite a vivid metaphor. He compared it to licking honey off of the edge of a razor. Oh, oh, he was good. That Buddha. Yeah, that's really good. I like that. He had a way with words. But but but again, it's not he's not saying no, honey. He's saying don't. Yeah, I think. And what I hear in the way you describe your relationship to sense pleasures, it feels like it might be able to comport with the Buddha's view because you're not saying I can't I can't go on without this pleasure. I need infinite amounts of it. You're leaning on the enoughness. Yeah, enoughness. Absolutely. So, you know, I had this incredible suit made. I don't wear the suits a lot, but I had this. Absolutely. I think it might be one of the best suits ever made because this we spent so much time. We went to Italy to find the right fabric. We went to Hong Kong to have the shirts made because they do the best shirts. And we had the suit made by this wonderful Taylor Cade is his name in Shibuya in Tokyo. Now, after I finish with the suit. I thought this is wearing this is such incredible pleasure, but I will not buy another suit. I have it. It's fine. It's great. You know, especially since somebody else paid for it. It's wonderful, you know, and and even with watches, you know, if a part of me is ever no longer intrigued by wearing different kinds of watches, they're gone. You know, they're they're gone and turned into a different experience or turn into nothing or given away or any number of things. You know, there's no you know, there are watch collectors, for example, who compete with their collections, who want the best collection in the world. No, my God. No. Why? Why? Why do any of this? Why do any of this? This is going back to that Russian sentence. They're wild with their own fat. You know, don't be wild with your own fat. Enjoy what fat you have. And sometimes get rid of some of that fat. It's fine, too. I come away from this conversation with you thinking that the wiser way to move through life is not to push, but to amble. You're doing great in coming up with these very good enoughness and ambling are the two good takeaways from this, because ambling is very important. I walk 15,000 steps a day and. I, but it's not because I have to walk 15,000 steps a day, I love to walk two and a half hours a day. It's fascinating. Two and a half hours a day during the snowfall upstate in big boots is fascinating. It's a whole different world. The pleasures of a little veil of snow hitting you, you know, landing if you have thick eyebrows like me, you come in looking like, you know, like Brezhnev after a snowfall. All that stuff is so freaking good. The beauty of. Sometimes I'll take a ferry across the East River and end up in Astoria, Greek neighborhood or an Egyptian neighborhood, and I will amble, amble and amble. Yeah, I smell a good kebab. No stopping me. I'll eat it, you know, if it's the right time of day and there's some kind of incredible drink on offer, I'll drink it and I'll keep walking. You know, this is not rocket science. This is the opposite of rocket science. All this technology that they've been working on for so long. Twitter and Facebook and every brand of social media. Yeah. Are we? I have students who are doing historical fiction about the 90s. Why? Because this stuff didn't exist. And their idea of happy people or people trying to find happiness means going back to the time where, you know, you went to a club and put a quarter into a phone and got somebody's answering machine. I mean, it's incredible. I was watching the movie Metropolitan with my son, you know, and he'd never seen this kind of world that set in the 80s. It's just people sitting around talking and having drinks. It's glorious. No phones, nothing. Nobody's helping a corporation out by constantly using their thumbs to get, you know, basically all you're doing when you're doing that is sending money across to, you know, from the East Coast to the West Coast to somebody's ridiculous Menlo apartment, sorry, apartment, Menlo Villa. That's all you're doing. That's all this is for. You're not happier at the end of this. Who's happy from this? You know, and yet here we all are optimizing ourselves into into this netherworld where we're not human. We're not really as good as a machine. The machines do it better than us, you know. So what's all this for? In other words, ambling as an act of resistance, ambling as an act of resistance. And I would say I do talk about this a little bit. Almost every sensual pleasure we find when not when we don't overdo it, when we do it, you know, just enough. Remember the enoughness, the gnugness that we've talked about? All of that is an act of resistance because the people who we are resisting against. All of their striving is compensation for something they will never find. And that's something I think comes from a basic act of enjoying the company of others, of having friendships. I do know some of these people, both in tech and in finance. Many of them have a lot of problem with friendships. They don't have any real friends. They have competitors who they have sometimes friendly relations with, but that's not the same thing. So they've enforced upon us this whole view, this whole way of living that is. And kudos to them for figuring out ways of getting all the right Pavlovian responses out of us so that we are now living inside their nightmares. Right. But every time you go out for dinner and you don't pick up your phone and you talk to your friends and then maybe you have that incredible moment of silent happiness at the end, you have resisted in a way that's almost as political as if you've cast a ballot. You said no to this stuff. You did not transfer money to them that evening. You've emerged victorious and happy and satisfied. Gary, it's such a pleasure to meet you. Like I said, I've been reading your stuff for so long. It's so cool to sit across from you. Wonderful to be here. Thank you so much. Just want to remind everybody, Gary's written many books. I mentioned two of my favorite novels from him, Absurdistan being one of them, but he has a new book called The Sensualist. Highly recommend. Check it out. Thank you. Thank you for listening. If you enjoy this show, please do me and my team a solid. Wherever you listen or watch the show, give us a rating. And actually, if you've got a little bit of extra time, give us a review as well. These really help us grow the show and more importantly, help us spread the good news that the mind is trainable. Now to the credits. Thank you so much to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. 10% Happier is produced by Tara Anderson, Marissa Schneiderman, DJ Kashmir, David Hart and Hayden Broom. Post-production is handled by the great folks over at Greenhorn Creative. And Nick Thorburn of the great indie rock band Islands wrote our theme. Thank you for listening. Deuces. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. 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