Why “Being Nice” Is Ruining Your Life | George Saunders

Key Takeaway

George Saunders explores how adopting a 'warm metacognition' - stepping back to observe your mental state without judgment - transforms both creative work and life challenges. When stuck in writing or life, he cultivates curiosity about the obstacle rather than self-accusation, asking 'what's happening here?' instead of 'why am I failing?' This compassionate self-awareness, practiced daily in revision, naturally extends to deeper empathy for others, recognizing that everyone operates within constraints they didn't choose.

Episode Overview

Author George Saunders discusses his new novel 'Vigil,' which follows a woman who died in 1976 and now comforts the dying. The conversation explores Saunders' approach to creative challenges, his practice of 'warm metacognition' when facing obstacles, and how cultivating compassion toward oneself in the writing process naturally extends to profound empathy for others. He shares how accepting all mental states - even difficult ones - during revision creates better work, and discusses the book's exploration of how people are shaped by circumstances beyond their control.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Why “Being Nice” Is Ruining Your Life | George Saunders from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

George Saunders, welcome back to the show. show. show. It's so nice to be here, Dan. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Uh, congratulations on your new book. I'm I'm holding it up in my hand. This is the galley copy that you sent me a while ago, Vigil, uh, by George Saunders. It's phenomenal. Uh, so, uh, congratulations and then thank you. Thank thank you for reading it and and thanks for having me back. I I always look forward to, you know, to being here if you'll have me.

So So thanks. thanks. thanks. I've got a list of people who have opened invites and you're firmly on that list. So you you just hit me up anytime. Um so let's talk about the book. Uh if if you wouldn't mind without spoilers, would you just describe the basic basic basic plot of the book? Yeah, this is always the hard part for me because it's always sounds so so wacky, but basically it's just it's uh there's a there's a woman who died in 1976 at at in her early 20s and since then she she's sort of unable to go on to whatever is next and she's been kind of roaming the earth.

Uh and she's decided that her mission is to comfort uh the dying to sort of be like a a death doula who's already dead I guess. And uh so this so she'd been doing this since the 70s and uh like she's done like 343 interventions of this kind. Uh and her whole thing is she's just wants to comfort. That's her kind of her thing. So this night she uh kind of gets the um the challenge of her career, I guess. You know, she drops in on this guy and it turns out he's um a former oil exec who was very instrumental in that kind of early 90s uh climate change denial.

So, he's kind of a stubborn old guy and uh and she's put to the task comforting him and you know, hilarity ensues. Actually, hilarity does often ensue, which is which is interesting. Um but so so let me start with the obvious question. I'm sure in your press tour for this book, everybody's going to ask you this question, but what is it with you and ghosts and the afterlife and the Bardau or Space Between, etc., etc.? Yeah. You know, I mean, the the truth is it's just um what I found about writing is it has to come out of a place of kind of uh I don't if you'd call it joy, but kind of anticipatory frolic, you know, like I can have some fun with this because, you know, if if you imagine 180 blank pages sitting there like, how am I going to fill those up?

You can't fill them with duty, you know? You can't fill them with with uh being pedantic. So, for me, I'm always kind of just scanning around for something that I think would be fun. And also, I know as I get older, I'm getting older, I find I want something that's going to be really almost impossible, like something that'll cause me to stretch. So, with this one, it whenever I think of ghost, I somehow that makes me laugh a little bit. I kind of feel interested in it.

And um so, there's just a sort of a technical component that if I put ghost in there, I know I can do it, you know. Now, behind that, I think there's kind of a lot of other maybe more serious things about mortality and that kind of thing, but to me, it's kind of like if you have if I have two people in a cafe talking, I I don't really know what to do with that. But if I put a a ghost of a former waiter in there, suddenly I'm like, "Oh, that could be funny." You know?

So, I I think it's, you know, I mean, Flannry Oconor said this great thing about you can a writer can choose what he writes, but he can't choose what he makes live. So, you know, often when you're a young writer, you decide in capital letters what you want to write about and it's usually something about your worldview or a trip you just took or something. But as I'm as you get more experience, you see that you it's actually not your choice. You know, you you're just kind of scanning around for something that will light you up and then you march in that direction and see what happens.

Well, you hinted at this that there's something a little bit more serious underneath. Um, I'm I'm pausing just because there there were two things you said that I wanted to follow up on, and I'm having a little um argument in my brain about which one I should follow up on. I I'm interested in what you said about wanting to push yourself and stretch the older you get. I'm also interested in the fact that the older you get, there's maybe some stuff around mortality that makes you interested in um uh in the in the subject of ghosts and the afterlife.

Um, which one would you prefer to start with? Well, I can dispense with the second one a little bit because that mortality dread, I've had that since I was a little kid. I mean, it's getting a little worse now that I'm, you know, in my 300th decade, but I remember as a little kid being in my grandparents house in Texas and hearing and hearing them breathing and sleeping in the next room breathing and they were, you know, ancient. They're probably 48 at that point. But it just seemed like, oh my god, so life is tied to that breath.

if either one of them stops, we're I don't know how I can deal with it, you know, even as a little kid. So, I think and you know, being raised Catholic, it was very much um you know, kind of this the idea that life was intrinsically a morally urgent thing, you know, every minute mattered and all that kind of stuff. So, so that has gotten a little more heightened as I'm as I'm getting older, but not much. I think that's always been kind of something that's, you know, that's that's been on my mind.

And I know we've talked about here before just you know the way that um if if you are uh you know if you were at a really amazing party with great food and beautiful conversation and having a great time and somebody kind of came up to you and said uh you're going to have to leave but I can't tell you when you know that you would kind of be oh this is even this party's either you would say it's a lot worse and it's terrifying or I think you'd want to say this party is even better and I've got to you know got to submerge myself into the pleasures of this and and cuz I don't know when I'm going, you know, that that's a pretty urgent feeling.

urgent feeling. urgent feeling. I'm just thinking like would it would the party be better or worse for me if somebody said that to me? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh and then how do I feel about my actual life in light of that? I I think that you know certainly all the spiritual practice that we do. I think I I feel like you were trying to move ourselves to the into the category that would find it a better party, but I don't think that's true of me just yet.

I'm that would just make me clench up, you know, and start start eating a bunch of treats and snacks, drinking more, dancing more wildly, you know. Wasn't there some Catholic saint who said, "Lord, like Lord, make me chased, just not yet." Yeah. Yeah. But it I mean but it is you know I I I think um I've had a couple of outbursts of that kind of feeling of like okay this is uh better because it's limited but that's a fairly transient feeling I think. Is there some sort of cosmology that you uh actually have a suspicion about that's reflected in the the two novels that that deal with what happens after we die?

we die? we die? Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a kind of a an a big and a little the the the little one is Well, let me do the big one first. The big one is I suspect that there's an experience after death, you know, or or it would um that when someone dies and is lying there, they're still experiencing some stuff. I don't know exactly when that occurs or how, but I think that that makes sense to me. Even if if you just want to say it's it's a the brain flickering out or something, still to the person experiencing it, it would be it could be in the way the dreams are, it could be quite vivid and real and it also could be unlimited in time.

Uh and then I also think I have a suspicion uh that that experience wouldn't be entirely untethered from the way you either either the way you lived your life or the or maybe terrifyingly the state of your mind at the moment of the exit. That that's a little more horrific to me because you you know so so I think those things are reflected in in the books a little bit. the idea that you could look at this whole book as being something that's happening in a kind of a quasi dream state that these dead people are trapped in because of their the moment of their passing or something like that.

Um but on a on this the other level I think these books kind of enact psycho dramas you know in other words uh in Lincoln all those people were stuck in in Lincoln and Nardo they were stuck there because of some delusional mental habit that they had uh that resulted in an unfulfilled desire for example. So you could see that as a kind of a cosmological thing but it's also every one of us in every minute really. I mean, we've got some delusion going on that keeps us separate from actual reality.

We're suffering for it. We're um, you know, often stuck in some kind of denial, you know. So, so I kind of see it both ways. And the cosmology of the books isn't really consistent. In other words, if you if you really were having if Jill in this book, for example, was having that experience at the moment of her death, it would be kind of weird that she would Well, maybe it wouldn't. I don't know. I have to think about that one. It might it might actually be totally consistent.

I don't think anybody is grading you for consistency. Uh consistency. Uh consistency. Uh I hope not. It's it's No, it's But what do you think about I mean this is but like what do you think what as of right now? What do you think happens if one of us drops at this moment from from your from the drop person's perspective? perspective? perspective? To to state the obvious, I uh just to get it out there, I don't know. Um I I uh I do find as you said I find it horrifying that the uh approximate cause of your fate after death would would be not the quality and ethical of your ethical conduct in your over the arc of your life but instead the quality of your mind at the moment of expiration.

Um Um Um because the the latter is really in many ways out of your control. Um will my the quality of my mind be if I'm being murdered, right? Um or if I'm in incredible pain uh and terrified or in incredible pain and drugged. Um, so and and I I fully plan to be drugged if I'm in incredible pain at the end. Just even start a little early, you know. Well, I've tried that just in case. just no but I mean there's an interesting kind of third option which is that you're you're uh it would have might have something to do with certain habits you cultivated of I suppose of spiritual uh spiritual discipline or or um aspiration so that in that even in that moment you you would have a um a habit of of of some kind of thought that might that might um yeah I don't know I like that Woody Allen thing.

I'm not I'm not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens. I feel so guilty quoting Woody Allen and yet yet yet dude has a lot of good lines. Um, so I but I think what you're saying is and and again this is not an area of Buddhist cosmology or um uh I don't know what the right word is philosophy that I understand well but to the to the extent that I understand any of it I do think the Buddhists would hold that your what's happening in your mind at the moment of death really is important in terms of what happens next.

But given how complex the mind is, how I think the Buddha said there are a thousand or a billion mind moments every second, um that a lifetime of hopefully like, you know, 8020 ethical conduct and um a decent amount of mental training, you know, strengthening the wholesome factors of the mind will be in there even if you're in a state of horror or anger or pain or delusion. Uh and so you've got a fighting chance of a of a of a next act that's uh uh pleasant.

Yeah. Yeah. It also seems that maybe I mean and and this is something in that's present in the books is that if you at that moment that moment that moment if you have some kind of ability to step out of step out and look at and recognize that whatever is happening to you it's your mind. It's you know your mind is generating that phenomenon. But I but again I I know that that's something uh that takes years and years of of practice. But like in Lincoln and the Bardau that they those those ghosts had to kind of uh have the self-possession to recognize that they were dead.

That was kind of their their way of of of getting out. And um yeah, but it is I mean again it's interesting to me because whatever we you know we we we like to sort of speculate about the afterlife. it it always feels like there's a mirror and whatever you say about that is true right this minute as well you know so so salvation in this moment what does that look like uh hell in this moment what does that look like and um and um and um how does that observation you just made does it play out in your life in any consistent way consistent way consistent way well I I mean I think it for me that the the thing is if you and these are you know these are all things I know intellectually and I'm I'm not very good at moving the knowledge from my head into my actual heart or life.

But the idea that if you if you exist in a delusional relation to reality, then there's suffering. There's ongoing suffering every minute. So for example, if you're somebody who only talks and never listens, that kind of person, I mean, you may never get called on it in this life. People might tolerate it or they, you know, but somewhere in the actual quality of every moment is being affected by that your mind state that's causing you to only talk and not listen. So, so I would say in a certain maybe kind of sophisticated way that's actually heaven or hell.

You know, if you if you go through your whole life not listening to other people say uh or or or you know, being aggressive with them or overriding them or whatever it is, uh there's some kind of negativity that occurs and the kind of for me the mind-blowing thing is you might never become aware of it. You you just missed out, you know. So, I mean, I I I'm think in our western traditions, we always want there to be a big hammer that comes down at the end and says, "Boom, go directly to hell.

You're a bad listener." But but it could also be that you know that the the the punishment and reward is being collected in every instant uh whether or not you ever learn about it. And that's to me that rings true in a certain way. You know, you and it it rings true if you see someone else doing it. If someone else is making an error, you can see, oh, that poor guy, you know, but then you turn on yourself and it might not be so easy to discern what you're, you know, what what delusion you're you're catering to in every instant.

I I was thinking about this very thing the other day when I was talking to somebody, and I can't even remember who, about a third person who we both felt was, you know, capable of a level of selfdeception and delusion that was unusual. uh and that bad things ensued for that person and anybody in that person's orbit. And then I made the move of wondering, well, what's that thing about me? Uh and it's really hard to know. know. know. Yeah. It's it's a blind spot, you know, that that's that that's that that's Yeah.

So that I mean that was something in this book that I I I think I'm talking about because I found it in in the book. This this main guy is not a good person. Uh, but one of the technical challenges of the book was that once it got set up, I realized I didn't I didn't have a um authoral way to fully tell you how bad he was because a lot of the book is in his his mind. So, he's got all kinds of defenses and uh and practiced denial moves uh built up and the other characters are kind of they're from other times.

uh this 1970s and the 1880s as the two other main characters. So they don't really understand the nature of what he's done. So it was kind of an interesting uh inadvertent technical challenge to say, "Okay, how do I if all I can do is represent this guy's life from inside his head? How do I signal over his head to you, the reader, that he's a pretty pretty uh not great person?" You know, so it's fun. That's the fun of it really. You know, you're writing a book and you find out those technical No, I say you write you're writing a book and you think it's going to be easy and perfect and then in the middle of it you go, "Oh, I made myself a little bit of a a problem here." You know, I'm just so interested and now we're bouncing around a bit because I do want to come back to um selfdeception.

Um, but when you say that that authoral challenge was fun, uh, you know, as as a as a kind of JV writer myself, I don't find author authoral challenges fun. I um I, you know, howl at the moon when I'm in the middle of them. Um, so are you are you being fully honest that you find it fun or do you have moments of frustration and tearing your hair out? I'm defining the word fun kind of widely, you know. So, I mean what for me what uh the fun is howling at the moon and going, "Oh, look at that.

I'm hauling at the moon." That's happened before. It'll be okay. You know, or howling at the moon is part of the process. That that kind of thing. Uh, with this book, there was a lot of stuckness actually in in the middle of it. And it. And it. And part of me was despairing about that because you think, oh, I I can't do it. It's I picked the wrong book, you know, or I've lost my mojo. But I think at this stage, I have those feelings and I have a second level of feelings.

It's like, yeah, that's okay. You you've been here before. and also a kind of a a a new or a dawning understanding that the harder it is in the middle, the greater the problem the book is trying to solve. You know, it's almost like Houdini, like if Houdini said, "I'm going to now escape from this windbreaker," you'd be like, "Okay, well, you know, you can escape from a windbreaker." But if he's got, you know, if he's got a straight jacket and some chains and you drop him in the Hudson, then you're like, "Okay, it's, you know, so there's a feeling of like the the subconscious is very trickster, you know, and and it'll give you some really really difficult obstruction." Uh, and for me it's just to you just grind.

You just come back day and day and hit your head against the obstruction and then eventually it gives, you know. Um so that so so to me that's fun in a way you know if you have that sort of slight understanding that this is the process then then it can be kind of fun and I guess in the same way that if you were doing something really difficult and strenuous physically like you know climbing Everest is that fun you know maybe depends I guess if you've done it before you understand the stages and that kind of thing right I'm interested in what you said about getting yourself out of stuckness because whether and now I'm speaking to the listener whether you're a um a writer or not, we all have massive challenges in our lives.

Um and if I'm hearing you correctly, and now some of what I'm about to say will include some projection or guesswork on my part, but it sounds to me, George, like you have a way of talking to yourself in those really difficult moments that allows you to kind of work through this stuckness over time. over time. over time. Yeah, I I do a lot of of talking to myself and usually Okay, so my my thing in writing is I'm mostly trying to avoid anxiety. Uh when I was young, I didn't start I didn't get a book out till I was 38.

Partly because I was so anxious about which book it would be. You know, I wanted to make sure I'm in the right lineage or the right voice. So, at some point, I just thought, you know, let's let's develop a an approach to the writing life that minimizes anxiety and therefore increases uh freshness and productivity and so on. So, one of the things I'll try to say to myself, and it sounds a little bit corny, but I'll just say like, uh, if if there's a problem in the book, I kind of almost turn to the book and say, "Okay, what's happening here?" You know, not not you son of a you're ruining my career, but you know what?

What is going on with us? You know, and the book, you know, actually kind of answers like, well, you know, it these sections are this section in here is just dull or or you know, whatever it's whatever it wants to say, it can say it. So for me a lot of the um the approach to stuckness is first of all to say oh I'm stuck not oh damn it I'm stuck you know I'm worthless but oh okay I'm stuck and then um kind of I I think for me personally when I am uh proceeding negatively from in a place of stuckness it's because I'm overthinking it.

My my brain is going crazy. there's self accusation. Uh there's all kinds of peripheral worries and stuff like that. Whereas in a more positive mode, the mind is fairly fairly quiet and it's fairly curious about the state of the stuckness. Like okay, so what's actually happening here? And you know that just that moment where like there's one mode where you don't want to hear any answers and you're defensive and there's another mode where you're really open to hearing the answer whether it's from a person or in this case from the book.

Um that that second mode is is one I'm I try to nurture in my revising just to sort of go okay accept any answer you know even if even accept a fatal answer. If the answer is this book is doomed you got to throw it away. Okay. uh often the book doesn't have that answer. It just has a a much smaller simpler one. So um for me a lot of it just trying to cultivate that mind you know to say well um I thought this part was good yesterday it's reading badly today.

Huh. Okay. Uh so there's all kinds of weird little mental moves. One of which is for example when I start reading something to revise it I part of my mind breaks out and looks at the way I'm reading that day and it says how how are you as a reader and if I say I'm in a terrible mood and I am going to cut the out of this thing I go okay you can do that but let's let's or if I say oh I love everything about this document even the mistakes I love them you know okay remember that so that kind of colors the way that how seriously you take that day's edits.

Uh, but it also does a kind of a magic trick of saying, I'm going to allow all the writers that you are to to weigh in on this. Even the irrational ones, even the ones that are wrong, that are too generous, are too stringent. You guys are all welcome to come in. If you make a mistake, don't worry. We'll we'll straighten it out tomorrow. So, it's kind it's kind of a something that I discovered in writing and and it's um interesting to for me now to try to think is there is there a real world version of this, you know, where you you have that kind of attitude.

But um yeah, like that like that like that a real world version meaning outside of writing. writing. writing. Yeah. In other words, could you and I think the answer is that I mean to me the answer is it it sounds a lot like what I've come to understand about dharma practice but it's just kind of like when you enter a situation in the world can you have that same attitude of saying okay first of all my mind is overdetermining things projecting as you said your my mind is is telling me with more certainty what's happening than it should be because that's what the mind does okay so can I kind of be can I quiet that down a little a little bit if if data comes at me from the world, what's my relation to that?

Am I defensive or am I accepting it? Uh what would I have to do with my mind and my eyes and my breath, you know, to to get to a place where I was getting all the data that a moment offered, you know, that that kind of thing. And then maybe also kind of that acceptance of this moment might be a complete disaster. you know, I might be in a terrible situation or for me the hardest thing is if I make a mistake, a mistake, a mistake, I my mind flares up in all kinds of neurotic things.

And so in that moment to say, okay, you made a mistake, your mind is flaring up. That's not good for you. Can you you know, but I think that's all kind of uh modeled in miniature in in a writing moment for me. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. No, I to me it seems eminently scalable, but what I what I hear in in in what you're saying is just a a habit of warm metacognition where you're just constantly dropping back out of whatever discursive thought loop you're in.

You're dropping back and you're dropping back again to see like what kind of goggles am I wearing as I look at my writing and at my thinking. You're in a kind of a grandfatherly way. You're you're adding in levels of warm remove over and over. Is that is that a decent description? description? description? It's a perfect a warm metacognition. I'll remember that. That's that's exactly it. And of course it's it's sort of a I'm well it's sort of a put on in a sense. I mean, I'm I feel that way kind of, but it um yeah, it's it's sort of like um like um like um it also I think comes out of the love that I have for the form because in you know, like I've wanted to be a writer since I was pretty young and I have a lot of reverence for it.

So that makes that warm metacognition more possible. uh because I I so much want uh a story of mine to be good and to speak to people and to and to yeah all those things that that I have that extra level of well actually extra level of pragmatism pragmatism pragmatism you know like okay how can I get this to work warm metacognition is one way what what we're calling and so um I think I might not well I wonder I think it's it's easy to apply that in something that matters very much to you you know you it's I guess if you were a doctor and there was a person on the table that you really wanted to save you would be very energetic in investigating which mental states might make you most efficient say you know so I have a love for that the form that that's I think uh it also makes me really um willing to be patient you know and to do many many many rewrites because somehow for me the the idea of putting out something that isn't uh my best or or or doesn't show good intention that that really would kill me, you know.

So, there's a there's a kind of a I I think of it as kind of a a useful way to use one's OCD, you know, just just just uh you just there was a little just a little something you said in the last 25 seconds of your last answer that doesn't show good intention. What What do you mean by What What do you mean by that? Well, I guess what I mean really is that I I I would not like it if somebody read a book of mine and felt that it was phoned in in any level that I that I wouldn't wouldn't like.

Um, so I mean good intention, good intention, good intention, yeah, I I think I probably mean more good intention for result. You know, in other words, I I want you to say, well, you know, this book didn't speak to me, but he clearly is sincere in it. he's he's he's investigating something interesting to him, therefore I still like him. You know, that kind of thing as opposed to God, this guy checked out, you know, he's checked out and he just sent me Yeah. wrote this book that doesn't have any now I mean I know in another sense there there's the other kind of good intention which which is you know I hope this book will move somebody you know and help somebody and and um and and I think that that part of it which is very Buddhist but I think that comes from the work you know in other words if I if I'm in here every day doing my best to make the book sing that has good intention written all over it and good intentions will be will be communicated by the work you and and and also because you know and I think we've talked about this before the way I imagine this this process is that I'm when I'm writing I'm kind of imagining you or you know other readers on the other end.

Well, a lot of the revision process has to do with how are you what's your imaginary projection of your reader look like? If it's some schmuck who's gonna give me $20 that I can easily fool, easily fool, easily fool, that's gonna that's going to come across in the in the editing. Whereas, if it's just my beloved friend who's smarter than me, who's been around the world, who I'm not going to uh compel if I just don't do my best. In other words, a kind of intimate, positive, relational kind of thing that comes through in the edits as well.

So, and then I think good intentions, you know, comes through that way. I mean, I'm making it sound very dreamy. It's also, of course, very ambition driven, you know. I I I want to be good at something and I want to uh but all this stuff kind of comes in one package, I think. You know, and for me, it it it's it really comes down to revision. That's kind of the the holy grail is to to come to something fresh again and again, and all this stuff will happen in that in that process.

I'm going to attempt to segue here and we'll see how I do. Um but to me to me it's it seems like a straight line. Um you and I have just been talking about your your attitude toward your own mind in moments of stuckness or to use your term self- accusation in writing. Um, and I I think and in my experience, how we are with ourselves is often how we are with the world. And empathy uh toward others is a massive theme in your work at large and a yet again a massive theme in this book, at least as I read it.

Um, and so I want to um set up one moment from the book and actually read it back to you and then get you to talk about it on the other side. Are you cool with that? with that? with that? Good segue. Yeah, I love it. Okay. Okay. So, at one point there's the main character who we keep talking about, Jill, and then her nickname is Doll. Jill. Doll. Blaine. Blaine is her last name. Uh so she is as we've discussed uh I I I you don't ever use the term angel or ghost but she's somebody who has passed away in the 70s and has uh either decided on her own or accepted accepted the assignment uh of um comforting people uh in their moment of death.

And um in one moment she is actually inhabiting the man of the the mind of the man who was responsible for her death. Um uh the guy's name is Bowman. Um and I hope I don't think this is spoiling anything to say that well can I say a little bit about how she died without anything? anything? anything? I think yeah I think you can say that. Okay. I don't think it spoils anything. Um uh but I wanted to check with you. Anyway, Bowman had been trying to um hurt her husband Lloyd uh but ended up hurting her.

Uh and she takes this moment to inhabit the mind of Bowman who's still alive. Um and in so doing, he no longer seemed strange. He seemed, and now I'm I'm quoting the character, he seemed inevitable. uh and because he is inevitable, it would be ludicrous to pass judgment on him. So, I'm just going to read a a little bit of a quote from from that part of the he had left his mother's womb with a particular predisposed mind and started living and immediately that predisposed mind had run up against various events and been altered in exactly the way such a mind buffeted by those exact events would be altered.

And all the while he, Bowman, trapped inside Bowman, had believed he was making choices. But what looked to him like choices, had been so severely delimited in advance by the mind, body, and disposition thrust upon him that the whole game amounted to a sort of lavish jailing. His feelings of rage, of shame, of being worthless, of needing to lash out preemptively at even the slightest were all real, and he must suffer them every day. And why? Because he had been born him. But he had not chosen to be born him.

That had just happened to him. And then life had happened to that him, exerting upon it certain delletterious effects, including but not limited to the desire to blow up Lloyd. Again, Lloyd, her husband, whom he perceived correctly, by the way, in the relative sense, to be his enemy. Anyway, I could go on, but this is just speaking to I I'll use a word that you use, a lavish sense of empathy, of a deep understanding of other people's wise and wherefors and um and I'm just wondering uh well before I ask further questions about it, let me just get you to comment on the foregoing and then I'll ask some more questions.

Yeah. Well, so in a way that I mean she she's kind of a like a a I I didn't realize this as I was writing her, but she's a first person omnisient narrator. So she's always talking to us and but she has this ability to inhabit other minds. It started with this this incident that you're talking about that you read from. Uh for me that okay I this when I was a little kid um I remember this one incident where I was in Catholic school and I was a real kind of goody two shoes.

I was a good reader. I was very well behaved. And one of the nuns was praising me. And of course, I was lapping up. I loved it. Meanwhile, there's a kid that I'd known, you know, for a while. And he's over here, and he's not a good reader. And she's kind of giving him a little grief about it. You know, why don't you get up to speed? And he's and at the end of the day, I saw him. He's crying, you know. So, I thought, well, that's weird because I didn't like in the womb, I didn't check the box that said good reader, you know.

I I just was a good reader and I didn't check the box uh obedient kiss up. I just, you know, I just was that uh in the same way that he didn't in the womb decide that he would be a poor reader, you know. So, um that struck me because I certainly enjoyed the praise as I still enjoy any praise. But I was looking a little scans at it like, well, you're praising me for something that I, you know, whatever that is, didn't choose. And even even there's a second element that people often talk about like well but you worked hard at whatever the thing is you improved uh you got to be a better reader.

You spent a lot of time reading but even that I think wasn't on the checklist you know or was on the checklist and I had no ability to check it. So there was an item called will be a hard worker. I I don't remember checking that box, you know, and he and so in other words, the the it kind of makes an elaborate case for I guess predestination in a certain way. And at a softer level, it says maybe we should judge a little less harshly and praise with a little more reserve because none of us um designed ourselves and and even our ability to change ourselves, I would say, is sort of a predestined quality.

So, so that's that's Jill's uh point of view. I I think in in a philosophical sense, we're talking about that's an absolute view, but then she also has a relative view, which is she's her and she likes what she likes and uh she likes to be praised and she likes to be not blamed, you know. So, so it was it was an interesting I kind of that section where she died and that you just read it just sort of appeared to me and sort of blocked the path of the book in a certain way and I kept taking it out and putting it back in and taking it out and putting back in and and in the end it sort of became I think what the book is about a little bit.

You know, do we have on the one hand a bear chasing prey is totally natural and you can't blame the bear for it. But if you're the one he's chasing, you know, suddenly you want you want a gun. So, right. So, it does raise a bunch of practical questions like um how far do you take empathy in the face of a bear chasing you or a Trump in the White House? So we we'll get to that in a second, but let me just a ask more broadly.

Is is it your view that we should all endeavor to attempt when appropriate and safe Jill's Jill's Jill's ultimate worldview? ultimate worldview? ultimate worldview? And And And if so, how? Yeah, it's a little complicated here. She doesn't really do it. She doesn't really do what she says. actually she she's got a uh good ideas and I think if as I was writing the book it became clear that she's not exactly um on target in the way that she handles the situation at hand. But that said, I think the answer is yes.

In other words, I don't see I I never and I think we agree on that. I don't see any limitation to empathy because we can we can always if you think of empathy as an elaborate thought experiment where you attempt to understand the sorrows of your enemy uh you can do that for a long time and you can still act and and I I would argue that it makes you a more effective actor if you if you are have a political opponent. I think you the more time you can spend trying to understand them from the inside, the more effectively you can you can push back.

I I don't think there's any limitation. We sometimes make the mistake though, I think, and I I certainly do this of getting empathetic and getting kind of warm and rosy and therefore not really calling people to task if they need to be called a task. But and I think in the spiritual traditions like in in Dharma there there's a very uh honorable tradition of like the the um wrathful teacher you know um and the idea is if you could if you could stop someone from a bad uh behavior it it doesn't really matter how you do it.

If you have to be angry, be angry. If you have to be funny, be funny. If you have to whatever you have to do to alter the behavior would ultimately be uh compassionate, you know. So I Yeah, I don't I don't see any limitation in in empathy as long as you're you don't do like idiot compassion and start just thinking I know how you're feeling, you know, go ahead and hit me with that stick. Fine. You know, or that kind of idea where somebody drives a spike through your head and you're like, oh, thank you for that coat rack.

You know, I don't think that's that's a reasonable kind of of empathy. But but you know in in writing that's kind of the main thing is how do you and I remember as a kid being uh hearing the stories about Jesus and like the woman at the well and all and it seemed to me that's what he was doing is he through some kind of power uh maybe just of of alertness he he was able to um meet a person you you mentioned Jesus I mean he has the ultimate uh he really has the ultimate worldview of um you know I'm not I'm not a scholar of the Bible.

But uh the I believe one of the last things he says uh be um uh before he dies and then comes back is uh forgive them Lord they know not what they do. they do. they do. I think if you had an experience like Jill has. In other words, if if you could uh for 5 seconds truly occupy the mind of another person and then come back out, I think that would be just life-changing. And because what you what you would see kind of automatically is what yourself is, what Dan is.

You know, you you for for five seconds you weren't Dan. You were you were me. Then you go zinging back into your own head and suddenly that the uh jux justosition of those two things tells you so much about consciousness and and about that jail that we're in all the time. you know, I'm in the George since 1958, you know, and so the um so I think in fiction you're kind of trying to do that imaginatively, but it's interesting because I don't think, you know, to spend these years thinking about this kind of rotten guy, this KJ Boon who's in the who's dying in the bed was interesting because I'm not sure.

I mean, I know for a fact you can't actually do that. I I can't actually imagine myself in someone else's head. So what's actually happening is you're you're trying to do that but the other person is colored with your phenomenon in a certain way. So that's part of the the challenge too. But but um yeah, I think even you know in time like times like these that are so difficult, I still contend that we we can be fierce uh oppos opponents of of negative movements, but that empathy is a really powerful um tool in that pursuit even, you know.

Um it's kind of like if you're, you know, said I'm going to I'm going to fix that car. Well, you might want to spend some time figuring out what car it is. you know what how does this how does it work and then then then you could still have the fierce desire to fix the car but then you'd have some tools tools tools and as you said it does not preclude um taking stern action there's that story I love from the great meditation teacher Sharon Salsburg about her early days in India when she's listening to all these dharma teachers talk about importance of compassion and she says well what if you know what if somebody tries to mug me out in the street and the teacher said well you should take your umbrella and very compassionately smack them smack them smack them right Right.

Cuz then they don't they didn't they're prevented from doing the bad thing they were going to do. And you know Yeah. No, I think that's it's a funny thing the the funny it's a funny thing the the confusion I think we have to with kindness and niceness. What in the book there's this state that Jill goes into repeatedly. Elevation. What is Can you describe what that is? Well, I think it's whatever happened to her in that passage you just read where she inhabits the person who responsible for her death.

uh intuitits that that that you know what her what herself actually is and then is free of it a little bit. So it's something I think it's something like enlightenment but she didn't know that word. So, and also I'm not sure that it's actual enlightenment, but anyways, it's sort of like she had a great experience of being free of herself and kind of intuitively knows that that's where she needs to be headed, that she's a I mean, one of the sort of things about the book is her her diction changes.

Uh her real life diction is sort of lower and regular and then when she's in this elevation state, she's got access to a higher uh range of of language. So, she and she likes that. And I think she likes the fact that she's not um stuck in a body, you know, until she decides that she she kind of does like being stuck in a body. So that was one of the tensions of the book was I make this state called elevation, which I think at least in my early work on the book, I thought that's what I want to be elevated like she is.

That's she's compassionate. She's full of love. She's got omniscience. She's got this vast view of things. But then in the book she she keeps getting drawn back to her physical self and she makes a pretty good list of the things that she enjoyed in that realm and I thought oh yeah that's that's how I feel too you know I don't I want to be free of myself and I also want to be me. Yes. Again Lord like Lord make me chase just not yet or um you know give me moments of moments of moments of chastity um but also um carnality.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's there's this idea in in that I I stumbled upon when I was writing a book about the Russian Russian literature. Uh Chuckov said, you know, a work of art doesn't have to solve a problem. It just has to formulate it correctly. So, in this one, a lot of the things we're talking about, they they they there's um a division of opinion. The book has two is of two minds on a certain issue. And about halfway through, I thought, "Oh, yeah, that's good.

Actually, I don't have to decide. I just have to sort of um improve uh the the presentation of both views so that they're having the best possible argument. And then hopefully that involves you as a reader. And if you look to me and say, "George, is it A or B?" I'm like, "Yeah." And that and that, you know, in my model of fiction, what that does is it makes you go, "Oh, I often decide too early." You know, I I often identify a binary and then I I throw it on on one side or the other before I actually need to.

So the book you know and when I read Czechov often the experience is I'm having my uh I'm sort of having my proclivity for fil judgment shown to me and I oh I can actually wait I can wait I can get more information more information and often at the in a check off story you get so much information that your whole desire to judge dissipates dissipates dissipates and you get this feeling like ah that's how it is. Yeah. Didn't Didn't you describe Czechov's stories as a brief um reconsideration machines?

That's Yes, I did. I I hope I did. But yeah, no, that's exactly the idea I'm I'm talking about. You and you know, again, what I think what it and you know, maybe this is especially relevant now when so so much of our I mean, we're expected to have opinions on so many things so quickly, uh things that actually don't have much to do with our day-to-day lives. We have to apply opine app and in a checkup story or maybe any good story you know you well actually okay so you're you're made aware of your desire to judge and decide by the tension you feel as you read the story.

So for example you come in um there's a great tall story called Master and Man and there's a real stinker real greedy guy who insists on going out uh on a business deal on on a holiday evening. He takes this peasant along with him and all your mind is just really um arrayed against this guy and it's kind of fun like oh god I hope I hope he catches it you know he's he's such a jerk if I had him here I'd give him a piece of my mind and then the story unfolds and you're kind of really enjoying that energy that kind of vengeance energy or or you know uh and then a bad a really bad thing happens to him and it's almost like your your mind goes oh I didn't I didn't mean except you go, "Well, I did mean it." So, in that moment, you're aware of how how much ill you're wishing on this guy.

Then it happens and suddenly you're rooting for him to be saved. So, so all of that is a way of of just I would say sort of subtly lovingly outing the mind for its usual habits which in the fictive world which slows things down and exaggerates them. Suddenly you can see what your mind does all the time in every every waking moment. moment. moment. I have been deeply influenced by that line. I haven't even read Czechov. Honestly, I'm embarrassed to admit, but I but but your line about Czechov of reconsideration machines, I it comes into my mind a lot because I my goal is to turn my mind into a reconsideration machine.

Right. Right. Yeah. So, I think fiction kind of is a it's it's like, you know, lightweight training in that very practice. You can't. It's hard to do it when the world is rushing by and you know you're inside your mind and your body and it's got all of its imperatives. But in that moment where you're just reading and somebody has gone ahead on the path check in this case and prepared it. He cultivated it in a highly exaggerated exaggerated way so that you following in his footsteps will have these experience we're talking about.

you know that that's that's the skill and and he had a great heart I think and I don't know I think he had a sense of innate fairness so when he was writing a story uh and told stories too they were writing a story and they were feeling a certain way about a character that maybe wasn't entirely fair they noticed and then the story would would uh take that into account you know so so in a certain way writing a story is a really high um very slow slowed down high alertness practice alertness practice alertness practice because you're reading your own text and you're going okay how do I feel how would a reader feel and often there are things that happen there you don't you didn't put them there you didn't plan it at all I mean this book vigil is a big example I did no planning and so but the but the task is in rereading are you on high alert to what a it's weird but what an imaginary person your reader might feel so I think I think it's a lot like it's like a dream moment in life almost like the Matrix.

Everything slows down and you can become aware of your writerly feelings. You can become somewhat aware of what a reader might be feeling. You can become aware of the micro movements of the character's mind. You know, it's really it's very very satisfying. And then then I step away from the writer's desk back into the world and I start things up immediately. You know, like it's it's all going too fast to slow down. Let me rewrite you. You mentioned KJ Boon, the the guy who's dying in the story, who's a a climate denier and oil executive who um um um I think a lot of readers would think has it all coming.

Um you know uh but I'm curious, curious, curious, would you have a view on the subject of absolution and whether it uh can apply last minute to somebody who's done uh who's you know done civilizational damage? Yeah, it was interesting because I I didn't realize this until late, but he's he doesn't I think he's only speaks once in the book and at this point there's no way he's fixing anything. You know, he's he's got both feet in the grave. So then the question became is there anything at that point one can do.

You know, I think I think if if KJ Boon 10 years ago decided to fix things and you know, he could have, but at this point there's nothing except internally. And so I think what I what I felt about him was that or kind of what the reader is waiting for and what Jill's waiting for or somebody's waiting for is for him to say, "Yikes, I I was entirely in the wrong. I misspent my life. Every minute of my life was in service of this this bad goal." Um I I think if if a person could do that, I I think it is a kind of a salvation because they're not trapped in that denial mindset anymore.

They're they're, they're, they're, you know, they're face to face with the truth. it doesn't undo anything that they did. And and I think all of us have the feeling when we look at these, you know, anyone we consider a bad actor, we we kind of want him to get nailed and for them to know about it. You know, this is one of the the the the things about Hitler killing himself in the bunk. You're like, okay, I think he saw that he was doomed, but did he see he was wrong?

was wrong? was wrong? And you know, did we get to administer the punishment? We didn't. So I think that so it's an interesting idea for for me. I came to kind of I mean it's it's weird how it happens politically. I can't stand a guy like this and I think he should be in jail probably, you know, but as a writer, you know, you spend all these hours inside of his head and basically what you're saying to him is, "All right, you tell me. You tell me your side.

I'm I'm right here. I'm I and I want to hear your best version. How did you get here? What's happening to you?" Doing that, I start to feel a kind of a warmth for him, you know, in spite of his sins. And that's a really weird place to be. it's hard to stay there, you know. Uh, and then in the end, I think Jill has that same kind of thing. She she's also been she'd been in his head with me or vice versa. Uh, and so there's a really complicated moment at the end.

I won't spoil, but it's it's kind of like, uh, very, how would I say it? very localized empathy where um I think she has an overall really negative view of him, but in that exact moment, she opts to give him some comfort as opposed to letting him continue to suffer. So, that's a moment I'm still I'm still thinking about, you know, but but um but anyway, to be with him for this for that long was interesting. And as I said, the book made me a kind of a trap because there's no place for my kind of cliche, borderline progressive views to come in and save the day.

I I made a point of view structure that makes it impossible for me to come in and say, "Dear reader, here are his sins." you know, I I actually had I had a a scene um because I wanted so badly to communicate to the reader that I I understood the how bad he was, you know, in spite of my empathizing with him. And so I had one scene where this activist, there's a wedding going on next door and there was a scene where the activist wanders over and looks at the house and basically just reads the laundry list of all this guy's sins.

Uh and it dropped the bottom right out of the book. It was it it it didn't work. So, I just have to trust that the reader will, you know, hearing the story through Boon's point of view will be able to reconstruct an accurate picture of what this guy actually did in the world, which is pretty awful. Yeah, this reader did uh and more I think more importantly I picked up that the point was not to argue that what this guy did was bad as the moral of the story but instead the moral of the story is is the elevation is is the empathy.

Yeah. Yeah. But then you know it's funny as I was finishing the book in the last like six or eight months it it I started to look a little scance at Jill too cuz she I think her idea is solid. I I believe it. But but it's funny. She she's not the most effective teacher actually for him. I think I This is just my I'm kind of like the book's done and now I'm kind of, you know, reading it as a reader. But I mean, she's there all night and she she doesn't really find a way to get through to him.

Uh so that makes I'm interested in that, too. And in the end, you know, she she doubles down on her view. So I had I had a lot of uh sort of multiplicity in this book. like I I I like her. I love her. I think she's great. I think she's screwing up. I think KJ Boone is a criminal and I kind of love him. So So that was that was a nice experience to have that, you know, don't know how you feel about the people in your own book.

Uh let me go back to something you said at the beginning that I said I was going to follow up on but didn't about about the notion of stretching. Um I'm just going to read something you wrote on your Substack which is called Story Club that everybody should go check out. Um, one of the things we've talked about here at Story Club is the way in which we have to try not to be too sure about what we're doing. Not resting on our laurels or knowing too well what our approach is or what we're best at.

Rather, we try to let the work tell us teach us even what it wants us to do. In the process, the work might show us some new things about ourselves and our talent. It can serve as a self-expansion device. the obstructions and challenges we run into as we're writing, the doubts, the frustrations are what it feels like to be stretched. So, you said early on that as you've gotten older, you feel it's even more important to stretch yourself. Why? Well, one reason is, you know, I I got uh started getting published late and found out that I did actually have a talent, but it was very slender, you know, like like I'm not somebody who's particularly well read or um naturally articulate.

And so, uh, a lot of my books come out of a kind of a doubling down on my limitations, if I could put it that way. So, at 67, you know, you find that you've, you know, you had a little kind of little wedge of cake of talent and you've eaten most of it. if you and so so the only way you're going to get a couple more books out of it in a sense is to go go to the places that you think you probably can't do or or uh you know we start out by saying I I want to have fun when I write I want to have a certain joyfulness that's how I know what to write but with this book there was a sense of well I yes that's in place but also that's going to be really hard I don't quite know how how one does that or it could be really corny if I do it this way or you know so so that kind of feeling I I really welcome because it means you're going to have to use modes of your ability that that have been a little lazy you know or been neglected.

Uh in this book there was a lot of you know all the places where I'm in his head that's kind of oldfashioned modernism you know which I gave up a long time ago because I couldn't do it. So, if I'm going to represent this guy, I kind of have to be sort of a uh like a Virginia Wolf Light, you know? I have to kind of go back to that thing. So, so yeah. So, I just think it's it's um um um you know, like I at this age, I think a person on one level knows themsself way too well.

You know, you you I actually look at myself and go, are you saying that again? You know, are you making that same joke? are you having that same mindstream thought? You know that uh so anything that can pop you out of that is so welcome, you know, and and revision is something that does that for sure. And if you again, if you pick a a book that you think you can't write, that's that's a good way to kind of um Yeah, because you know you I I mean I think there's an accretion that happens with age.

Maybe it's actually in the brain, but you become very familiar to yourself and you start, you know, you use the same uh tricks and the same uh moves. uh moves. uh moves. So, and that and I it's almost like a um a cycle. The more you do that, the more you do that. So for me, writing a book that is hard for me is a way of of reminding myself that actually that that uh consciousness is unlimited. But we sort of pen it in with habit, I think.

And so the uh the rigor of art is one way to kind of kick down that that wall for a couple hours a day, maybe. It's funny when you you I love everything you just said. My projection on onto the statement that uh that I didn't know you were going to make, which is that the older I get, the more stretching seems important to me. My projection from my POV was because I think this is how I think I know this is how I think of it as as I'm getting older, I need to prove to myself that I'm not dying yet.

So, I I need to take on more audacious projects as a result. result. result. Yes, I think that's ex that's exactly right. Uh yeah. Yeah. And and also I think to s you know to uh I I loved I remember that like the first kind of breakthrough I had in writing and what a joy that was you know to feel and again I mean partly it was just ambition but was also oh there there's parts of me that I I didn't know existed that I can get to by this route.

That was really wonderful. you know, to kind of walk around with that secret knowledge that you just nailed three really good paragraphs that the world will someday see. So, I think I'm you also want to recreate that that which is harder and harder as you work longer in a field, I suppose. You know, that um so just that craving for freshness, you know, and um and then too, you know, again, just the idea that you you think you know yourself, but the art says, "No, you don't." He says, "Dude, you you've been, you know, you only know a fraction of yourself, yourself, yourself, but your habits keep you there.

But now, you know, let's see if you if we can find some uh unexplored quadrants of yourself before it's too too late. You said earlier that the fear of this is going way back in this conversation, but you said that you've been worrying about death since you were a kid at your grandparents house, listening to the tenuousness of their breath. Um, has the fear of death not accelerated as at all uh as we flip into each new calendar year for you? I Oh, no. It has for sure.

And it's not And fear is almost it's um it's what I feel more is uh a certainty that it will happen that I didn't feel 10 years ago. I mean, then I still thought there was going to be some special arrangement or something. But I think the and also I I think um I can it's weird. I can start to see not how it will happen. Okay, for example, when I was younger, I thought what happened was you got to be 106 106 106 and you were weakened and then you died.

But, you know, at this age, a lot of uh people I know and love are have gone on and that's not how it happened for them. You know, they were perfectly fine and then suddenly they weren't. there's something going on and they so so that's um um um that makes me feel strange, you know, just that it could it will it will drop on you on us uh unexpectedly like a thief in the night and then you you will still be you'll still be vital probably to some extent uh you'll still have a lot of ambitions and it'll come you know so I I think maybe in a way I I just uh believe that it will come for me a little more than I used do uh yeah that which I guess is appropriate at at 67.

So not so much fear as consciousness, alertness, awareness, awakeness to to the reality. the reality. the reality. Yeah. And I think I can also I mean feel my mind going, "Yeah, but not really." You know, it's not I mean it's going to happen to you, but not really or not soon. I guess that's the other thing. But um but then you know again I mean I I think in that in that spirit of of uh I can't remember how you put it but the inner warmth then I can kind of say okay yes that's true.

It's also true that you don't really understand it. So, what do you think you could do, George, you know, to to one, make yourself believe it a little more fully, and two, not be so scared of it, and three, make the best use of your time, you know, and and um the weird thing is I know the answer to those questions. Uh, and I'm a bit of a procrastinator somehow, you know, that that's the the mystery of that. Right. Um but for me like the the meditation practice that we've done has had it been so you know uh beautiful because I can remember I'm not doing much these days but I can remember when I was and all of these this whole equation gets altered doesn't it you know like suddenly you're uh this the clinging to yourself gets a little bit gets 6% less under whatever or 10% you know and and and suddenly then okay yeah I'm still afraid of death but kind of less you know uh so so that's kind of my I mean, I this book was a real obsession of mine and now I'm kind of trying to figure out a way to uh just slightly reorient my life.

So, I'm I'm paying more attention to those kind of things, of things, of things, meaning doing more meditation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let me um in closing here read you another quote from you and get let you weigh in on it. Um and this is not from the book. This is a from an interview you gave. I think it was a I think you were typing back and forth with your interviewer for this, but maybe this came out of you um verbally. I don't know. know. know.

If it's articulate, I said it didn't. Anyway, I doubt that. Here it is. I find Buddhism inspiring in that it says everything matters. Suffering is real. Death is imminent. Pay attention to everything as if this was your last moment on earth. And then I see writing as part of an ongoing attempt to really viscerally believe that everything matters, suffering is real, and death is imminent. Czechov said that art prepares us for tenderness. And I think that this is also what spiritual practice can do. Yeah, I'd agree with that.

Uh with maybe know maybe with the addition that you know art slows things down like as we talked about earlier. So you so it gives you um uh sort of an increased chance to notice those things and and um yeah I think that's true. I you know it's funny though lately I've been wondering because I um so so much of well there's writing and there's talking about writing and I in in the mode of writing lots of amazing things happen we as we've been discussing and then of course when you go to talk about it it's just an approximation you know and and uh I I I find myself well I go in waves you know what I teach at Syracuse so sometimes I'm talking about writing a lot.

And with Story Club, I'm talking about writing a lot. And it's always kind of a relief to to not be talking about it and just be doing the thing. Uh because I think when you talk about it, you always it up. You know, you you kind of reduce it. You um you sound more confident than you actually are. Uh and and in a game that really is all about showing up to the thing you're working on and being willing to accept any answer. As we talked about earlier, uh the more method you have, the more you set yourself up for a kind of a temporary blindness.

In other words, if I go to a story and I have, I know what my method is. I have a substack, you know, then then that mindset might preclude certain solutions or it might preclude certain uh long periods of confusion confusion confusion and stuckness that could be very fruitful. So I have to really watch at this stage of life um to not be too sure of method, you know, even even as I'm pontificating about it, I have to go, yeah, that's kind of You know, when you actually go to do it, that's not what you're doing.

you know, so it's it's kind of a double double awareness of that. of that. of that. Before I let you go, let me ask you two questions uh that I always ask uh the first is is there something you were hoping we would get to that we didn't? didn't? didn't? Well, I actually, you know, I'm interested in uh your life and in particular, you know, I I I listen to you and I'm just amazed by the people you find and what you bring out of them.

So I I would like to hear uh over the course of you doing this kind of work, of work, of work, what has happened to you from the exposure to all of these different very wise people? wise people? wise people? One thing that comes to mind just specifically from hosting this show for now, um we're a couple months away from our 10th anniversary. Happy anniversary. Um Um Um thank you. One of the things you can hear if you go back and listen to the earlier episodes is um a kind of impetuosity, impatience impetuosity, impatience impetuosity, impatience um that is still there in my mind stream but but hosting the show has taught me and you you mentioned this earlier um it's taught me to be a better listener.

Um, and you talked about how uh there might be eternal damnation for those who are bad listeners. And much of my life I was that uh I was good at one to many communication as a network news anchor. Um, not very good at uh really uh at really listening and listening in a way that then leads to the next question and that instead of just ticking off the next question on my list. So I would say that's a big benefit. I still screw this up all the time.

I heard this the the CEO of my company say to somebody recently, and I can't remember what the number she used was. I think it was either 60 or 70, but she said, "Yeah, Dan practices what he preaches about 70% of the time, or maybe 60% of the time." Either one, I'll take That's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, I I I think that's that's a superpower you have of of listening and and having a conversation that actually is responsive. But and and I recognized that from teaching too because when I was a younger teacher, it was all about me making sure that they knew what I knew and that's how I thought I was going to help them, you know, and then now I I just um still I still talk too much in class, but I I get on good roles where, you know, it's funny it's just a a slight adjustment of the mind.

So like a mental leaning back. And if I do that, the student will talk talk and then lead right to the perfect place for me to make my very light judo like suggestion and then they'll hear it. Whereas in the old days, I'd be anticipating that I'd flood them with the comment which they wouldn't hear and then we'd we'd miss that moment. So yeah, there there you use the word flood. There is and I mention these guys all the time on the show. Um, but I I for eight years now I've been working with and I think this my introduction to the two people I'm about to name uh is what changed my hosting style and my interpersonal style.

Um, I I met through Joseph Goldstein who you're familiar with. He's a great meditation teacher. I met him I met these two uh I didn't even know there was such a thing as a communication coach. But uh my friends Dan Clerman and Mudita Nisker, they teach people how to talk and listen. Um and uh I still work with them and almost everybody in my close close orbit also works with them now. Um and one of their terms is flooding. Uh that that's a bad thing. You should never flood people with information because they just can't hear it.

You should instead come up with little judoike chunks of information that you can judiciously slide across the table toward them. And I think about this is not the way they describe their work, but I think about it as, you know, we are in this constant exchange with other people of we're hurling words across this like unfathomable chasm, right, of my my inner world through yours like comes out of my face hole just leaps across this unbelievable gulf into their mind into their ears and their mind gets cut with their childhood and their biases.

and whatever happened to them that morning and the state of their bowels and all of that. Um, and we hope that uh they understand it and what so we're dealing with this very flawed system and the thing is what you what you want are some skills that give you the best opportunity to keep people in their prefrontal cortex instead of their amydala. Oh, interesting. and to keep yourself in your prefrontal cortex instead of the amygdala. And that is the best chance in this really fraught endeavor of achieving some success.

And and the prefrontal is uh is it awareness versus monkey mind? Is that kind of the or or or what what what Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that makes sense. Rationality versus fear, right? right? right? Yeah. I I had a really good writing teacher who talked about dialogue that way and he said, you know, a quality of bad dialogue is that the two people are really listening to each other, you know, and they respond directly. But good dialogue is you're you're answering out of your thought stream and I'm answering your distorted response out of my thought stream and we go zinging past each other, you know.

No, I I love that. It's Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So life therefore the what you want I think a life well-lived is to make it as dissimilar from good fiction as possible. as possible. as possible. You want boring dialogue, boring heartfelt communication. That's going to be the name of my next book. Boring heartfelt efficient communication a novel. Um, final question for you is if you don't mind just reminding everybody of the name of your new novel and maybe talk a little bit about story club just in case people want more from you.

Yeah. So, the new novel is called Vigil. Uh it's out in uh I think January 27th at Random House. And um I also host this uh this subtact called story club that came out of a book I wrote called a swim in a pond in the rain which was kind of a close uh loving I hope dissection of some Russian short stories and that was so much fun and got such nice feedback that I started this substack. So, we do um uh kind of every week I introduce a classic short story and we talk about it.

And the the kind of wonderful thing about Story Club is that for some reason the community is just super positive. People are so smart and so well read and well-lived and uh there's a kind of unbelievable level of courtesy that that is there. And uh so I I was going to just do it for a year and I got so addicted to that community to to um learning from them and and also really just observing the uh the kindness and the engagement, you know, and and uh so I'll often have the experience of, you know, being in the the world of the news and kind of feeling desparing about human communication and then drop in there and you've got like two or 30 hundred people hundred people hundred people talking about a close story with a great deal of uh interest in each other, you know.

So, so I really love that. I know why the community is great over on Story Club. It's because, and this is going to sound negative, but the fish rots from the head. So, in this case, the fish fish is the head of the fish is not rotten, and therefore the fish is the the body of the fish is thriving. Um, thriving. Um, thriving. Um, I'm going to put that. That's my blur from you. He He's He's not exactly a fish rotting from the head down. head down.

head down. You got it. Take it. Run with it. Um, thank you for your time. Thanks for writing this beautiful book. Um, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. Well, and thank you for all you do. You're a big fixture around our house and you're always always helping us. So, we appreciate it.