A Process for Finding & Achieving Your Unique Purpose | Robert Greene
概要
Robert Greene与Huberman深度对谈:童年种子与人生使命、权力与诱惑的神经基础、Love Sublime、选择伴侣的深层价值趋同、非语言沟通、AI焦虑论,以及中风后在死亡之地重生
核心洞察
- 每个人生来都携带一颗独特的种子——DNA 和早期经验的交汇形成了你独有的智力倾向。 Robert Greene 以 Einstein 4岁的指南针、Steve Jobs 7岁对电子设备橱窗的着迷、Tiger Woods 在车库看父亲挥杆的尖叫为例,论证这些"冲动之声"(Maslow 的 impulse voices)是比任何职业测评都更可靠的人生指南针。找到它,你学得更快、专注力更强、能承受枯燥;丢失它,你的一生都在追逐别人定义的目标。
- 情感投入是学习速度的倍增器,但随着年龄增长,外界噪音会淹没这些原始信号。 Greene 用亲身经历论证:大学学了四年法语到巴黎一句不会说,但有了法国女友后一个月超过四年大学——因为情感让大脑的学习速率提高了三到四倍。问题是青春期后社会压力逐渐盖过了那些内心声音,到成年时很多人已经完全听不见了。
- 权力和诱惑不是道德判断,而是人类神经回路的基本配置。 Greene 将权力重新定义为"对环境的控制感需求"——这是所有灵长类动物都有的硬件,48法则中大部分是防御手册而非攻击指南。诱惑的根源是禁忌激发欲望的机制,脆弱性(vulnerability)不是弱点而是连接的通道。Caltech 的 David Anderson 发现的纯粹非性行为骑乘回路从神经科学层面印证了权力动态的独立存在。
- 选择伴侣的关键不是表面吸引力而是深层价值观趋同——"动物测试"比任何约会技巧都管用。 Greene 第一次约会就带妻子见自己的猫,观察她的反应。FDR 选择了不起眼的 Eleanor Roosevelt 而非众多追求者——因为他看到了品格层面的匹配。金钱观、幽默感、音乐品味都是性格的窗口,而非表面偏好。
- 贯穿全场的核心线索是"向内挖掘"——从找到童年种子,到通过焦虑走向更深层的思考,到中风后被迫面对自我的幻觉本质,Greene 的每一个核心主张都指向同一个方向:真正的力量、创造力和爱都来自你愿意多深地进入自己的内在世界。
人生使命的寻找:顺着大脑的"纹理"走,而不是逆着它
核心论点:每个人的大脑在童年就有一个天然倾向——Howard Gardner 的五种智力框架帮助你识别它,而找到它之后学习效率会产生数量级的提升。
- Greene 以自身为例:6岁开始痴迷文字——拆解字母、倒拼、做字谜游戏、着迷回文。这种几乎偏执的倾向就是他的"纹理"
- 三个经典童年案例:Einstein 4岁收到指南针生日礼物,被"宇宙中存在不可见力量"这个念头攫住;Steve Jobs 7-8岁在 Burlingame 加州被商店橱窗里电子设备的设计所催眠;Tiger Woods 在车库看父亲打高尔夫球时发出了无法抑制的尖叫
- Howard Gardner 的《五种心智框架》(Five Frames of Mind)提供了识别工具:语言智力、抽象/数学智力、动觉智力、社会智力等。你的大脑天然倾向于其中一到两种,这就是你的"纹理"
- 巴黎法语故事是最生动的倍增效应案例:大学学了三四年法语到巴黎一句不会说,但有了女友、需要生存性地学法语后,一个月超过四年——"because I wanted to, because I was engaged, my emotions were there"
"When you find that sense of purpose, when you find what I call your life's task, everything has a direction. Your energy is concentrated. You wake up in the morning and go, yeah, this is what I need to accomplish." —— Robert Greene
- 关键时间窗口:Greene 自己直到 38-39 岁才找到确切方向,但他强调 20 多岁仍然可以通过"考古式挖掘"回溯童年信号。40 岁之后越来越难,50 岁之后"very sad if you wasted that seed of uniqueness"
- Huberman 的个人共鸣:2015 年在 UCSD 教 450 人大课时推荐三本书,Mastery 是其中之一。读完 Mastery 后他能回忆起童年看到水族馆和浮潜时"左臂的激活感"——一种不仅是观察的愉悦,而是"there's something to do about this"的行动冲动
真正的崇高 vs 虚假的崇高:Greene 新书的核心命题
核心论点:人类大脑天生需要超越性体验(sublime),但 21 世纪几乎没有真正的渠道来获取它,于是我们转向毒品、购物、网络愤怒等"虚假崇高"来填补。
- "Sublime"的词源来自拉丁语"在门槛上"(on the threshold)——你站在一扇门前,望向通常的文化圈之外的东西。每个时代都有一个不可逾越的圈(conventions of thinking, behavior),崇高就是那个圈的边界之外
- Greene 正在写的新书包含多个崇高维度的章节:童年、动物、大脑、爱、历史。他目前在写的章节追溯到4万年前旧石器时代上期——他认为那是人类崇高感的诞生时刻
- 虚假崇高的特征:来自外部(毒品、酒精、购物、网络愤怒、加入某个事业发泄攻击性),需要越来越多的量才能维持,不持久。真正的崇高来自内部,具有变革性,一次体验可以持续一生——Maslow 称之为"高峰体验"(peak experience)
"The false sublime comes from outside — it comes from drugs, it comes from alcohol, it comes from shopping, it comes from online rage. The real sublime, you don't have that feeling of needing more and more. It's transformative — once you feel it, it lasts for the rest of your life." —— Robert Greene
- Huberman 将崇高体验与童年种子相连:那些早期的、令人着迷的体验不仅指向你的人生使命,它们本身就是你第一次触碰真正崇高的时刻。Greene 说他之前从未想到这个连接,但觉得 Huberman "is on something very interesting"
权力:不是支配工具,而是防御手册
核心论点:压抑权力需求不会让它消失,只会让它以被动攻击的方式表达。48 法则中的大部分是教你如何保护自己,而不是如何操纵他人。
- Greene 将权力需求追溯到最原始的层面:人类对环境控制感的需求从原始时代(野生动物、气候)延续到现代(职业、子女、父母)。丧失控制感是"deeply miserating"的体验
- 95% vs 5% 的比喻:约 5% 的人是"sharks"——他们天生善于操纵和欺骗。对 95% 的人来说,进入社会后发现这些隐形权力游戏是一种震惊,因为"nobody trained you, no one's taught you"
- 48法则的核心是防御:如何避免"outshining the master"、如何避免话太多、如何用示范而非争辩来推动想法
"Take it out of the realm of trying to dominate the world and manipulate. It's something inside of you — your suppression of it will only make it come out in passive ways." —— Robert Greene
- Huberman 的个人领悟:年轻时他从未将社交定位视为"等级",而是在寻找"我在什么位置能发挥最大价值"。这与 Greene 的观点形成呼应——权力的最佳形式是找到你最强大的生态位,而不是在错误的位置争夺资源
- Greene 的自身案例:"我从小就知道体力上我没优势——我是个瘦小的家伙,别人会欺负我。所以我转向智力领域,在那里我可以拥有力量。"
诱惑的根源:禁忌激发欲望,脆弱性是连接的通道
核心论点:诱惑不是一个人对另一个人做的事,而是双方共同参与的过程——被诱惑者必须主动选择脆弱,才能让诱惑发生。
- Malinowski 的乱伦禁忌理论为诱惑提供了生物学起源:"the moment a taboo enters the human brain, the desire arises to actually do the prohibited thing"——压抑念头只会让念头更频繁地浮现("don't think of an elephant")
- 被诱惑需要脆弱性——如果你筑起一堵墙,什么都不会发生。但当代人越来越"invulnerable":不愿被影响、害怕失去控制
- Freud 的儿童诱惑范式:孩子在极度脆弱中被父母的能量所"诱惑"——这创造了一生的依附模式。被父亲抱起带着走的兴奋感就是一种诱惑,因为"you don't know what he's going to do to you, you're very excited, you want that surprise"
- 故事的诱惑力来自同一逻辑:你不知道下一章会发生什么,悬念降低了你的抵抗力,让你的心智对接下来要发生的事保持开放
"Being vulnerable is actually a positive trait. A lot of people now, because things are so harsh and invasive, have become too invulnerable." —— Robert Greene
- David Anderson(Caltech)的研究给对话注入了神经科学新数据:在动物大脑中存在纯粹非性行为的"骑乘回路"(mounting circuit),与所有性行为反射完全独立。这意味着"谁在上面"的权力动态有自己专属的神经硬件,不仅仅是性的附属品
Love Sublime:超越权力博弈的爱
核心论点:真正的爱需要双方放下权力游戏和自我(ego),进入一种生物学层面上的深度连接——Greene 称之为 Love Sublime。
- 一位 1920-30 年代的法国生物学家研究草履虫(paramecium)时发现:这些单细胞生物会突然成对耦合,一个吸收另一个的细胞膜,然后沉到池塘底部——尽管草履虫不通过性繁殖。Greene 将此解读为"渴望深度连接是深植于生物体中的需求,远早于性"
- Love Sublime 的触发器是性,但真正的目的是心智的通透:"when you have sex with someone, your body is suddenly permeable to their energy in a way that you cannot control"——如果你不害怕这种失控感而继续深入,身体和心智的通透性形成螺旋上升
- Greene 新书的"爱"章节叫"Escape the Prison of the Ego"——你被困在自我中,通过毒品/色情等方式试图逃离但这些都不是真正的逃离
- Huberman 将讨论延伸到当代社会裂痕:如果放下权力博弈、允许脆弱是通向爱的钥匙,那为什么在政治和社会层面我们看不到任何人愿意先放下武器?Greene 的回答是历史周期性的希望——1920年代、1960年代、18世纪的 Casanova 时代都是在极度封闭后出现的创造性爆发
男性气质危机:Gary Cooper 的内在沉稳 vs Andrew Tate 的虚张声势
核心论点:当代缺少正面的阳刚典范——真正的男性气质应该是内在力量、情绪掌控和安静自信,而不是睡很多女人和开快车。
- Greene 描述的正面阳刚特质清单:能承受批评、从失败中恢复、内在平静、不因每件事歇斯底里、Ryan Holiday 式的斯多葛韧性——他用 Gary Cooper 电影形象作为原型
- 他的父亲是他个人的阳刚榜样:"一个安静的中产推销员,卖了一辈子化工用品,但他非常有尊严,对人好,平静,有共情心"
- 当代年轻男性面临更严峻的困境:"being masculine is seen as something negative"——没有正面典范来对抗 Andrew Tate 式的诱惑
- Greene 的角色模型序列实践:高中英语老师(教他写作)→ Berkeley 教授(学术代父)→ Joost Elffers(出版界导师)。每个人都有缺陷,看到太多缺陷时就该继续前进,但这不是背叛
- Huberman 从大一开始就维护一个"敬佩者笔记本":记录想效仿的人名,多数名字存活至今。他的三位学术导师全部去世(自杀、癌症、癌症),这迫使他学会自我指导——"科学上的孤儿必须学会自我养育"
"You can't choose your father and mother but you can choose these mentors in your life. You can kind of rewrite your family history and find that father figure you never had." —— Robert Greene
选择伴侣:"动物测试"比约会技巧管用
核心论点:长期关系的基础不是性吸引力,而是深层价值观的趋同——这些价值观触及一个人的核心性格,几乎无法改变。
- "动物测试":Greene 第一次约会就带现在的妻子到公寓见他的猫。"I generally can't get along with women who don't like cats — there's something feline in the feminine nature that I love." 她爱上了他的猫,这成了关系的第一个关键信号
- FDR 的选择:Franklin Roosevelt 年轻时英俊、活跃、富有,所有女人都追他。但他选择了其貌不扬的 Eleanor Roosevelt——"he saw into her character, he saw that intellectually she was a match"。所有人都震惊,但这段关系持续了一生
- 深层价值趋同清单:动物(触及童年性格)、金钱观(成长环境的印记)、户外/冒险倾向、幽默感("如果他们不能让你笑,这是一个非常糟糕的信号")、音乐品味("punk rock 暴露叛逆性格,Mozart 弦乐四重奏暴露对宁静的需求")
- 红旗识别:如果对方跟你在一起时表现很好,但在社交场合中完全变了一个人——"she was wearing a mask with me, the moment she entered a different circumstance I saw other aspects of her character"
- 神秘感作为关系持久的关键:"一年后你知道了他们的一切,对话开始原地打转——这就是魔力消失的时刻。你需要一个有你看不到的角落的人"
非语言沟通大师课:Milton Erickson 的两年修炼
核心论点:非语言沟通是人类进化了几十万年的"第一语言"——我们有能力几乎读心,但因为过度依赖文字而让这项能力萎缩了。
- Milton Erickson 的故事是整段讨论的核心案例:19岁得小儿麻痹症全身瘫痪,甚至不能转动眼球。在床上躺了两年,唯一能做的就是观察来访者的非语言行为。他学会了"20种yes和100种no"的语调差异。后来成为精神科医生时,病人以为他是通灵者——"for two years, that's all he could do was observe them"
- Greene 的第一法则:"Pay attention to it continually — develop the practice of shutting off the words and watching people almost as if you muted the television"
- 实操建议:去咖啡馆坐下,因为听不到对话,只能观察几桌之外的人的非语言行为。从侧面接近认识的人、突然打招呼——那一秒的微表情泄露了他们对你的真实感受
- 假笑 vs 真笑:"A real smile lights your whole face up — your eyes get alive. A fake smile only moves your mouth." 如果只掌握一项非语言技能,应该是识别假笑
- 自恋者的"死眼":他们可以伪装微笑、伪装一切,但眼睛没有生命——"they're looking through you, not at you. You're a selfobject — an object for them to use, like they would look at a hammer"
- Huberman 补充了瞳孔科学:瞳孔在毫秒级别反映唤醒水平——兴奋时扩大、低落时缩小。"死眼"是我们无意识感知到的对方唤醒模式异常
AI 焦虑论:ChatGPT 是直升机上珠峰
核心论点:真正的智能需要三个 AI 不具备的要素——焦虑驱动的层级思考、自我偏见觉察、整体性顿悟。如果我们用 AI 跳过思考过程,结果不是到达同一目的地——目的地本身就不同了。
- 智能三要素:(1) 承受焦虑走向更深层答案(不是抓住第一个可用答案);(2) 自我觉察——"I have confirmation bias, conviction bias, recency bias, I also have a dark side";(3) 整体性 aha moment——Simone Weil 的立方体比喻:你永远只能看到立方体的一面,但心智能在内部构建完整的图像
- 翻译修昔底德的故事:Greene 19岁在Berkeley用6周学一年古希腊语。面对最难的修昔底德段落,他整晚翻译后教授 Dennis 说"Robert, I can see your thinking, but you need to go to another level — you didn't have that aha moment"。这句话影响了他40年的思考习惯。"如果当时我用 ChatGPT 翻译了修昔底德,那块肌肉永远不会发育"
"ChatGPT is the equivalent of taking a helicopter to the top of Mount Everest without any of that training and having the same moment. It's not the same." —— Douglas Hofstadter(Greene 引用)
- Greene 的写作过程是最好的反例:"95% pain, 2.5% ecstasy"——第一稿糟糕到令自己厌恶,第二稿勉强可以但不够好,然后是两个月的煎熬直到终于到达他想要的位置。"完成一本书比任何毒品体验都好——但它必须经过那些焦虑"
中风:在死亡门槛上看到自我是幻觉
核心论点:Robert Greene 的 2018 年中风不仅改变了他的身体能力,更让他在濒死过程中直接经历了大脑构建现实的方式——自我、时间、连续性都是幻觉。
- 2018年8月17日,妻子几个月前送的格子衬衫(他热爱格子花纹)被急救人员从中间剪开。他在开车时中风,妻子发现异常后叫了 911。血栓在颈部,通过髋部插管解除
- 濒死体验中的三个核心发现:(1) 自我不存在——"there are like 50 different selves inside of you that are all competing, and you think there's just one, but it's an illusion the brain constructs";(2) 时间是主观建构——他以为出车后过了10秒,妻子说是10分钟;(3) 骨骼溶解感——"life draining out of me and my bones getting softer and softer",这种感觉持续了数周
Greene 提出了一个深刻的区分:"We're so curious about death, but we really should pay attention to dying. Dying is actually much more interesting than death."
- 中风后的重新校准:不能行走、不能自己系鞋带扣扣子。但这迫使他以全新的注意力观察周围:"I see butterflies in my garden and I'm like wow, that's incredible — things I couldn't appreciate before because I was always moving." 写作从全天缩减到3-4小时,但那几小时变成了纯粹的bliss
- Renoir 的类比:晚年右臂瘫痪后用嘴含画笔继续画出美丽的画——"his brain had mastered the art of painting, not his hand"。Greene 用这个故事说明大脑可塑性的力量
Death Ground:把自己逼到悬崖边才能爆发全部潜能
核心论点:孙子兵法的"置之死地"是现实中能量爆发的最可靠触发器——当你感受到"气压"(barometric pressure)时,你会找到自己从不知道存在的力量。
- 孙子兵法的原始策略:"Put an army on death ground and it will fight — meaning put an army with its back to the ocean, it's either win or die, they're going to fight 10 times harder"
- William James 的"第二次风"理论:当你感到生命受威胁时,"suddenly you can leap over things you never could leap over before"
- 登山者故事(出自《Bone Games》一书):独自登山,风暴来临,摔断腿、树枝插入伤口。在悬崖边缘面对死亡时,不知从哪里涌来的能量让他"像山羊一样"跳跃下山脱险。之后20年他一直试图复现那种感觉——尝试其他山峰、珠穆朗玛峰——都无法重现。最终通过大量神经科学研究部分理解了机制
- 反面案例——23 岁觉得还有 50-80 年:"that pressure is gone and you're wasting time"——没有紧迫感就没有纪律,没有学习,没有技能积累
- Greene 的个人 death ground 就是他的中风:它永久性地改变了他对时间的感受,让他每天都带着"could be taken away tomorrow"的意识来写作和生活
"Put yourself on death ground. The actual reality is you could die tomorrow, you could have a stroke tomorrow. You're fooling yourself by thinking you have all of this time." —— Robert Greene
附录:关键人/机构/产品/概念
| 项目 | 详情 |
|------|------|
| Robert Greene | 畅销书作家,著有《权力的48法则》《精通》《诱惑的艺术》《人性的法则》《战争的33条策略》,2018年经历中风 |
| Andrew Huberman | Stanford 神经生物学与眼科学教授,Huberman Lab Podcast 主持人 |
| Howard Gardner | 心理学家,提出五种智力框架(Five Frames of Mind)|
| Abraham Maslow | 心理学家,提出"冲动之声"(impulse voices)和"高峰体验"(peak experience)概念 |
| Alfred Adler | 心理学家,自卑感理论 |
| Sigmund Freud | 精神分析创始人,儿童被父母"诱惑"的依附模式理论 |
| Milton Erickson | 催眠治疗创始人,19岁小儿麻痹全身瘫痪两年后成为非语言沟通大师 |
| David Anderson | Caltech 神经生物学教授,发现非性行为骑乘回路 |
| Bronislaw Malinowski | 人类学家,乱伦禁忌激发欲望理论 |
| Simone Weil | 哲学家,立方体比喻——心智能构建肉眼永远看不到的整体图像 |
| Douglas Hofstadter | 认知科学家,ChatGPT = 直升机上珠峰的比喻 |
| Jeffrey Schwartz | UCLA 精神科医生,用可塑性练习治疗 OCD |
| Hubel & Wiesel | 诺贝尔奖得主,发现关键期神经可塑性(Huberman 的科学"曾祖父母")|
| Joost Elffers | 书籍包装商,Greene 的出版界导师 |
| FDR & Eleanor Roosevelt | 选择品格匹配而非外貌——深层价值趋同的历史案例 |
| Renoir | 晚年右臂瘫痪后用嘴含画笔继续作画——大脑可塑性的极端案例 |
| 《Bone Games》| 登山者濒死后爆发超人能量的故事,Greene 新书素材 |
| Death Ground | 孙子兵法概念,Greene 在《战争的33条策略》中阐释——背水一战式的能量爆发 |
| Love Sublime | Greene 新书概念——超越权力博弈的深度亲密连接 |
| The Sublime | Greene 新书主题——人类对超越性体验的神经需求 |
我第一次了解 Robert 的作品是通过阅读《精通》这本书。在我看来,这是一部关于如何思考和追求人生使命的精彩探索和实用工具。每当有人问我推荐书单时,我总会把《精通》放在前三名。
在今天的对话中,我们涵盖了广泛的话题,包括如何找到、追求和实现人生使命。我们谈到了伴侣的选择,以及浪漫关系和其他类型的关系。我们还讨论了动力和紧迫感的话题,以及"死地"这个概念——这是在讨论 Robert 最近的中风经历时自然浮现的。Robert 的中风给他带来了某些限制,但也让他得以探索新的写作方式、新的锻炼方式,乃至全新的与生活互动的方式,让他能够继续拓展自己的使命感。我相信到今天节目结束时,你将获得大量新知识,帮助你沿着通往使命的道路前行——也许还能帮你找到使命(如果你觉得自己还没有找到的话),并大大提升你与自己、与他人、与周围世界的关系。
在开始之前,我想强调这档播客与我在 Stanford 的教学和科研工作是分开的。但它确实是我的一个愿望和努力的一部分——向公众免费传递关于科学和科学工具的信息。秉承这一主旨,我要感谢今天播客的赞助商。
我们的第一个赞助商是 Roka。Roka 生产最高品质的眼镜和太阳镜。我一辈子都在研究视觉系统的生物学。我可以告诉你,你的视觉系统必须应对大量挑战才能让你看清楚。Roka 理解这些挑战,并据此设计了他们的眼镜和太阳镜,让你始终能看得清清楚楚。Roka 眼镜和太阳镜采用了一种叫 float fit 的新技术,即使在运动时也能完美贴合、不会滑动。实际上,每次戴 Roka 眼镜或太阳镜时,我通常都会忘记自己戴着它们。我晚上开车或阅读时戴 Roka 眼镜,白天光线很强时戴 Roka 太阳镜,尤其是迎着阳光开车的时候。如果你想试试 Roka 眼镜或太阳镜,可以访问 roka.com,输入代码 huberman 即可享受首单八折优惠。
今天的节目还由 Helix Sleep 赞助。Helix Sleep 生产根据你独特睡眠需求定制的床垫和枕头。睡眠是心理健康、身体健康和表现的基础。当我们睡得好、睡得够时,心理健康、身体健康和表现都能达到最佳状态。获得好睡眠的关键之一是确保你的床垫符合你独特的睡眠需求。Helix Sleep 有一个简短的两分钟问卷,你访问他们的网站做完问卷,回答一些问题——比如你习惯仰睡、侧睡还是趴睡,半夜容易觉得热还是冷——也许你不知道这些问题的答案,没关系。做完两分钟问卷后,他们会为你匹配最适合你睡眠需求的床垫。我睡的是 Dusk 床垫,大约两年前开始睡 Dusk 床垫后,我的睡眠立刻改善了。如果你有兴趣升级床垫,请访问 helixsleep.com/huberman,做他们的两分钟睡眠问卷,他们会为你匹配定制床垫,你还能享受最高350美元的折扣和两个免费枕头。
今天的节目还由 Waking Up 赞助。Waking Up 是一款冥想应用,包含数百个冥想课程、正念训练、yoga nidra 练习和 NSDR(非睡眠深度休息)方案。几年前我开始使用 Waking Up 应用,虽然我从青少年时期就一直在做常规冥想,大约十年前也开始做 yoga nidra,但我爸跟我说他发现了一个应用——就是 Waking Up——可以教你不同时长的冥想,而且有很多不同类型的冥想方式,能让大脑和身体进入不同状态。他非常喜欢。于是我试了 Waking Up,发现它确实非常有用。因为有时候我只有几分钟来冥想,有时候时间更长。我喜欢的是可以探索不同类型的冥想来加深对意识的理解,同时根据不同的冥想方式让大脑和身体进入各种不同的状态。
我也喜欢 Waking Up 应用有很多不同类型的 yoga nidra 练习。对于不了解的人来说,yoga nidra 是一种保持身体静止但头脑活跃的练习。它与大多数冥想非常不同。有很好的科学数据表明,yoga nidra 以及类似的非睡眠深度休息(NSDR)可以极大地恢复认知和身体能量,即使只是短短十分钟的练习。如果你想试试 Waking Up 应用,可以访问 wakingup.com/huberman,获得30天免费试用。
下面进入我与 Robert Greene 的对话。
I first learned about Robert's work from reading the book Mastery, which to my mind is a brilliant exploration and a practical tool for how to think about and pursue one's purpose. Whenever I'm asked for book suggestions I always include Mastery in my top three recommendations.
During today's discussion we cover a wide range of topics including how to find and pursue and achieve one's purpose. We talk about the selection of a life partner as well as romantic and other types of relationships. We also discussed the topics of motivation and urgency and this concept of death ground, which arose during our discussion of Robert's recent stroke. Robert's stroke rendered him certain limitations but also has allowed him to explore how to write, how to exercise, indeed how to interface with life in general in new ways that allow him to continue to expand his sense of purpose. I'm certain that by the end of today's episode you will have gleaned tremendous amounts of new knowledge that will allow you to navigate forward along the path to your purpose, perhaps find your purpose if you feel you haven't done that yet, as well as to greatly enhance your relationship with yourself, with others, and indeed to the world around you.
Before we begin I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.
Our first sponsor is Roka. Roka makes eyeglasses and sunglasses that are of the absolute highest quality. I've spent a lifetime working on the biology the visual system. I can tell you that your visual system has to contend with an enormous number of challenges in order for you to be able to see clearly. Roka understands those challenges and has designed their eyeglasses and sunglasses accordingly so that you always see with crystal clarity. Roka eyeglasses and sunglasses are designed with a new technology called float fit which allows them to fit perfectly and not move around even when you're active. In fact whenever I'm wearing my Roka eyeglasses or sunglasses I usually forget that I'm wearing them. I happen to wear Roka eyeglasses at night when I drive or if I'm reading at night and I wear Roka sunglasses during the daytime if it's very bright especially if I'm driving into sunlight. If you'd like to try Roka eyeglasses or sunglasses you can go to roka.com and enter the code huberman for 20% off your first order.
Today's episode is also brought to us by Helix Sleep. Helix Sleep makes mattresses and pillows that are tailored to your unique sleep needs. Now sleep is the foundation of mental health, physical health, and performance. When we are sleeping well and enough, mental health, physical health, and performance all stand to be at their best. One of the key things to getting a great night's sleep is to make sure that your mattress is tailored to your unique sleep needs. Helix Sleep has a brief two-minute quiz that if you go to their website you take that quiz and answer questions such as do you tend to sleep on your back, your side, or your stomach, do you tend to run hot or cold in the middle of the night, maybe you don't know the answers to those questions and that's fine. At the end of that two-minute quiz they will match you to a mattress that's ideal for your sleep needs. I sleep on the Dusk mattress and when I started sleeping on a Dusk mattress about two years ago my sleep immediately improved. So if you're interested in upgrading your mattress go to helixsleep.com/huberman, take their two-minute sleep quiz and they'll match you to a customized mattress for you and you'll get up to $350 off any mattress order and two free pillows.
Today's episode is also brought to us by Waking Up. Waking Up is a meditation app that includes hundreds of meditation programs, mindfulness trainings, yoga nidra sessions, and NSDR non-sleep deep rest protocols. I started using the Waking Up app a few years ago because even though I've been doing regular meditation since my teens and I started doing yoga nidra about a decade ago, my dad mentioned to me that he had found an app, turned out to be the Waking Up app, which could teach you meditations of different durations and that had a lot of different types of meditations to place the brain and body into different states, and that he liked it very much. So I gave the Waking Up app a try and I too found it to be extremely useful because sometimes I only have a few minutes to meditate, other times I have longer to meditate, and indeed I love the fact that I can explore different types of meditation to bring about different levels of understanding about consciousness but also to place my brain and body into lots of different kinds of states depending on which meditation I do.
I also love that the Waking Up app has lots of different types of yoga nidra sessions. For those of you who don't know, yoga nidra is a process of lying very still but keeping an active mind. It's very different than most meditations and there's excellent scientific data to show that yoga nidra and something similar to it called non-sleep deep rest or NSDR can greatly restore levels of cognitive and physical energy even with just a short 10-minute session. If you'd like to try the Waking Up app you can go to wakingup.com/huberman and access a free 30-day trial.
And now for my discussion with Robert Greene.
书中还谈到了一些我们今天会深入讨论的内容,其中最重要的就是识别存在于我们每个人内心的那颗独特的种子——它能指引我们在寻找人生使命时做出最好的决定。所以我通常会在最后表达深深的感激,今天可能也会这样做。但我想以感激开始。《精通》改变了我的整个人生。在很多方面,如果没有《精通》,这档播客可能都不会存在。因为它真正在我心中植入了一个理念——我们每个人都有更深层的使命——并且说明了如何去寻找那个使命。
所以我告诉你这些,同时也想以此为引子问你一个问题。既然大家的耳朵已经竖起来了,你怎么找到自己的使命?你能跟我们分享一下什么是找到人生使命,以及早期生活经历如何为我们每个人的使命提供线索吗?
And it talked about some things that we'll get into in more depth today but not the least of which is about identifying that unique seed that exists within all of us that can guide our best decisions in terms of finding our purpose. And so I will usually end with a great debt of gratitude and I'll probably do that again at the end but I want to start with a great debt of gratitude. Mastery transformed my entire life and in many ways this podcast probably wouldn't exist were it not for Mastery because it really embedded in me this idea that we all have a deeper purpose and it explains how to go about finding that purpose.
So I tell you that and I also will use that as a segue for asking you, now since I'm sure people's ears are picked up to this, you know how do you find your purpose? Could you share with us what it is to find one's purpose and how early life events perhaps can cue us to what that purpose is for each of us?
当你找到了使命感,当你找到了我所说的人生任务,一切就有了方向,一切就有了目的。你的能量是集中的。这并不意味着你只是在走一条狭窄的小路,也不意味着生活变得无聊,只剩下纪律和解决问题。这实际上是能发生在你身上的最激动人心的事情——因为你再也不会有那种迷失的感觉。你早上醒来就知道,好,这就是我需要完成的事。有人带着各种干扰、无聊和烦人的事情来找你,你能把它们屏蔽掉。这就是你能拥有的最棒的内在雷达。
所以我真心希望每个人都能找到那种内在雷达。这并不容易,我理解没有什么速效公式——因为我们都渴望速效公式。这很难,我想让你知道这一点。不是 Robert 三分钟内就能给你答案。不行。但这里面有一个过程。它不是什么神秘的东西。你可以遵循一个非常明确的过程。
这个思路是这样的——你说到了童年——我喜欢这样来框定它:当你出生时,你是一个奇迹。你是独一无二的。你的 DNA 在回溯数十亿年的宇宙历史中从未出现过,将来也不会再出现。你的生活经历——父母给你的、早年经历的一切——都是独一无二的。这是你自己的。你是独一无二的。所以这就是你力量的源泉。浪费它是你一生中能做的最糟糕的事情。
这种力量就在于找到你的独特性——是什么让你成为你——以及你如何挖掘它,如何深入它,用它来创造一条职业道路。所以我告诉人们,当你还是个孩子的时候,四五岁甚至更小的时候,你有伟大心理学家 Maslow 所说的"冲动之声"。你脑海里有些小声音在说:我喜欢这个,我讨厌那个,我喜欢这种食物,妈妈这样动的时候我不喜欢,爸爸从那边过来的时候我喜欢。你非常清楚自己是谁、喜欢什么、不喜欢什么。这些声音会在某些方向上引导你。
你很小的时候,这些声音也会引导你走向智力和精神方面的追求。有一本书我推荐给每个人,就是 Howard Gardner 的《五种心智框架》。这本书对我帮助极大。他谈到了五种智力形式。我们的问题是,我们认为智力主要是智识性的,但实际上有很多种智力形式。有跟文字有关的智力,有跟模式和数学有关的抽象智力,有跟身体有关的动觉智力,还有社会智力。他列了五种。
关键是你的大脑会自然偏向其中一种。可能偏向两种,这种情况也有,但通常有一种是主导的。就像你大脑里有一种纹理,朝着某个方向延伸。你要顺着那个纹理走,因为那才是你力量所在。所以当你年轻的时候,如果你回想四五岁时的自己,也许能看到某种方向或内心的声音在驱使你朝某个方向前进。
我知道对我来说就是文字。从我记事起,大概六岁,我就对文字着了迷。就是字母本身——我会把单词倒着拼,把它们拆开,做字谜游戏,我喜欢回文。这差不多有点像轻度的精神分裂。所以我对文字和语言有一种痴迷。这是很原始的东西。
有些人——Albert Einstein 四岁时,他父亲送了他一个指南针作为生日礼物,他完全被迷住了。宇宙中有看不见的力量在移动这根指针,他对看不见的力量着了迷。Steve Jobs 大概七八岁或更小的时候,在 Burlingame,他父亲带他路过一家商店,橱窗里陈列着各种电子设备,他被那些设备的设计、玻璃管之类的东西催眠了。所以他想朝那个方向走。Tiger Woods 看到他父亲在车库里打高尔夫球,他兴奋得尖叫。他必须要做这件事。
这样的例子我能举一百万个。当然这些都是名人,我们能回溯并找到这些故事,比较容易。但你身上发生的事情是——如果我说得太长请打断我——
When you find that sense of purpose, when you find what I call your life's task, everything has a direction, everything has a purpose. Your energy is concentrated. It's not like you're just going down a single narrow pathway. It's not like life becomes boring and it's just about discipline and solving problems. It's actually the most exciting thing that can ever happen to you because you never have that lost feeling. You wake up in the morning you go yeah this is what I need to accomplish. People come at you with all kinds of distractions and boring and irritating things, you're able to cut it out. It's just the most marvelous piece of internal radar that you can have.
So I genuinely wish that everybody can find that kind of internal radar. And so it's not easy and I understand that there's no like instant formula because we're all about instant formulas. It's difficult and I want you to know that. So it's not like Robert can give me the answer in three minutes. No I can't. But there's a process involved. It's not a mystery. You can follow a very singular process.
And the idea is, you're talking about childhood, the way I like to frame it is when you were born you are a phenomenon. You are unique. Your DNA has never occurred in the history of the universe going back billions of years. It will never occur in the future. Your life experience with your parents and everything that you experienced in your early years going on up is unique. It's yours. You are one of a kind. So that is your source of power. To waste that is just the worst thing you can do in your life.
And what the power is, is finding that uniqueness, what makes you you, and how you can mine that and how you can go deep into it and use that to create a career path. And so I tell people when you're a child, when you're four or five or even younger, you have what the great psychologist Maslow called impulse voices. There are little voices in your head that say I love this, I hate that, I like this food, I don't like when mommy moves this way, I like when daddy comes from here. You're very cued into who you are and what you like and what you don't like. And these voices kind of direct you in certain ways.
And when you're very young they direct you towards intellectual, mental pursuits as well. And there's a book I recommend for everybody, it's Howard Gardner's Five Frames of Mind. It's helped me immensely. The idea is he talks about five forms of intelligence. Our problem is we think of intelligence as mostly intellectual, but there are many forms of intelligence. There's the intelligence that has to do with words. There's abstract intelligence that has to do with patterns and mathematics. There's kinetic intelligence, it has to do with the body. There's social intelligence. He has five of them.
And the idea is your brain naturally veers towards one of them. It can veer towards two of them, that happens, but generally one of them kind of dominates. And it's like a grain in your brain that's going in a certain direction. You want to go with that grain because that's where your power will lie. So when you're young, if you go back and think about when you were four or five, you can maybe get a picture of some kind of direction or voice inside of you that was impelling you towards this.
I know for me it was words. From I can remember when I was six years old I was just obsessed with words. Just the letters in words, almost in a slightly schizophrenic way I would spell words backwards, I would take them apart, I would do anagrams, I love palindromes. So I had a thing about words and language. It's very primal.
Some people, you know, Albert Einstein when he was four years old his father gave him a birthday gift of a compass and he was just mesmerized by this compass, the idea that there are invisible forces out there in the cosmos moving this needle, and he's obsessed with the idea of invisible forces. Steve Jobs when he was like seven or eight or maybe younger in Burlingame, California, his father, they passed by a store with technological devices in the window and he was just hypnotized by the design of those devices and the glass tubes and everything. So he wanted to go in that direction. Tiger Woods saw his father hitting golf balls in the garage and he was just like screaming with joy. He had to do that.
I can give you a million different examples of this. Of course these are people who are famous, obviously we can go back and find that, it's easier. But what happens to you, and please cut me off if I'm going on too long—
随着年龄增长,情况越来越糟。到了青少年时期,一切都围绕着别人在做什么,你的同龄人在做什么,什么酷,什么不酷。这些噪音更多了。所有这些噪音进入你的大脑,你再也听不到自己了。你不知道自己是谁了。
于是你上了大学,可能选了一个看起来实用的专业,或者父母希望你学的专业。也许你在徘徊,不确定。然后你进入职场,没有我说的那种内在雷达。老兄,你就迷失了。我该往哪走?嗯,我需要赚钱。于是你基于赚大钱的需要做出选择。不是每个人都这样,但有些人确实如此——我理解那种需要,我们都需要谋生。但这可能把你带上一条很糟糕的路,因为你在情感上是断裂的。
关键是,当你弄清楚那种原始的倾向——你内心的那种纹理——你就有了纪律的能量,有了完成无聊任务的能量,有了学习的能量。你的学习速度更快,因为你在情感上是投入的。当你在情感上投入一个学科时,大脑的学习速度是不投入时的两倍、三倍、四倍。
我总是举这个例子:大学时我学了外语,这算是我的一个热情。学了三四年法语,然后去了巴黎,结果一个字都说不出来。完全没用,什么实用的东西都没教会我。我完全懵了。后来我在巴黎待下来了,我喜欢那里,想住在那里,交了女朋友,需要跟她说法语。我可以告诉你,一个月里我学到的比大学四年都多。因为我想学,因为我投入了感情,我的情感在那里。就好像我必须靠学法语才能生存。而我们大多数人其实并没有真正的需要去学某个学科,只是半心半意地在听。
但当你找到那个真正与你连接的东西时,你全神贯注,情感投入,学习速度快得多。所以问题是,当你大了,到了21岁,怎么找到它?我给人们提供了很多帮助,通常并没有那么难。我们可以一起经历那个过程。到了30岁、一直在漫无目的地游荡的时候会更难,但也不是不可能。说实话,我自己直到38、39岁才真正开始找到确切的方向。所以还有希望。到了40岁、50岁,就越来越难了。如果你浪费了我所说的那颗独特性的种子,那真的很可惜。
我告诉人们,有办法回去。我们要经历一个类似考古的过程。我们必须挖啊挖啊挖,找到你童年留下的那些骨头——它们指示了你注定要做什么。但当你找到人生任务时,一切都打开了。这并不意味着你想明白了"好,我28岁时要瞄准这个具体的工作"。不是这样运作的。它给你一个方向感。你可以尝试不同的事情。你可以实验。你可以在20多岁时享受乐趣。你会学习,会掌握技能。但它给你一个整体框架——不再是那种"天哪,这么多混乱,这么多混沌,社交媒体,互联网,我可以去这里那里那里"的迷失在大海中的感觉。它给你一个非常重要的方向感,一个指南针。
And as you get older it gets worse and worse and worse. Then when you're a teenager it's all about what other people are doing, your peers, what's cool, what's not cool. And that kind of is more. So all of these noise enters your brain and you can't hear that anymore. You don't know who you are.
And so you go to college, you kind of maybe choose a major that seems practical, that your parents want you to go into. Maybe you kind of wander around, you're not sure. And then you enter the work world without that inner radar that I'm talking about. And you brother, you're lost. Where should I go? Well I need to make money. And so you make a choice based on the need to make a lot of money. Some, not everyone, but some people do that and I understand that need, we all need to make a living. But that can set you off on a very bad path because you're not connected emotionally.
The thing is when you figure out that primal inclination, that grain that's inside of you, then you have the energy to be disciplined, to go through boring tasks, to learn. You learn at a faster rate because you're emotionally engaged. When you're emotionally engaged in a subject the brain learns twice, three times, four times as fast as when you're not.
I always give the example, in college I studied foreign languages which was kind of a passion of mine. For three or four years I studied French and then I went to Paris and I couldn't speak a word. It was useless because it didn't teach me anything practical. I was totally confused. And then I was in Paris and I loved it and I wanted to live there and I had a girlfriend and I needed to speak French to her. And I can tell you in one month I learned more than those four years of university because I wanted to, because I was engaged, my emotions were there. It was like I had to survive to learn French. Whereas most of us we don't have a need really to learn this subject, we're half, we're paying half attention.
But when you find that thing that really connects to you, you're paying deep attention, your emotions are engaged, you're learning at a much faster rate. And so the thing is how do you find that when you're older, when you're 21? I give people a lot of help and it's usually not so difficult. We can go through that process. It gets harder when you're 30 and you've been wandering around, but it's not impossible. I didn't really start finding my exact path until I was 38, 39 to be honest. So there's hope. When you get 40 and you get 50, it gets more and more difficult. And it's very sad if you wasted that seed of uniqueness that I'm talking about.
And I tell people there are ways of going back and we go through a process like archaeology. We have to dig and dig and dig and find those bones from your childhood that indicated what you were meant to do. But when you find your life's task everything opens up. It doesn't mean you figured out okay I've got to aim for this particular job when I'm 28. That's not how it works. It gives you a sense of direction. You can try different things. You can experiment. You can have fun when you're in your 20s. You're going to learn, you're going to learn skills. But it gives you an overall framework instead of whoa, all this confusion, this chaos, social media, the internet, I could go here here here, you're lost at sea. It gives you a very important sense of direction, a compass.
而找到使命的过程,也许我们可以说,就是意识到:哦,我是一只两栖动物,我可以在水里进出,而我周围的很多生物在水边就停下了。这真的很酷。还有那些会飞的东西,它们其实根本不能进水——有些可能在水面上或者扎进去一下——但它们做不了我能做的事。
所以自我发现的过程听起来是把选择收窄到完整选项版图中的一个楔形区域。读了《精通》之后,它帮我回忆起一些早期的种子情感——我在身体里体验到非常明显的感觉。
Whereas perhaps we could just say that the process of finding one's purpose is to realize like ah you know, I'm an amphibian, I can go in and out of water whereas a bunch of other creatures around me stop at the water's edge. And this is really cool. And a bunch of these other things like these flying things, they can't actually even go in the water, some of them might be on the surface or dive into it, but they can't do what I can do.
So the process of self-discovery it sounds like it's about restricting one's choices to a sort of wedge within the full landscape of options. And you know for me I can certainly recall, after reading Mastery it helped me recall some early seed emotions that I experienced as a very distinct sensation in my body.
但很多时候也是要画那些东西,思考它们,我就是沉浸在其中。这是一种源源不断的愉悦。所以像这样的种子——还有动植物和了解动物生物学(包括人类这种动物)、以及组织信息这些领域里的其他几样东西——让我感到如此满足,就像一种药物。这感觉像是永恒的生命之泉。
对我来说就是这样。2015年我教那门课的时候,我喜欢那门课,但在科学生涯中感到有些偏离了方向。然后我读了《精通》,意识到:是的,我喜欢管理实验室,我喜欢教学,但还有其他东西属于我。这跟播客无关——我当时甚至不知道播客是什么。好吧我可能知道,当时我在听播客,但我没用社交媒体,完全没想过要做播客。但我想要的是那种感觉的所有形式。那才是目标——以尽可能多的形式获得那种感觉。对吗?
But oftentimes it's to also draw those things, to think about them, and I just delight in them. It's a constant source of delight. And so seeds such as those, and there are a few other things in that landscape of flora and fauna and learning about animals and biology including the human animal, and then organizing information, feels so satisfying to me it's like a drug. And so it just feels like this eternal spring of life.
And so for me that's what it was. And in 2015 when I was teaching that course, the course I loved, but I was feeling a little bit astray in my scientific career, and then I read Mastery and I realized yes I love running a laboratory, I love teaching, but there's something else for me. And it has to do not with a podcast, I didn't even know what a podcast was, I probably knew what a podcast was, I was listening to podcasts at that time, but I wasn't on social media, I had no thoughts of having a podcast. But what I wanted was that feeling in its total number of forms. That's the goal, get that feeling in as many forms as possible. Is that about right?
所以没错,这正是我在说的。对我来说也差不多。文字的事我说过了,但我小时候另一个痴迷的东西是早期人类祖先。别问我为什么。我就是对我们几百万年前的祖先着了迷——怎么可能在六七十年代有汽车什么的,怎么就走到了今天。
我八岁时写了一篇短故事,关于一只秃鹫。以秃鹫的视角写的,看着最早的人类在地球上出现。我确信那篇东西肯定糟糕透顶。但奇怪的是,我正在写一本新书,书里做的全是关于早期人类的东西,我感觉自己又像个孩子了。我太兴奋了,太开心了。所以我非常能共鸣你的故事。
So yes that's precisely what I'm talking about. I mean for me it's a little bit similar. The thing is I said about words, but the other thing that I was obsessed with when I was a kid was early human ancestors. Don't ask me why. I just was so obsessed with our ancestors millions of years ago and how it's possible to be living here in the 60s or 70s with cars and everything but to come to where we are now.
And I wrote a short story when I was eight years old about a vulture. It was written from the point of view of a vulture watching the first humans kind of emerge on the planet. I'm sure it was absolutely awful, dreadful. But the weird thing is I'm writing a new book and all I'm doing in that book is going into early humans, and I feel like a kid again. I'm so excited, I'm so happy. So I can very much relate to your story.
对于那些不是智识导向而是动觉导向的人,我只能好奇那是什么感觉。我不至于完全不协调,但我不认为自己有动觉方面的调谐或心智框架。比如有一个播客听众跟我说,他们用感觉来思考——他们的思维真的就是一系列身体感觉的拼接。对他们来说思维不是脖子以上的东西,而只是脖子以下的。这对我来说真的很有趣。
我提这个是因为——正如你指出的——基于我们独特的 DNA 和经历,存在无限多种不同的取向。但你认为是什么解释了这些特定的种子、或者大脑纹理的方向呢?部分肯定是天性、是 DNA。但我们说的好像总有某种令人兴奋、鼓舞或愉悦的东西抓住了我们。反过来也行吗?比如一个孩子在智识环境中有过不好的经历,于是觉得身体的东西感觉好,智识的东西感觉不好?我们是被爱引向使命还是被恨引向使命,还是两者都有用?
For people that are not as intellectually tuned but maybe are kinesthetically tuned for instance, I can only wonder what that's like. I'm not completely uncoordinated but I don't think I have a kinesthetic attunement or frame of mind. But I, for instance, had a podcast listener mention that they think in feels, that they literally experience thought as a sort of a patchwork of bodily sensations. And that thought for them is not of the stuff from the neck up but only from the neck down, which to me was really intriguing.
And so I only raise this because there have to be, as you point out, there's an infinite number of different orientations based on our unique DNA and experience. But what do you think explains why these particular seeds or the direction that the grain runs in the brain—I mean it's partially going to be nature, it's going to be DNA—but we're talking about this as if there's some exciting or inspiring or delightful thing that captures us. Can it be the other way too? Can it be you know one has a bad experience as a child in an intellectual environment and then decides things of the body feel good, things of the mind, of intellect, feels bad? And does it matter whether or not we are drawn to our purpose by recognizing what we love or what we hate, or are both useful?
但是的,你讨厌的东西会有很大影响。但这样做的问题在于:如果你上小学的时候被迫学数学而你讨厌它,它往往会让你对学习本身产生厌恶。你会想:我不想有纪律,我不想经历任何东西,因为那很痛苦,不会有结果,不是我。挫败感会让你对学习本身丧失兴趣。
所以对一个孩子来说,尽早拥有那种热爱的体验非常非常重要,这样他们才能知道自己恨什么以及为什么恨。然后他们可以反叛,可以走向那个领域。而不是"我讨厌学习,我讨厌纪律,我讨厌学习,我讨厌反复尝试"。
如果你是动觉导向的——我的一部分也能理解这一点,因为我喜欢运动——你必须练习。需要付出很多。你不会一下子就擅长某件事。这需要对它的热爱。但如果你的数学经历是"我讨厌学习",它会转移到运动上。你会讨厌一般意义上的纪律。所以父母让孩子至少有那种热爱时刻的闪光是非常重要的。
我知道对我来说,大学毕业进入职场后我得找一份工作。我做了新闻工作。我讨厌它。我讨厌给别人打工。我讨厌办公室政治。我讨厌所有那些自大的人。我讨厌那种油滑虚伪。我讨厌缺乏质量。一切都只是为了赚钱和把东西推出去。然后我在 Hollywood 工作。我讨厌 Hollywood。我讨厌在 Hollywood 工作。这些经历确实深刻地塑造了我,可能推动了我走上后来的方向。但只是建立在一个基础之上——我知道我想当作家。所以这很重要——不能只有讨厌。讨厌可以塑造你,但也必须有那种积极的、深层的、情感上的热爱,而且那种热爱必须以某种方式扎根在你体内。
But yeah what you hate will have a big thing. But the problem with doing that is if you go into a direction, you're in elementary school etc. and they force you to learn math and you hate it, what it tends to do is it turns you off from learning in general. You think I don't want to be disciplined. I don't want to go through anything because it's painful, doesn't lead anywhere, it's not me. Frustration turns you off from learning in general.
So it's really really important for a child to have the love experience as early as possible so that they can know what they hate and why they hate it. And then they can rebel and they can go into that field. As opposed to I hate learning, I hate discipline, I hate studying, I hate trying things over and over again.
If you're kinesthetically oriented, and you know a part of me I understand that because I love sports, you have to practice. It's going to take a lot. You're not going to instantly be good at something. And that's going to require a love of it. But if your math experience is I hate learning, you're not, it's going to transfer to sports. You're going to hate discipline in general. So it's very important for parents to let that child have at least glimmers of that love moment.
I know for me when I finished college and I entered the work world I had to get a job. I worked in journalism. I hated it. I hated working for other people. I hated office politics. I hated all the egos. I hated the smarminess. I hated the lack of quality. It was all just about making money and getting things out there. And then I worked in Hollywood. I hated Hollywood. I hated working in Hollywood. That formed me very much, maybe going in the direction that I went in. But only from the basis of I knew that I wanted to be a writer. So you know that's very important, that it's not just hate. It can form you but there also has to be that positive deep emotional love of something that also is grounded in you in some way.
如果你不觉得焦躁,而且你正在做的一切都能完成,那你的大脑当然不会改变——为什么要改变呢?那种焦躁是神经化学物质的信号,在说:嘿,现在情况不一样了,你可能需要做些不同的事情,包括重新连接自己。这可以来自正面经历,也可以来自负面经历。
我对能量这个概念着了迷。我们都想拥有更多能量和专注力。通常我们在热量能量的语境下听到"能量"这个概念——我们应该吃什么、什么时候吃、吃多少,我们需要睡觉。但你真正指的是神经能量——我们自身的投入状态。它就在那里等着被激活,但需要正确的"体验性宏量营养素"和"体验性微量营养素"。跟好的营养一样,但那是必要不充分的。
那么你会不会说,既然我们很多听众都是成年人——从20多岁开始——成年后那些真正让我们兴奋、产生某种准备感或抓住我们注意力的事物,在指引我们做出关于最佳生活和人生使命的决定时,仍然有参考价值?
If you don't feel agitation and you can do everything that you're trying to do, of course your brain wouldn't change, like why would it? That agitation is a signature of the neurochemicals that are saying hey something's different now. You might need to do something different including rewire yourself. And that can come from positive or negative experiences.
I'm obsessed with this idea of energy. I mean we all want to have more energy and focus. And normally we hear about the concept of energy in the context of caloric energy like what should we eat and when and how much and we need to get sleep. But what you're really referring to is neural energy, like the engagement of ourselves that's sitting there ready to be engaged but it requires the right experiential macronutrients, the experiential micronutrients. As opposed to of course we need good nutrition but that's not sufficient. It's necessary but not sufficient.
So would you say that when, let's say since a good number of our listeners are in adulthood, from our 20s on, that the things that excite us as adults that really generate some feeling of readiness or grab our attention, are still informative toward guiding our decisions about best life and life purpose?
所以这是一个更深层的过程,涉及我之前说的那种挖掘。它比简单的"我喜欢这个、不喜欢那个"要深得多。它更加宏观。
当你在20多岁、30多岁或40多岁的时候,你要关注自己。而当今世界人们的问题就是——你没在关注自己。不在自己脑袋里面关注。你听不到那些声音了,听不到你喜欢什么、热爱什么了。因为就像我说的,有太多其他干扰。
你总是调频到别人喜欢什么,因为你在社交媒体上。这是人们在关注的,这是他们感兴趣的。而不是抽离出来,退后一步,审视自己,经历那个过程——"那不是我,其实我不太喜欢那个"。
所以你说的东西我认为非常深刻——挫败感或焦虑感是明确的信号,你必须注意它们。它们在告诉你,这不是一个好方向,这是在浪费你的时间。总的来说,我告诉人们:自我觉察——能听到那些声音,理解你的挫败感在告诉你什么——有时候你只是本能地行动而不理解它——但理解为什么你感到挫败,为什么你不喜欢你的职业,为什么你对自己的方向不满意——这是一切的关键。它会让你即使在30多岁也能回到那个童年的倾向。但如果你听不到那些情绪来自哪里,它们就没有用。它们什么也教不了你。
So this is a much more kind of deeper process that involves that digging that I was saying. It's deeper than just kind of I like this, I don't like that. It's more, it's more something macro than just that.
And so when you're in your 20s or in your 30s or your 40s you want to be paying attention to yourself. And the problem with people in the world today is you're not paying attention to yourself. Not inside your own head. You don't hear those voices, you don't hear what you love, what you like anymore, because as I said there's so many of these other distractions going on.
And so you're always attuned to what other people like because you're in social media. This is what people are following, this is what they're interested in. As opposed to disengaging, backing off from that, and looking at yourself and going through the process of that's not me, actually I don't really like that.
And so what you're talking about is I think very profound, is levels of frustration or anxiety are definite signals that you must pay attention to, that they're telling you this isn't a good direction for you, this is a waste of time for you. And in general I tell people self-awareness, being able to hear those voices, to understand that your frustration is telling you something, and sometimes you just act on it without understanding it, but understanding why you're frustrated, why you don't like your career, why you're not happy about where you're going, is the key to everything. It will open up, it will actually be able even in your 30s to return you to that childhood inclination. But if you can't listen to where those emotions come from then they're useless. They're not teaching you anything.
像大多数人一样,我试图从完整食物中获取最佳营养,最好是最低加工或未加工食物。然而我和许多人面临的一个挑战是每天获取足够的高质量水果和蔬菜,以及通常伴随那些水果和蔬菜的纤维和益生菌。所以早在2012年——远在我做播客之前——我就开始喝 AG1 了。因此我很高兴 AG1 赞助了 Huberman Lab 播客。
我开始喝 AG1 并且至今每天喝一到两次的原因是,它提供了我所有基础营养需求。也就是说,它为我提供了保障,确保我获得适量的维生素、矿物质、益生菌和纤维,以维持最佳的心理健康、身体健康和表现。如果你想试试 AG1,可以访问 drinkag1.com/huberman 获取特别优惠。他们赠送五包旅行装加一年份的维生素 D3 K2。再说一次,那是 drinkag1.com/huberman 获取特别优惠。
所以听起来目标之一是进行我暂且称之为"纯粹的自我参照"。"纯粹"在各个意义上都适用——因为正如你指出的,在童年的某些阶段,在青春期之前,字面上来说是性发育之前。我认为这很重要,因为青春期——对于我这个最初从事发育神经生物学的神经生物学家来说——我可以告诉你,青春期是大脑在整个生命周期中经历的最深刻的变革。这一点毫无疑问。青春期之后一切都不同了,因为所有新的关系动态变得明显了,以及我们可能参与这些动态。
Now I, like most everybody, try to get optimal nutrition from whole foods, ideally mostly from minimally processed or non-processed foods. However one of the challenges that I and so many other people face is getting enough servings of high quality fruits and vegetables per day as well as fiber and probiotics that often accompany those fruits and vegetables. That's why way back in 2012, long before I ever had a podcast, I started drinking AG1. And so I'm delighted that AG1 is sponsoring the Huberman Lab podcast.
The reason I started taking AG1 and the reason I still drink AG1 once or twice a day is that it provides all of my foundational nutritional needs. That is it provides insurance that I get the proper amounts of those vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and fiber to ensure optimal mental health, physical health, and performance. If you'd like to try AG1 you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim a special offer. They're giving away five free travel packs plus a year supply of vitamin D3 K2. Again that's drinkag1.com/huberman to claim that special offer.
So it sounds like one of the goals is to engage in what I'll just call for the moment unadulterated self-referencing. You know, unadulterated in all senses of the word, because as a child, as you point out, at stages of life that are before puberty, they're literally pre-sex. Which I think is important because puberty, to me as a neurobiologist who started off as a developmental neurobiologist, I can tell you that puberty is the most profound transformation that the brain undergoes for in the entire lifespan. There's just absolutely no question about it. Everything is different after puberty because of all of the new relational dynamics that become apparent and our potential involvement in them.
一切都变了。所以我认为在青春期之前,你描述的这些种子——对愉悦或对事物的抗拒——是纯粹的。它们没有被他人的声音和期望污染。所以我能理解作为成年人回溯这些种子的挑战。
我想知道这是否跟你之前谈过的一个话题有关——虽然你可能没有像其他话题那样公开大量讨论过——就是"真正的崇高"与"虚假的崇高"。你能不能先给我们定义一下崇高到底是什么,什么是崇高体验,以及真正的崇高和虚假的崇高之间的区别?因为我觉得这跟找到那颗种子有关。这是关于在我们内心找到真实的种子——而不是情绪可能会分散注意力和误导人的时候。
Everything changes. And so I think prior to puberty these seeds as you've described them, of delight or of resistance to things, I think they are unadulterated. They're not contaminated by the voices and expectations of others. And so I can see the challenge of reaching back to those as an adult.
I wonder if this relates to something that I've heard you talk about before, although perhaps not as much as some of the other topics you've discussed publicly, which is the real versus the false sublime. Could you perhaps just define for us what sublime really is, what a sublime experience is, and the distinction between real and false sublime experiences? Because I feel like this relates to finding that seed. It's about finding authentic seeds within us as opposed to when emotions can be distracting and misleading.
这个隐喻是:作为一个人,作为一个社会性的人,生活在特定的文化中,意味着你生活在一个圈子里面。那个时代的圈子就是思维的惯例、可接受的观念、可接受的行为。这是你在精神上和身体上可以去的地方。所有的规范和惯例。这是古埃及的圈子,也是21世纪美国的圈子。它们显然非常不同,但本质上是同一个圈子,是同样的限制因素。你不应该走出去。有些思想、体验和行为是你不应该有的。
崇高就是那个圈子外面紧挨着的东西。"崇高"这个词来自拉丁语"在门槛上"。就像有一扇门,崇高就在门槛上。你朝外面看,看到了别的东西。最典型的崇高体验就是濒死体验。你站在门口,站在死亡本身的门槛上。
在我的书里,我在阐述你可以拥有的不同种类的崇高体验。与宇宙的关系,与思考"活着"这件事的关系——仅仅活着就是你能拥有的最奇异的感觉。中风之后我对此有非常切身的体会。我写了一个关于童年的章节,讲你自己的童年有多崇高。我写了关于动物的章节、与动物的关系。我有一个关于大脑的章节、一个关于爱的章节。我现在正在写一个关于历史的章节。
但我想说的是,人类大脑就是为这些体验而生的。它天生就渴望超越性的体验——带我们走出我们生活的狭小领域——因为我们意识到自己的死亡。我们是唯一真正意识到自己终有一死的动物。这吓得我们半死。而看到比生活中平庸琐碎的部分更大的东西,是一扇门——让我们能够超越当下,感觉与更大的东西相连,感觉与宇宙中某种力量相连,与进化本身相连。
所以我们天生就需要这种体验。我现在正在写一个关于4万年前的章节——我认为崇高诞生的那个时刻——一个我正在试图用我们旧石器时代上期的祖先来阐述的故事。所以它深深植根于我们内心,我们需要它,我们必须拥有它。
在21世纪,我们几乎没有什么真正的渠道来体验崇高。宗教曾经是获取这种体验的主要途径。而因为这种需求如此深层,我们就去抓取虚假形式的崇高——它们给我们一种超越的感觉,但根本不是真的。因为崇高必须来自内心。它是你在自己的心灵中、在自己的体验中产生的一种体验。
虚假的崇高来自外部。它来自毒品,来自酒精,来自购物,来自网上的愤怒,来自加入一个事业然后释放所有的攻击性和暴力。它来自各种事业。它来自成瘾。它让你平静下来,让你觉得生活中除了你厌倦的工作之外还有别的东西。
但它不是真的。它不持久。它是假的。它是幻觉。它不基于任何真实的东西。它没有连接到人类本性中那个为这些体验而生的深层部分。所以你需要越来越多、越来越多。你需要更多的刺激。你需要更多的毒品。你需要更多的酒精。你需要更多的性。你需要更多的色情。它永远无法满足你。
但真正的崇高,你不会有那种感觉。它是变革性的。一旦你感受到它,它将在你的余生中伴随着你。这就是 Maslow 所说的高峰体验。这就是虚假崇高和真正崇高之间的区别。
我还没有完全把它和你之前说的联系起来,但如果我想想的话,我认为你触及了一些非常有趣的东西。
And the metaphor is that being a human being, being a social human being living in a particular culture, means that you live inside of a circle. And that circle of that time are the conventions of thinking, of ideas that are acceptable, of behavior that is acceptable. This is where you can go mentally, where you can go physically. All the codes and conventions. So that's the circle for ancient Egypt and for 21st century America. They're obviously very different but it's the same circle. It's the same limiting factor. You're not supposed to go outside of it. These are thoughts, experiences, behavior you're not supposed to do.
The sublime is what lies just outside that circle. The word sublime comes from "on the threshold." It's like here's a door and the sublime is literally at the threshold of the door. You're looking out into something else. And the quintessential sublime experience is a near-death experience. You're standing on the doorway, the threshold of death itself.
And so in my book I'm illustrating the different kinds of sublime experiences that you can have. In relation to the cosmos, in relation to thinking about being alive, just being alive is the strangest sensation you can possibly have. I know that very personally after my stroke. I go into childhood, chapter on childhood and how sublime your own childhood was. I go into animals, relation to animals. I have a chapter about the brain, chapter about love. I'm working right now on a chapter about history.
But what I'm trying to say is the human brain is wired for these experiences. It's wired for transcendental experiences that take us out of the narrow little realm that we live in because we're aware of our death, as the only animal truly conscious of its own mortality. And it frightens the hell out of us. And the idea that we can see something larger than just the banal parts of our life is a doorway that allows us to kind of transcend the moment, to feel connected to something larger, to feel connected to some power in the cosmos, to evolution itself.
And so we're wired for that. And I'm writing a chapter now about 40,000 years ago, at the moment where I think the sublime was born, a story that I'm trying to illustrate right now with our upper Paleolithic ancestors. So it's deep inside of us, we need it, we have to have it.
In the 21st century we have very few avenues for it, any real avenues. Religion used to be the main kind of way of accessing this. And so because it's so deep we reach for false forms of the sublime that give us the sense that we're transcending but it's not at all because the sublime has to come from within. It's an experience that you have that you're generating in your own mind, in your own experience.
The false sublime comes from outside. It comes from drugs, it comes from alcohol, it comes from shopping, it comes from online rage, it comes from joining a cause and just getting out all your aggression and violence. It comes from causes. It comes from addictions. It gives you a sense, it calms you down and makes you feel like there's something else going on in life besides your job that you're sick of.
But it's not real. It's not lasting. It's false. It's an illusion. It's not based on anything real. It's not connecting to that deep part of human nature that's wired for these experiences. So what happens is you have to have more and more and more and more of it. You have to have more of this rush. You need more of the drug. You need more of the alcohol. You need more of the sex. You need more of the porn. It's never going to satisfy you.
But the real sublime, you don't have that feeling. It's transformative. Once you feel it, it lasts for you for the rest of your life. It's what Maslow again called a peak experience. So that's the difference between the false and the real sublime.
I haven't quite connected it to what you were saying but if I think about it I think you're on something very interesting.
但同时还有一种想法和感觉——很多这些都是前语言期的,不是真正的前语言期,那个年纪我能说话了——但那种感觉是:那是属于我的,我也是属于它的。那里有一种联系。然后就是:关于这个,有事情需要做。身体里产生的激活状态就是:我需要了解更多,我需要告诉别人这个,我需要思考这个,我需要更多的例子来看看它们是不是都一样。
所以这当然符合崇高体验的某些标准。
But then there was also a thought and a feeling of, again a lot of this is sort of pre-preverbal, it's not truly preverbal, I could speak at that age, but it was, that's of me and I'm of it. There's a connection there. And then it was, there's something to do about this. The activation state created in the body was I need to learn more about this, I need to tell people about this, I need to think about this, I need more examples of this and see whether or not they're all like this.
So certainly it meets some of the criteria of a sublime experience.
这种感觉有一种持久性,似乎超越了时间。我对时间感知很着迷,所以得小心不要跑题。但人类大脑对时间进行精细切分或宏观切分的能力是不可思议的。有人说过——不仅是关于成瘾,也关于与有毒的人的互动——它们"谋杀时间"。人类有一种——我觉得是 Jung 说的,我会查一下——但有一位伟大的心理学家大意说过:成瘾行为、思维模式和物质是人类谋杀时间的尝试,这样他们就不必面对自己的死亡。
And there's a permanence to it that does seem to transcend time. I'm obsessed with time perception so I have to be careful not to go off on a tangent about that. But the human brain's ability to fine-slice or macro-slice time is incredible. And it's been said of not just addictions but also interactions with toxic people that they murder time. That humans have a, I think it was Jung, I'll look it up, but one of the great psychologists said something to the extent that addictive behaviors, thought patterns, substances, are humans' attempts to murder time so that they don't have to address their mortality.
而当你真正与某个东西连接时,你有那种心流的感觉——三个小时过去了你都没有意识到。所以时间完全是一种主观体验。它可以极其缓慢和乏味,你感到非常沮丧。也可以在你不知不觉中流逝,那是一种奇妙的体验。当我深入写作时,我意识不到时间在流逝。我是如此投入,如此沉浸。这是一种极其深层的时间愉悦体验。它就是崇高的。
是的,所以我同意你的观点。我认为你的区分非常有趣。
As opposed to when you're truly connected you have that sense of flow and 3 hours can pass by and you're not even aware of it. So time is a totally subjective experience. It can be extremely slow and tedious and you feel very depressed, or it can pass by without you even noticing it and it's a wondrous experience. When I'm deep in my writing I'm not aware of the time passing. I'm so involved, I'm so immersed. It's a deeply deeply pleasurable experience of time. It is sublime.
And yeah so I agree with you. I think your distinction is very interesting.
那么告诉我,我自作主张创建的这个框架是否准确。如果不准确,我希望是以某种有趣的方式不准确。对我来说,你谈论的——我们也将谈论的——权力是一种资源。它就在那里作为一种资源,可以被使用或不被使用。而诱惑我认为是个体之间交换的一种形式,所以诱惑有一个动词属性。在这个语境下,权力更像是一个名词。你是文字方面的专家。
然后使命真的是关于——一个人要把权力、诱惑和其他让人类在彼此之间和世界中互动的力量,投向什么目的。但权力作为一种资源,可以以不同方式表达和获取。也许我们可以探讨一下这个。
因为当我们听到"权力"这个词时,很多人会本能地戒备——又来了,有人要对我施加权力了,这是关于操纵之类的。但我很早就了解到,每一项职业努力中都有权力动态。有导师和学徒。有老师和学生,双方都有权力。在浪漫关系中有权力交换。有肯定和否定,有也许,有显性契约和隐性契约。我做这件事是因为我愿意,你做那件事是因为你愿意,很好,听起来不错——这就是显性契约。
也有隐性契约。嗯,做那件事我感觉不安全,所以我要从互动中暗暗拿走一些你不知道的东西,这样我就能缓解我的危险感,给自己一种安全的幻觉。各种复杂的人类动态都跟我们拥有这个前脑有关——它能做所有这些体操般的动作。
也许我们可以简单地开始——你如何定义人际关系中权力的功能性定义?然后你为什么认为权力对所有关系如此重要?这才是我真正想探讨的。为什么它如此重要?为什么不能是别的东西?
So tell me if the framework that I've just given myself liberty to create is an accurate one. And if it's not, I'm hoping that it's not in perhaps some interesting ways. So to me you talk about, and we will talk about, power as a resource. It's something that it's there as a resource, it could be used or not used. And I think of seduction as one form of exchange between individuals. So there's a verb associated with seduction. Power I'm thinking of more as a noun in this context. You're the word guy.
And then purpose is really about finding, like, to what end or ends one is going to devote power, seduction, and the other forces that allow human beings to interact with each other in the world. But power as a resource that can be expressed in different ways and accessed in different ways. Maybe we could just explore that a little bit.
Because you know when we hear the word power I think a lot of people kind of brace themselves, like here we go, someone's going to try and have power over me, this is about manipulation and so on and so forth. But I learned pretty early on that every career endeavor, there are power dynamics. There's mentor, mentee. There's teachers and their students and both have power. In romantic relationships there's a power exchange. There are yeses and there are nos, there are maybes, there are covert and overt contracts. I'll do this because I want to, you'll do this because you want to, great sounds great, overt contract.
There are also covert contracts. Well I don't feel safe doing that so what I'll do is I'll take something on from the interaction that you're not aware of so that I can sort of ease my sense of danger and give myself the illusion of feeling safe. And all sorts of kind of complicated human dynamics that have to do with us having this forebrain thing that can do all of that gymnastics.
So maybe we could start very simply by just saying how would you define power in terms of its functional definition in interpersonal relations? And then why do you think power is so essential to all relationships? That's really what I'd like to get to. Why is it so essential? Why couldn't it be something else?
所以对即时环境和即时事件有一定程度的控制感是深深植根于我们内心的。我们永远不可能有完全的控制,而完全控制的想法是荒谬的。它实际上会很丑陋,因为你需要一定程度的放手,让情况自然地来到你面前。
所以这种感觉就是——你想要在人际关系中感觉自己能影响他人,能推动他们朝某个方向走。要么是让他们爱你、更好地对待你,要么是制止烦人恼人的行为,要么是如果是你的孩子的话,让他们清醒过来去做有建设性的事情。你想要有影响他人、推动他们朝某个方向走的能力——无论是为了你的利益还是为了他们的利益。
一旦你有了这种需要——每一个曾经活过的人都有这种需要——我们往往不认识到它,因为我们对此感到尴尬。我们对自己对权力的渴望、对控制的需要感到尴尬。但每个人都有。
这不容易,因为人类很复杂。你跟你儿子说"做这个",他会做相反的事或者做别的事。你不能直接强迫人们朝某个方向走,公开告诉他们"这就是你需要做的"。你会制造怨恨,制造一个敌人。他们可能会说"是的是的爸爸,是的丈夫,我按你说的做"。但他们内心深处会抵抗你。
所以人是狡猾的。他们戴面具。他们假装说一件事却做另一件事。他们有自尊心,你无意间伤害了他们的自尊心或在某些方面触怒了他们,他们的反应就出乎你的意料。权力就是这样一种无形的领域,笼罩着社会,人们在其中不断地相互争斗和挣扎。但没人在谈论它,没人公开说"这就是我想要做的"。
所以当你进入社会和职场时,你对这些争斗毫无准备。你不知道。没人教过你,没人训练过你。你的父母没有训练你,没有人训练你。你犯了错,你才意识到人们有多政治化。
如果你是那种精明狡猾的人——这种人有一定比例——你会意识到:哇,我可以欺骗别人,我可以操纵他们,我可以得到我想要的,我可以假装爱他们而他们会上当,我可以做各种其他事情。但对于我们95%的人——不是精明狡猾的人,我把自己也算在这个类别里——突然进入那个世界,看到所有那些无形的权力游戏在进行,而没人给你任何建议或帮助,这是非常非常令人不安的。
所以把它从"只是为了统治世界、操纵和剥削和滥用"的范畴里拿出来吧。它是你内在的东西。你有这种需要。你对它的压制只会让它以被动的方式表现出来。你将无法控制某些事情。如果你想影响别人,如果你想让他们追随你的想法,如果你想让他们更认同你的政治立场或想法,你就必须含蓄,必须学心理学,必须学会某些几乎是在别人不知不觉中推动他们朝某个方向走的技巧——这就像《诱惑的艺术》一样。
如果你对此不感兴趣,如果你只是要告诉别人你的想法和你要做什么,那意味着你对实际行动不感兴趣,对结果不感兴趣。你只是在发泄自己的挫败感或愤怒。
所以学习权力的微妙动态是极其重要的,因为我们是社会性动物。这不意味着你要变得肮脏,要出去疯狂地操纵别人。《权力的48法则》的大部分内容是关于防御的。如何保护自己不被那些精明的人伤害。如何避免犯经典错误——比如盖过上级的光芒、话太多、跟人争论而不是展示你的想法。一个接一个。这不是什么丑陋的事情。它实际上让你成为一个更好的社会人。这就是我喜欢的框架方式。
So it's deeply wired in us to want a degree of control over the immediate environment and immediate events. We can never have complete control and the idea of having complete control is nonsense and it would actually be very ugly because you want a degree of letting go and letting circumstances come to you.
So the sense of, you want to feel like with other people and relationships that you can influence them, that you can move them in a certain direction, either to get them to love you and treat you better, or either to stop annoying irritating behaviors, or either to wake up and do productive activity if it's your children. You want to have the ability to influence people, to move them in a certain direction, either in your interest or in their interest.
And once you have that need, and every single human being who's ever lived has that need, and we often don't recognize it because we're embarrassed by it, we're embarrassed by our desire for power, for our need to control. Every human being has it.
And it's not easy because human beings are complicated. They don't, if you say do this and you're talking to your son, he'll do the opposite or he'll do something else. You can't just force people in a direction by being overt and telling them this is what you need to do. You create resentment, you create an enemy. They may say yes yes daddy, yes husband, I'll do what you say, but they're going to resist you deep down inside.
So people are tricky. They wear masks. They pretend to say one thing and they do another. They have their egos and you inadvertently wound their egos or trip them in some way and they react in a way that you don't expect. And so power is this kind of invisible realm that envelops society where people are continually battling each other and struggling in it. But no one is talking about it, no one's being overt about it, no one's saying this is exactly what I'm trying to do.
And so when you enter the social world and the career world you're not expecting these battles. You don't know. No one's taught you, no one's trained you. Your parents don't train you, nobody trains you. And you make mistakes and you realize how political people are.
If you're a sharky character, and there's a certain percentage of them, you realize wow I can deceive people, I can manipulate them, I can get what I want, I can pretend to love them and they'll fall for me and I can do all this other stuff. But for most of us, the 95% of us who aren't sharks, and I'm including myself in that category, it's very very disturbing to suddenly enter that world and see all of that invisible power games going on that no one's given you any advice for, helped you.
And so take it out of the realm of it's just about trying to dominate the world and manipulate and exploit and abuse. It's something inside of you. You have this need. And your suppression of it will only make it come out in passive ways. And you won't be able to control certain things. If you want to move people, if you want them to follow your ideas, if you want them to be more aligned with your politics or your ideas, you have to be subtle, you have to learn psychology, you have to learn certain aspects of how to almost move people without them realizing, in certain directions, which is like the Art of Seduction.
And if you're not interested in that, if you're just going to tell people what you think and what you're going to do, that means you're not interested in practical action, you're not interested in results. You're just interested in venting your own frustrations or your own anger.
So learning the subtle little dynamics of power is extremely essential because we're a social animal. It doesn't mean that you're going to get dirty, that you're going to suddenly go out there and manipulate the hell out of people. Most of the 48 Laws of Power is about defense. How to defend yourself from the sharks out there. How to defend yourself from making classic mistakes like outshining the master, like talking too much, like arguing with people instead of demonstrating your ideas. On and on and on. It's not an ugly thing. It actually makes you a better social individual. So that's how I like to frame it.
为了做到这一点,我现在根据你的回答意识到,我确实必须弄清楚:谁在试图获取权力?谁假装不想要权力但实际上在施加权力?当一个人在专业上、人际关系上、与自身的关系上都处于正确的位置,同时在同侪群体中也处于正确的位置时,那种不可思议的平静感——是的,这就是我属于的地方。
因为试图获取权力的时候如果你要移动到一个不适合你的位置,或以一种不适合你的方式,似乎在能量上代价太高。坦率说就是浪费生命。试图积累资源仅仅是为了拥有它们、给自己一种权力的幻觉,然后害怕失去它们——正如你指出的,这听起来就是痛苦的配方。而弄清楚"在善意的意义上,我在哪里最有力量"——这似乎是一个好的追求。
And in order to do that I did have to, I realize now based on your answer, I did have to figure out who's trying to have power, who's pretending that they don't want power but is actually exerting power. And there's an incredible peace that comes from knowing that one is in the correct place both professionally, interpersonally, in relation to oneself, but also in the context of one's peer group. It's kind of yeah, this is where I belong.
Because trying to gain power when one is trying to move to a position that isn't right for them, or in a way that isn't right for them, just seems so energetically costly. Seems like a waste of a life frankly. Trying to gather resources simply to have them, to give the illusion of power, but then being afraid of losing them, just sounds like a recipe for misery as you pointed out. Whereas figuring out where am I most powerful in the benevolent sense of the word, that seems like a good pursuit.
这样你就不会有 Alfred Adler 这位心理学家非常雄辩地描述的那种自卑感。很大程度上这是在你还是孩子时补偿你的弱点,找到你非常擅长的东西,这样你就拥有了力量,别人不能欺负你了。你现在是一位著名的神经科学家,而他们谁知道在干什么。
所以权力确实以某种方式与你注定要做什么的内在感觉联系在一起,你能通过那种轻松和连接感感受到它。所以我可以诚实地说,我对给别人打工、办公室政治和自大的人的厌恶——我现在有了一种不必应付这些的生活,我太幸运了。我每天早上醒来都祈祷,感谢上帝我找到了这条路,因为这是最适合我的生活方式。
So you don't have that kind of sense of inferiority which Alfred Adler the psychologist describes very eloquently. So a lot of it is kind of compensating when you're a child for things that are your weaknesses and finding what you're so good at that you do have that power and people can't bully you. And you're like now a famous neuroscientist whereas they're like who knows what they're doing kind of thing.
So power definitely is connected in some way to that inner sense of what you were meant to do and you feel it with the ease and the connection that comes from it. So I can honestly say that my dislike of working for other people and office politics and egos, I now have an existence where I don't have to deal with any of that and I'm so blessed. And I wake up every morning and I pray to God, thank God I found this because it's the perfect lifestyle for me.
但对我来说,诱惑意味着某种交换。我想我们可以通过否认或说服自己来诱惑自己,但更多时候当我们谈到诱惑时,我们是在谈论两个或更多人之间的互动。那么诱惑的一些核心原则是什么?如果你愿意扮演一下人类学家甚至神经科学家的角色,我很欢迎。你认为我们的大脑中为什么有能让我们诱惑和被诱惑的神经回路?
But seduction to me implies some sort of exchange. I suppose we could seduce ourselves through denial or convincing ourselves of something, but more often than not when we talk about seduction we're talking about an interaction between two or more people. So what are some of the core principles of seduction? And if you care to play anthropologist a bit, and a neuroscientist, I would invite that. Why do you think we have neural circuits in our brain that allow us to seduce and be seduced?
我们可以是非常变态的生物。如果你试过压制一个想法,你会发现它不断冒出来、不断冒出来,你压制不了。Andrew,不要想大象,你千万不要想大象。你在想了,因为你控制不住。"你不应该想要这个人"这个念头恰恰激发了那种欲望。
所以我相信,某种东西是禁忌的、是越界的,这种感觉是我们渴望诱惑的终极起源。但诱惑涉及脆弱性。它涉及某人钻进来、钻到你的皮肤底下。要做到这一点,我们必须让他们进来。所以被诱惑的人在某种程度上是同谋。因为如果你就是筑起一堵墙说"不,我不会被诱惑",什么都不会发生。但你有一种脆弱性。你让那个人进入了你的心理空间、你的内在空间。
这方面的范式是早期童年。所以 Freud 大量谈论了这个——我不知道人们是否还相信 Freud,但我当然相信。
And we can be very perverse creatures. So if you've ever tried to suppress a thought you realize that it keeps coming up, keeps coming up, you can't suppress it. Don't think of an elephant Andrew, whatever you do don't think of an elephant. You're thinking of it because you can't help it. The idea that you're not supposed to desire this person stirs that actual desire.
So I believe the sense of something being taboo and transgressive is the ultimate kind of origin of our desire for seduction. But seduction involves vulnerability. It involves somebody getting inside, getting under our skin. And to do that we have to let them in. So the person being seduced is in some ways to a degree complicit. Because if you just put up a wall and you said no, I'm not going to be seduced, nothing will happen. But you have a vulnerability. You're letting that person into your psyche, into your inner space.
The paradigm for that is early childhood. So Freud talks a lot about this, I don't know if people still believe in Freud anymore but I certainly do.
但他的观点是,孩子是被父母"诱惑"的。你处于一个极其脆弱的位置。你的生命取决于他们。他们用他们的能量在诱惑你。你让他们进入了。这为你的余生创造了一种模式。
比如,被你父亲抱在怀里带着到处走,这就是一种诱惑。因为你不知道他要对你做什么。你非常兴奋。你想要那种惊喜。对我来说,这跟故事的诱惑有关。故事对我们非常有诱惑力。我们不知道故事要把我们带到哪里。我们不知道下一章会发生什么,这个角色会怎样。那种惊喜降低了我们的抗拒,打开了我们的心灵,去迎接接下来发生的事情。
这就是一种诱惑。童话故事、你小时候读的故事、与父母的互动,都深深植根于你体内。你不可能在不脆弱的情况下被诱惑。
所以我喜欢把它反过来,跳出负面含义。脆弱实际上是一种积极的品质。我认为当今世界很多人,因为事情变得如此严酷和侵入性,人们变得过于坚不可摧了。他们不想让任何东西进来。这现在感染了他们与他人的关系。他们不想被影响。他们想在自己内心保持强大。他们害怕向对方让步,害怕臣服于对方的影响。
但向另一个人的力量臣服,然后反转那个冲击让他们臣服于你的力量——这其实是一种令人愉悦的感觉。当我读一个作家的作品时,有时候他们完全诱惑了我——比如 Friedrich Nietzsche 是我最喜欢的作家之一——我放下一切,让他进入我的大脑,我完全被诱惑了。我让他带着我走。
但我也会遇到完全不喜欢的作家。我提一个,可能不太合适但是——Steven Pinker。我不喜欢 Steven Pinker。我觉得他真的很烦人。但我强迫自己试着找到一种被他诱惑的方式,让他进入我的大脑,看看他从哪里出发,对他可能是对的这种可能性敞开自己。所以脆弱性——让别人进入你的心理空间——是一种智慧。它既是情感智慧也是智识智慧。
But his idea was that the child is seduced by the parent. You're in an extremely vulnerable position. Your life depends on them. And they're seducing you with their energy. You're letting them in. And that kind of creates a pattern for the rest of your life.
And so for instance the feeling of being carried by your father and just being taken around physically is a form of seduction because you don't know what he's going to do to you. You're very excited. You want that surprise. And to me it's related to the seduction of a story. Stories are very seducing to us. We don't know where they're taking us. We don't know what the next chapter is, what's going to happen to this character or not. The surprise lowers our resistance and opens our mind up to what's going to happen next.
It's a form of seduction. Fairy tales, the stories you were reading as a child, your interactions with your parents, they're deeply deeply ingrained in you. You cannot be seduced unless you are vulnerable.
And so I like to switch it around and get out of the negative connotations. Being vulnerable is actually a positive trait. I think a lot of people now in the world today because things are so harsh and invasive, people have become too invulnerable. They don't want to let anything in. And this now infects their relationships with other people. They don't want to be influenced. They want to be strong inside of themselves. They're afraid of giving in to the other person, of surrendering to their influence.
But it's actually a delightful feeling to surrender to the power of another person and then reverse that charge and have them surrender to your power. So when I'm reading a writer and sometimes they completely seduce me, like Friedrich Nietzsche is one of my favorite writers, I let go of everything. I let him enter my brain and I'm completely seduced. I let him lead me along.
But then I encounter writers that I don't like at all. I'll mention one, probably not a good thing but Steven Pinker. I don't like Steven Pinker. I find him really annoying. But I force myself to try and find a way to be seduced by him, to let him into my brain, to see where he's coming from, to open myself to the possibility that he could be correct. So vulnerability, letting people into your mental space, is a form of intelligence. It's kind of an emotional and an intellectual intelligence.
但女性对男性的诱惑显然也存在。
But female-to-male seduction clearly also exists.
这个想法是:男性想要放手。因为男性必须如此控制、如此有力量,必须投射这种形象。他们有一种秘密的渴望——放手,几乎被一个非常强大的女性支配。很多男性都有这种渴望。我谈过历史上一些最有权势的男人。Julius Caesar、Mark Anthony、Joe DiMaggio。所有这些非常阳刚的男人都拜倒在非常女性化的海妖式女人裙下,完全被她们支配了。他们其实享受这个过程,因为那就像一种"我可以放手了,我可以进入这个完全感官的、身体的世界,这太令人愉悦了。这是我那个冰冷的男性世界之外的另一个领域"。所以说实话,我真的不太收到男性抱怨被女性诱惑的。通常是反过来的。
And so the idea is that men want to let go because men have to be so in control, so powerful, they have to project this image. They have a secret desire to let go and be almost dominated by a very powerful woman. A lot of men have that. And I talk about some of the most powerful men in history. Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony, Joe DiMaggio. All these very masculine men who fell for very feminine siren-like women and been completely dominated by them. And they actually kind of enjoy the process because it's like a sense of I can let go, I can enter this totally sensual physical world and it's extremely pleasing, it's like another realm outside of my kind of cold masculine world. So I don't really get men complaining too much about women who've seduced them honestly. It's usually the other way around.
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我之前听过——我保证这不是我假装从别处听来的原创想法——我的一个朋友让我问这个问题——在所有性行为交换中都有一种权力交换。
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I've heard before, and I promise this is not an original idea that I'm pretending to have heard elsewhere, that my friend asked me to ask sort of question, that in all sexual exchanges there's a power exchange.
但诱惑性的交换、性的交换和浪漫的交换,往往是双方都买入了一个暂时的幻觉。我们假装你说了算,但实际上是我说了算。好的,但我知道你认为你说了算。好吧,我们就假装这一切都不存在,直接做 X 吧。我认为这是隐性契约的另一个例子。而且它可能在事后制造很多问题。但我认为性、浪漫与权力之间的关系是一个值得在这个语境下探索的重要领域。
But oftentimes seductive exchanges and sexual exchanges and romantic exchanges in particular are about both people buying into a temporary illusion. Let's pretend that you're in charge when actually I'm in charge. Okay but I know that you think that you're in charge. Okay let's just pretend none of that exists and just do X. And I think this is another example of covert contracts. And it's one that actually can potentially create a lot of problems post hoc. But I think the relationship between sex, romance, and power is an important area to explore in the context of this.
然后把那个有权力的男人引入这个世界——他以为自己才是追求者,但实际上是她在控制整个动态。所以很多时候,关系中看起来较弱的那个人、没有在追求的那个人,实际上是在邀请追求、实际上是在引导对方。所以这里面有很多表象游戏。你永远无法真正弄清楚到底谁在控制这个动态——因为一个人在让对方引导自己,但"你在允许他们"这个事实本身就是一种权力、一种控制。
所以这很难弄清楚。性、权力和浪漫关系在我们的身体上、情感上、神经学上都非常紧密地交织在一起。你躲不开它。所以我认为说这些东西都不存在、外面有某种平等主义的天堂——当我们的神经系统根本不是为那种关系设计的时候——这是非常不诚实的。
And then luring the powerful man into this world, he has the illusion that he's the one pursuing her but in fact she is the one controlling the dynamic. So oftentimes the person who appears to be the weaker one in the relationship who's not doing the pursuing is actually inviting the pursuing, is actually leading the other person on. So there's a lot of kind of appearance games going on. And you can never really figure out who exactly is in control of the dynamic because one person is like allowing the other person to lead them on, but the fact that you're allowing them is a degree of power, is a degree of control.
So it's very hard to figure out. And sex and power and romantic relationships are very much intertwined in us physically, emotionally, neurologically. You can't avoid it. And so I think it's kind of dishonest to say that none of that exists, that there's some egalitarian paradise out there, when it's really not wired in us for that kind of relationship.
两年前他发表了一篇论文,展示了动物大脑中——大概人类也一样——确实存在控制性骑乘行为的神经回路。但实际上还有一个完全独立的回路,专门负责纯粹非性行为的骑乘和身体上的"我在你上面"——在动物中表现出来的。任何养过狗并去过狗公园的人都见过同性犬之间的骑乘行为,或者明显没有性目的的骑乘行为。
在探索这些文献并跟 Dave 交谈后,很清楚的是——有些神经回路完全是关于一个物种的一个动物骑到另一个动物上面,通常是从后面,经常抓住或咬住后颈,然后说"我控制你"。这通常在动物之间的嬉戏语境中进行,不总是攻击性的,但有一定的攻击性元素。但它本质上是在说:"这一刻,你是否能移动由我决定。"
而这一点很重要——我要强调——这个回路与雌雄动物性行为相关的所有反射完全分离。我觉得这太迷人了。因为我们听说"权力凌驾"和"权力",我们想到的是身体上的权力凌驾。但骑乘这种如此原始的行为——就像咬人或打人那样原始——在大脑中有自己独特的回路组,我认为这证实了你在书中关于权力甚至诱惑所写的一切。
所以我就把这个抛出来供思考。我好奇你有没有什么反思。如果没有也完全没关系。但对我来说这是一个非常重要的发现——因为每个人看到骑乘行为都会说:哦,那一定是性行为。有时候确实是。但事实是,大脑中似乎有一系列神经回路真的是关于弄清楚谁在上面——字面意义上的——跟性毫无关系。
And he published a paper two years ago showing that indeed there are neural circuits in the brain of animals, and presumably in humans as well, that control sexual mounting behavior. But that there is actually a separate circuit for purely nonsexual mounting and physical power over, that's expressed in animals. And anyone that's ever owned a dog and gone to the dog park will see same-sex mounting between dogs, or mounting between dogs that has apparently no sexual endpoint.
And in exploring this literature and some talking to Dave about it, it's very clear that there are neural circuits that have everything to do with essentially one animal of a species getting on top of the other animal, usually from behind, often times scruffing or biting the back of the neck, and saying I control you. It's often done in a playful context especially between animals, not always aggressive, but there's a certain element of aggression to it. But it essentially says I decide whether or not you are mobile or not for this moment.
And that, and this is very important I want to emphasize this, this is a circuit that is entirely separate from all of the reflexes associated with sexual behavior in males and females. I find this to be fascinating. Because we hear about power over and we hear about power, and we think about physical power over. But the idea that something as primitive as mounting, just like something as primitive as biting or striking, has its own unique set of circuits in the brain, I think substantiates everything that you put in your books about power and maybe even seduction as well.
So I just kind of toss that out there for consideration. I wonder if you have any reflections on it. If not, feel free to just say I don't. But of course, to me this was a really important discovery because I think everyone looks at mounting behavior and says oh that has to be sexual. And sometimes it is. But it's not that, there seem to be a host of neural circuits in the brain that are really about finding who's on top, literally, that has nothing to do with sex.
我深入到了它的生物学层面,甚至深入到了物理学层面。有一位著名的法国生物学家——名字我一时想不起来了,抱歉——是20年代和30年代的人。他在研究草履虫。他在池塘里观察它们。他说有那么一些时刻,这些单细胞生物突然开始配对。它们一对一地结合在一起。一个吸收另一个的细胞膜。然后一对开始了,所有的草履虫都开始配对。然后它们会沉到池塘底部。
草履虫不通过性来繁殖。它们通过自我分裂来繁殖。所以他说的是——那种渴望配对、渴望与某人深深连接到你吸收了对方、一个人融入另一个人的程度——是在生物学上深深植根于我们内心的。可以追溯到数百万数百万数百万年前。这是一种对爱的渴望——本质上是一种生物性的渴望。
这是一种弥漫一切的能量。不仅仅是关于权力和等级。他还展示了其他有类似现象的生物。在物理学中我们谈论量子纠缠,我们也知道物质——如果不受大量动能阻碍——会聚合在一起。粒子聚合形成物质。所以宇宙中有某种东西在试图把事物彼此连接起来。有一种能量存在于世界中——我们有一种深层的需要,在那些权力动态之外与某人连接。
在那里有一定程度的平等——我们被彼此吸引,我们放下自尊游戏,放下那些把戏,我们超越了自己的生理学、自己的下丘脑——我们进入了我称之为"崇高之爱"的状态。它包含身体的部分。性的部分是触发器——因为当你跟某人做爱时,你的身体突然以一种你无法控制的方式对他们的能量变得可渗透。它在大脑中释放各种非常强大的化学物质。而很多时候那种感觉太强大了,你反弹回去,你害怕了,你退缩了。
但如果你不反弹,如果你继续往前走,那么心灵也变得对对方和他们的能量和欲望可渗透了。然后它产生一种螺旋效应——身体和精神的连接达到我称之为"崇高之爱"的状态。这是一种理想。它在当今世界并不太存在。但历史上有故事可以说明它。
我相信这是我们的一种生物学必需——感受到深深的深深的连接感。我们通常把这归于宗教、归于上帝等等。但我坚持认为,爱的本质、爱的模型是在两个人之间——无论是异性还是同性,都无所谓。那种超越我们自己的神经学、我们自己的系统、进入这个区域的感觉,是极其令人满足的。我们都想要它。它必须涉及放下权力动态。一切都是平等的。不是说对方跟你完全一样。你承认他们的不同。但在值得关注、值得被尊重方面,你把所有其他东西都留在外面。
所以确实存在一个在我们讨论的这种权力动态之外的区域。
And I was going into the biology of it and even into the physics of it. So there is a famous French biologist whose name escapes me, I'm sorry I can't remember, from the 20s and 30s. And he was studying paramecium. And he was studying them, they're in these ponds etc. And he said that there were these moments where these single-celled organisms were suddenly coupling. They were all joining together just one to one. And they were absorbing the membrane of one inside the other. And then they would, once one couple did that, all the paramecia started joining up together. Then they would sink to the bottom of the pond.
And paramecium don't reproduce through sex. They reproduce through dividing themselves, self-reproduction. And so he was saying that the desire to couple, to connect to someone so deeply where you absorb, one is absorbed in the other, is biologically wired into us. Goes back millions and millions and millions of years. And it's a desire, essentially a biological desire for love.
And it's an energy that permeates all, it's not just about power and hierarchies. And he was showing other creatures that had something similar going on. And in physics we talk about entanglement and we also talk about, you know, matter, if matter isn't opposed by a lot of kinetic energy, it joins together. I mean particles join together to form matter. So there's something in the universe that's trying to connect things to each other. So there's this kind of energy that exists in the world where we have a deep need to connect to somebody outside of those power dynamics.
Where there's a degree of equality, where we're drawn to each other, and we let go of the ego games, we let go of the playing, we kind of surmount our own physiology, our own hypothalamus, and we engage in this, I call it love sublime. And it involves the physical part. The sexual part is the trigger for it because when you have sex with someone your body is suddenly permeable to their energy in a way that you cannot control. It releases all kinds of chemicals in the brain that are very powerful. And oftentimes that sense is too powerful and you react and you're afraid of it and you pull back.
But if you don't react and you go further, then the mind also becomes permeable to the other person and their energy and their desire. And so then it kind of creates a spiraling effect where the physical and the mental connection reaches the state that I call love sublime. Now it's an ideal. It doesn't really exist that much out there in the world today. But there are stories in history that illustrate it.
And I believe that is a biological necessity for us, to feel a deep deep sense of connection. We normally ascribe that to religion, to God etc. But I maintain the essence of love, the model for love, is between two human beings, straight or homosexual doesn't matter. And that feeling of surmounting our own neurology, our own system, and entering this zone, is deeply deeply satisfying. We all want it. And it has to involve letting go of the power dynamics. And everything being equal. It's not that the other person is exactly like you. You recognize their difference. But as far as being worthy of attention, being worthy and respected, you leave all that other stuff outside.
So there is a zone that's possible that's outside this power dynamic that we're talking about.
虽然没有你描述得那么雄辩。但如果放下权力动态并让自己脆弱是在浪漫语境下通往爱的钥匙——那肯定的——但在社会语境下也是的话——那么渠道是什么呢?我想有一种论点——不是我的——说每个人都应该吃一大堆致幻剂然后看到万物互联。但这似乎是一条不切实际的路线。我就是看不到这成为高中毕业课程的一部分。我也不认为这是健康的。说清楚了,我认为我们会看到很多问题的爆发。
但除了一种能同时增加所有人连接感的神奇物质之外——Robert,你要怎么拯救人类?
And not nearly as eloquently as you described it, but if setting aside of power dynamics and making oneself vulnerable is the key to accessing love in the romantic context surely, but also in the societal context, I mean what are the channels for that? I mean I suppose there is the argument, not mine, that everyone should just take a boatload of psychedelics and see the interconnectedness of things. But that seems like an unrealistic route. I just don't see that being 12th grade graduation curriculum. Nor do I think it would be healthy. To be clear I think that we'd end up with a lot of expression of problems there.
But short of a magic substance that could increase feelings of connectedness among everyone simultaneously, how are you going to save humanity Robert?
把自己封闭在自己的自尊里、自己内部——所以这一章叫"逃出自我之牢"——你被困在自己内部、自己的思想和自己的欲望里,就像一座监狱。它把你围住了,你想逃出去。你通过毒品逃离,通过色情逃离。但那并不会真正导向逃离。
你想要能够放下自我,走出你所在的这座监狱。这是我们都有的渴望。所以我想把它框定为一种你可以参与的极其积极的动态。向他人敞开自己的脆弱性——说:"是的,他们可能会伤害我,但我足够强大可以承受。如果他们伤害了我,我会从中学习,我会反弹回来。"我知道这有点天真,但我至少希望你有那种感觉。
因为很多年轻人写信给我说:"我不能再坠入爱河了,我不喜欢那种感觉,失去控制感太强烈了。"他们很多行为模式都是在创造一种控制感——这种控制感是你把自己锁在自己内部就能拥有的——因此过度沉迷于色情和自慰等等,作为避免人际关系动态中可以理解的恐惧的一种方式。
你年轻的时候你是理想主义的——至少很多年轻人是这样——你有梦想和希望。放弃这种可能性——它对人这种社会动物来说是深深令人愉悦和深深具有治愈性的——这就像我们能拥有的最高形式的互动。
所以我在那一章的策略是:画出一幅如此美好的图景——放下防御、放下所有自然抗拒因素、向他人敞开自己所带来的愉悦——让你看到这不仅是浪漫关系的钥匙,也是事业成功、精神能量、创造力、总体上保持开放的钥匙。
我不认为我能产生巨大的影响,但书出来后再看吧。我在倡导那种向宇宙、向宇宙本身敞开自己的感觉——作为一种弥漫世界的能量。我想让你感受到被封闭在自尊里、在自己内部的痛苦。因为你并没有真正感受到那种痛苦。你觉得那对你来说是舒适的。但我想让你清楚那不舒适——那是深深地、深深地痛苦的——它正在切断你与一些生命中最好的体验之间的联系。所以我有这个策略。
我唯一另外的希望在于人类精神本身。很多这些问题我认为是社交媒体造成的。以及那种即时满足感——我们能以这么多方式获得即时满足。我的希望是年轻人对生活中所有的疏离和孤立感到厌烦和恶心。他们渴望真正的更有社区感的、更有互动性的、更真实而不是虚拟的东西。人类精神不能被技术完全压扁。
我有这个希望,因为历史上我们经历过这样的周期。人们变得非常坚不可摧、非常封闭、非常锁住了,然后突然出现了一场爆发——创造性的爆发。像1960年代,像1920年代,像18世纪欧洲的 Casanova 时代——诱惑达到了顶峰。所以它在这些时刻之间来回摆荡——人类变得极其封闭、痛苦、党派化、一切都是冲突、每个人都是分裂的——然后突然走向相反的方向。我对这种可能性抱有希望。我构建那一章的方式是希望能稍微推动这个潮流,看看我能不能产生一点效果。
And closing yourself off into your own ego, into yourself, so the chapter is called "Escape the Prison of the Ego," and you're kind of trapped inside of yourself and your own thoughts and your own desires and it's like a prison. It's enclosing you and you want to escape somehow. And you escape through drugs, you escape through porn. But it doesn't lead to actually escaping.
You want to be able to let go of the self and get out of this prison that you're in. And so it's a desire that we all have. And so I wanted to frame it as this incredibly positive dynamic that you can engage in. And the ability to be vulnerable to other people, to open yourself up and to say that yeah they might hurt me but I'm strong enough to take it and if they hurt me I'll learn from it and I'll rebound. And I know that's a bit naive on my part but I want you to at least have that feeling.
Because a lot of young people write to me and they say I can't fall in love anymore, I don't like that feeling, the loss of control is too much. And a lot of their behavior patterns are in creating this sense of control which you can have when you're locked inside of yourself, hence overindulgence in pornography and masturbation etc. as a way to avoid the understandable fear about interrelational dynamics.
So you know when you're young you're idealistic, at least a lot of young people are, and you have these dreams and these hopes. And to let go of this possibility which is deeply pleasurable and deeply therapeutic to the human animal as a social animal, it's like the highest form of interaction that we can have.
So my strategy in that chapter was to paint such a wonderful portrayal of the pleasures that are awaiting you by letting go of your defenses, of letting go of all of your natural resistance factors, and opening yourself up to other people, is a key to not just a romantic relationship but to career success, to mental energy, to creativity, to being open in general.
And so I don't think I could have a huge impact but we'll see when the book comes out. But I'm advocating that sense of opening yourself up to the universe, to the cosmos itself, as an energy that permeates the world. And so that you don't want to, the feeling of being closed inside of your ego, inside of yourself, I want to make it so you feel the pain of that. Because you don't really feel the pain of it. You feel like it's comfortable for you. But I want to make it clear to you that it's not comfortable, it's deeply deeply painful, and it's disconnecting you from some of the best experiences you can have in life. So I have that strategy.
The only other hope I have is in the human spirit itself. So a lot of this is being caused by social media I believe. And the instant, and the kind of immediate gratification we can get in so many ways. And my hope is that young people get fed up and get disgusted with all this disconnection and alienation in their life. And that they hunger for actually something more communal, more interactive, more real as opposed to virtual. And so that the human spirit can't be completely squashed by technology.
So I have that hope because we've gone through these cycles before in history where people have become very invulnerable and very locked and closed and suddenly there's an explosion, a creative explosion like in the 1960s, like in the 1920s, like in 18th century Europe with Casanova, and where seduction reached its kind of apogee. So it has kind of swung back and forth between these moments where humans get incredibly closed and bitter and partisan and everything's conflict and everyone's divisive, and suddenly goes in the opposite direction. I have hope in that possibility. And I structured my chapter to perhaps sweep that a little bit along that tide and see if I can have any effect.
我同意你说的一切。不仅仅是因为你坐在这里作为播客的嘉宾——而是因为很明显,虽然权力动态和诱惑从开天辟地以来就植根于我们的人类关系中,但我们确实到达了历史上一个非常具有挑战性的时期。知道这种情况以前也发生过让我稍感宽慰——但那是在完全不同的语境下。
我们经常听到钟摆来回摆动。实际上有个人说过——Peter Attia 的兄弟,在线医生的兄弟——我们要把功劳归给他——他说:不,这不是一个来回摆动的钟摆。不幸的是现在它变成了一个铁球。所以它在来回摆荡,每到极端处就造成破坏。
我也期待着有一天人们承认他们周围的以及对他们和他人造成的不公正,但同时能够超越它们。我想强调的词是"正义"。一个我非常尊重的人指出:拥有正义感是一件美好而重要的事情,作为人类,它对我们构建社会很重要。
但我确实认为,我们当今看到的很多负面东西跟色情的随手可得、高热量食物的随手可得等等有关。但社交媒体的一个问题是——因为它确实有积极的一面——但在我看来,它的一个负面问题是:它是不公正事例的源源不断的流。所以你整天都在看到让你愤怒的事情,让其他人愤怒的事情——而且是因为不同的原因。
但有人指出,关于不公正感最关键的事情之一是能够判断你是否应该对此做些什么。我认为每个人现在都感觉被我们看到的所有不公正所劫持了——因为我们觉得我们应该对此做些什么。但也许虽然我们不能对每一件不公正都视而不见,但整天被让我们愤怒的事情轰炸正在劫持我们的创造力、使我们偏离更深层的使命、阻碍那种能通向深层爱的脆弱感。
所以我不认为这仅仅是关于性、食物的诱惑以及在社交媒体上看身体和听声音的诱惑。我认为那些确实有道理。但同时也有充分的机会沿着不公正的引力下坠。就像:那太令人沮丧了,他们为什么要这样做?我发现自己也在这样做——走进办公室跟同事聊:你看到这个事了吗,太疯狂了,他们怎么回事,他们疯了。而不是在那一刻想别的任何事情。我试图把自己拽出来。但我认为你不会独自做到这一切。但我认为你会在拯救我们方面发挥重要作用——因为人们只需要通过不同的镜头看到自己,意识到:这正在分散我本应成为的那个人。
I agree with everything you said, and not just because you're sitting here as a guest on this podcast, but because it's clear to me that while power dynamics and seduction are wired into our human relations since the beginning of time, that we have reached a very challenging period in our history. It's somewhat of a relief to me to know that it's happened before, but in a very different context.
We hear a lot about the swinging back and forth of the pendulum. Someone in fact, Peter Attia, online physician's brother actually, said, and so we'll credit him, he said no it's not a pendulum that swings back and forth. Unfortunately now it's become a wrecking ball. So it's swinging back and forth and doing damage as it reaches its extremes.
And I think that I also look forward to a time where people acknowledge that the injustices around them and that have been done to them and others, but somehow are able to transcend that. And the word that I'd like to pick up on there is the word justice. It was pointed out to me by someone I respect very much that having a sense of justice is a wonderful and important thing, and as humans it's important to how we structure society.
But I do think that a lot of the negative things that we see out there nowadays have something to do with the availability of, the ready availability of pornography, high density calorie food etc. A bunch of things like that. But one of the issues with social media, because it does have its positive aspects, but one of the negative issues in my mind is that it's a steady flow of examples of injustice. So all day long you're just seeing things that piss you off, and that piss other people off, and for different reasons.
But what was pointed out to me is that one of the key things about a sense of injustice is to be able to determine whether or not there's anything that you should do about it. And I think that everyone now feels a bit hijacked by all the injustices we see because we feel like well we're supposed to do something about it. But it may be that while we can't let every injustice pass, being bombarded all day long with things that upset us is hijacking our creativity, it's distracting us from our deeper purpose, it's preventing a sense of vulnerability that would lead to a sense of deep love.
And so I don't think it's just about the lure, the tantalizing lures of sex, food, and looking at bodies and hearing voices on social media. I think there is some validity to that. But it's also that there's just ample opportunity to go down the gravitational pull forces of injustice. Like, that's so frustrating, why are they doing that? I mean I catch myself doing that, talking to co-workers when I walk in about did you see this thing, this is crazy, what's going on with them, they're crazy. As opposed to thinking about anything else in that moment. And I try and yank myself out of that. But I think that you're not going to do it alone. But I think you will play a major role in saving us from this because people, I do think, because people just need to see themselves through a different lens and realize this is distracting me from who I'm supposed to be.
所以你必须能够关掉那些东西,关注你在生活中真正能控制的事情。比如我对乌克兰发生的事情有一种发自内心的厌恶——因为我最近去过乌克兰,我非常认同他们的斗争。那种愤怒的感觉——每次读到一篇相关文章都让我抓狂。所以唯一的办法就是尽量少读。我读那些理性的、有智识含量的东西。我给他们汇钱,尽可能多地捐款,在实际层面帮助他们。但我不允许自己一直处于那种愤怒的状态。
所以应该有人写一本书。应该有人教导我们什么该忽略、什么该关注。有些东西你是能控制的——外面有些不公正你可以通过投票来控制,通过组织运动来控制,通过应对气候变化来控制——不是在家里回收每一件小东西,而是在宏观层面上真正做些事情、加入一个事业。这些你可以做,这是积极的。这是一种将你内心的黑暗能量引导到积极目的上的方式。
但掉进那些兔子洞、让自己陷进去——完全是破坏性的,完全分散你的注意力,削弱你,耗尽你的能量。所以你必须学会忽略什么、不关注什么的艺术。要理解你天生就会看到 Facebook 或 Nextdoor 上那些红色警报按钮。那是负面的,就像糖分冲击一样。你必须避免它。它正在把我们从我们每个人的使命中拉走。
我觉得这对我来说是最有害的方面。除非你的使命就是组织和做一个社会活动家。人们问我——我在《人性的法则》中写了很多关于人性的阴暗面。我们都有。我们都有阴暗面。我们都有隐藏的攻击性。我们都有嫉妒的感觉。我们都有自大的感觉。我们都有攻击性冲动。
怎么应对?我说应对的方式是把它引导到积极的、亲社会的方向。可以是把它放进你的艺术作品中——把那种愤怒和愤慨发泄在人们能产生共鸣的东西里。也可以是组织某些东西——那可以成为你的人生使命——并真正做出积极的事情。所以这是你真正能利用那种能量来完成某种实际的人生任务或使命的唯一方式。
So you have to be able to shut that stuff up and look at what you can actually control in your life. So I have this visceral dislike of what's going on in Ukraine because I was in Ukraine recently and I feel, I've identified very strongly with their struggle. And that outrage feeling, every time I read an article about it it just drives me crazy. So the only thing is I stop reading as much as I can. I read things that are kind of rational and intelligent and I send them money and I donate as much as I can and I help them practically. But I don't allow myself to get that kind of outraged feeling all of the time.
So somebody has to write a book. Somebody has to instruct us in what to ignore and what to pay attention to. So there are things that you can control, injustices that are out there that you could control by voting, by amassing a movement, by dealing with climate change, not by trying to recycle every little thing in your house but actually doing something really much more macro in the world, joining a cause. There are things you can do and that's positive. And that's a way of channeling that kind of dark energy in you for a positive purpose.
But it's totally disruptive and it totally distracts you and weakens you and drains you of energy to fall into those rabbit holes and let yourself fall into them. So you have to learn the art of what to ignore and what not to pay attention to. And understand that you're wired to see those kind of red alert buttons on Facebook or on Nextdoor wherever they are. And it's negative, it's like a candy rush. You have to avoid it. And it's taking us away from our purpose which we each have.
I mean I think to me that's the most deleterious aspect. Unless your purpose is to organize and be an activist. People ask me, I wrote a lot about in my Human Nature book about the shadow side of human nature. And we all have it. We all have a dark side. We all have hidden aggression. We all have feelings of envy. We all have feelings of grandiosity. We all have aggressive impulses.
How do you deal with it? And I say the way to deal is to channel it into something positive and pro-social. And that could be putting it in your artwork, venting that anger and that outrage in something that people kind of can identify with, or it can be in organizing something that could be your purpose in life and actually doing something positive. So that's the only way that you could actually use that energy for some kind of actual life's task or purpose.
现在对男性和女性来说都是非常非常令人困惑的时代。我们不知道角色是什么。一切都是如此流动,尤其是对年轻人来说非常非常困难。年轻女性得到的信息是一切都应该平等——女性应该有同等的薪酬和同等的职业机会,不应该有偏见或骚扰或任何东西——这当然是对的。但同时在社交媒体上一切都是关于外表完美。外貌极其重要。如果你不够性感,你就麻烦大了。很多年轻女孩对此极其困惑。她们收到了混乱的信号。
男孩可能处于更糟糕的境地。男性气质被视为负面的东西。所以我们已经没有任何理想了——什么是一种好的、积极的女性气质形式,什么是一种好的、积极的男性气质形式。事实上我们甚至认为不应该有这种东西——不存在所谓的男性气质或女性气质。随便吧。这非常非常令人困惑。
所以我在思考那些我认为非常积极的男性气质特质——应该被展示出来以对抗很多年轻男性陷入的 Andrew Tate 式的诱惑。这是一种内在力量——你在某种程度上控制自己的情绪,你不是坚不可摧的等等。但你能接受批评,你能经历失败的时刻并反弹回来。你有一种内在的韧性和内在的力量。一种安静的平静——我觉得以前在像 Gary Cooper 那样的电影偶像身上得到了体现。
那种内在平静的感觉——你不歇斯底里,你不对每一件发生的事情都抓狂——你有一种内在的力量和自信,能够承受——就像 Ryan Holiday 谈论斯多葛主义时说的那样——能够承受生活中的所有艰难困苦,但你内心有一座堡垒。这是一种非常非常强大的男性气质形式。而不是一切都围绕着跟很多女人上床、开快车、恃强凌弱。这些都是软弱和不安全感的表现。
男性气质应该是一种安全感、内在自信和内在力量的感觉。这才是我们的文化应该崇尚的。我们应该有这样的偶像。这不意味着不男性化的男人或更具有女性气质特征的男人就没有位置。那也绝对有位置。我们在生活的各个领域都能看到这样的人。
然后应该有一个积极的女性典范——不是根据外貌来评判、不必去符合什么是性感什么不是的标准——而是关于变得极其强大和有能力,拥有专业技能,在事业上非常成功。而不是持续被外貌评判,这是非常有害的。
所以这是一个可怕的时代。我觉得自己很幸运,在一个有这些典范可以参照的年代长大。我想到我的父亲——他是一个非常安静的人。基本上就是一个中产阶级推销员。他一辈子都在卖东西——为一家公司卖化工用品。但他非常有尊严,善待他人,非常平静安静。但他也非常有同理心。那就是我对好的男性气质能量的榜样。我觉得很多人就是没有这样的榜样,他们很迷失。所以我不知道答案是什么。我没法凭空制造出来,但我希望我可以。
It's very very confusing times for both men and for women right now. We don't know the roles. Everything is just so fluid and it's very very difficult particularly if you're young. So young women are getting this idea that everything should be equal and that women should have, and of course it's right, should be paid the same and should have the same career opportunities, there should be no prejudice or harassment or anything. But at the same time on social media it's all about looking perfect. And looks are incredibly important. And if you're not hot you're in terrible trouble. And a lot of young girls are extremely confused by this. They're getting mixed signals.
And boys are even in perhaps even worse circumstance where being masculine is seen as something negative. So we don't have any ideals out there anymore of what constitutes a good positive form of femininity and a good positive form of masculinity. In fact we even think that there shouldn't be anything like that, there's no such thing as being masculine or feminine. Whatever. It's very very confusing.
And so I think of masculine traits that I think are very positive that should be out there to kind of counteract the sort of Andrew Tate seduction that a lot of young men are falling for. And it's a kind of an inner strength where you're sort of in control of your emotions, you're not invulnerable etc. But you can take criticism, you can have moments of failure and you'll bounce back. But you have a kind of an inner resilience and a kind of inner strength. A kind of a quiet calm that I think used to be exemplified in movie icons like a Gary Cooper type thing.
And that kind of sense of inner calmness where you're not hysterical, you're not getting upset about everything that happens, where you have a kind of an inner strength and a confidence and you can withstand, kind of what Ryan Holiday talks a lot about with stoicism, you can withstand all of the hardships in life, but you have that citadel within you. That is a very very powerful form of masculinity. As opposed to it's all about sleeping with a lot of women, having really fast cars, being abusive and being a bully. These are signs of weakness, of insecurity.
And to be masculine should be a sense of security and inner confidence and inner strength. And that's what we should venerate in our culture. And we should have icons like that. It doesn't mean that there's no role for men who are not masculine or have more of the feminine virtues. That's also, there's definitely a role for that. And you know we see a lot of that in all sorts of arenas of life.
And then there should be a positive model for women where instead of being judged by their appearances and having to conform to the ideals of what's hot or not, it's about being incredibly powerful and competent and having expertise and being really successful in your career. As opposed to being continually judged by your appearances, which is very damaging.
So these are terrible times. I mean I feel fortunate that I grew up in a time where there were these kind of models for me to go by. And I think of my father who was a very quiet man. He was just a middle class salesman is basically what he was. He just sold for his whole life, he sold chemical supplies for one company. But he was very dignified, he treated people well, he was very calm and very quiet. But he also was very empathetic. That was my role model for what I think is a good masculine energy. And I think a lot of people just don't have that and they're very lost. And so I don't know what the answer is. I can't really produce that out of thin air but I wish I could.
我是说有一个有趣的想法——在营养和健康圈子里——人类历史上从未有过能获取如此多种与祖先饮食不同的食物的时代。我甚至不是说远古祖先。如果你像我一样在七八十年代的湾区长大,有几家民族餐厅但我们一遍又一遍地吃那15到20种食物。后来选择爆炸性地增长到几十种甚至更多——融合菜、各种各样的东西。所以在营养圈子里有这样一种想法:我们没有被硬连接来思考和辨别如此多不同的食物选择。以前,一个地方的人在某个季节通常吃同一种东西。
类似地,我们现在——包括孩子——被如何表达自己的大量不同选择所淹没——无论是男性气质还是女性气质——还是总体上来说。所以问题就是:如何选择?如何决定什么是功能性的、什么有效、什么最好、什么是我?每个人都在问自己"我是谁"?我觉得所有青少年——这让我着迷——都在问自己"我是谁"。但成年人通常不再问自己这个问题了。
I mean there's an interesting idea in the circles around nutrition and health that never before in human history have human beings been able to access such a wide variety of foods that are different from what their ancestors ate. And I don't even mean ancient ancestors. I mean if you grew up in the Bay Area as I did in the 1970s and 80s, there were a few ethnic restaurants but we ate the same 15 or 20 foods over and over again. And then eventually that exploded into dozens of options and more, and fusion foods and all sorts of things. And so there is this idea in the nutrition communities that we are not hardwired to think about and discern so many different food options. Whereas before, people on one portion of the planet or country ate generally one way in a given season if there's seasonality.
In a similar vein, we are now, and children too, are now overwhelmed with a number of different options of how to express oneself, both masculinity and femininity, but generally speaking. And so the question is then how does one choose? How does one decide what's functional, what works, what's best, what's me? Everyone asking themselves who am I? I think all teenagers, I find this fascinating, ask themselves who am I. Adults don't tend to ask themselves that question.
Gary Cooper 很棒,很喜欢他的电影。但我们现在有一百万个 Gary Cooper 的变体,跟你我讨论的那个 Gary Cooper 长得完全不一样。很多人甚至不知道我们在说谁。
So Gary Cooper's great, love his movies. But we now have a million variations on Gary Cooper that don't look anything like the Gary Cooper you and I are talking about. And a lot of people won't even know who we're talking about.
所以选择榜样这件事——我真的从你的书《精通》中深刻内化了这一点。我有过很多孤独的岁月——我不会讲那些故事了——就在想:我怎么办?我13岁了,家完全破碎了,以前的现实一点影子都没有了。我生活中要以哪些男性为导向?
幸运的是,我为自己指定了导师——不管他们知不知道——他们真的帮助了我。我也按你推荐的那样更换了他们。不是只有一个。我理解有一个分手的过程、一个整合的过程、把不同的东西编织在一起。我真的相信这是必须的。不必是100%的 Gary Cooper。可以是10%的 Robert Greene、10%的别人、5%的这个——创造出一种关于自己在不同语境中想成为什么人的饼图。
但这需要努力。需要一些工作和辨别力。但天哪这太强大了。真的要把功劳归给你,因为你是我的导师——你甚至不知道——在你搜集和组织信息的方式上。还有其他人。但《精通》就是我学会这样做的地方。它教会了我:好,我有一个研究生导师,她很棒很聪明,但她不知道怎么向我解释很多东西。所以我会找另一个人来负责那部分。再找一个人负责另一部分。合在一起创造了一个非常优秀的导师拼图,对我来说非常有意义。
So picking role models is something that I really truly internalized from your book Mastery. There were a lot of lonely years for me, and I won't get into the stories, of just wondering, like what am I going to do? I'm 13, my home was completely broken, no semblance of the reality it was before. Who are the males in my life I'm going to orient to?
And fortunately for me I assigned mentors to me whether or not they knew it or not that really helped me along. And I changed them up as you recommend. There wasn't one. I understood there was a breaking up process, an integration process, combining and threading together different things. I think I truly believe that that's what's required. It doesn't have to be 100% Gary Cooper. It can be 10% Robert Greene, 10% someone else, 5% this, and creating a pie chart of sorts of who one wishes to be in a given context.
But that takes work. It takes a bit of work and discernment. But gosh that's powerful. And really credit goes to you because you were a mentor of mine. You didn't even realize it, in the way that you forge and organize information. And there were others. But Mastery is where I learned to do that. And this is not a podcast, it's a sales pitch for Mastery. But gosh it really taught me. Okay I have a graduate adviser, she was wonderful and brilliant, but she didn't know how to explain a lot of things to me. So I'd find someone else for that. And someone else for the other thing. And someone else for the other thing. And together create a patchwork of really excellent mentors that made a lot of sense to me.
去 Berkeley 之后,我有一位教授成了我在 Berkeley 的代理父亲。我深深敬佩他的学术水平。所以他成了一种智识上的榜样。
后来我终于写了第一本书时,我遇到了一个人—— Joost Elffers——一个图书包装商,他了解出版业等等。他算是救了我。他是我人生下一个阶段的导师。
一个接一个。我找到了这些人。但他们有积极的品质,你敬佩的品质。他们不完美。每个人都有缺陷。所以有时候你看到太多缺陷了,就想:我需要生活中有个新的人。但这没什么问题。你没有违反什么规则,也没有伤害他们。你继续前进找另一个人。
但找到你敬佩其品质的人这种感觉——我们不是仅仅通过追随他们的想法来从人们身上学习的。我们会吸收他们的能量、他们的精神。你读《精通》的时候不一定吸收了我的能量或精神——虽然也许你确实吸收了,我不知道。但当你跟 Stanford 的那位教授互动时,那不仅仅是语言上的。有一种非语言的沟通在进行。你在内化你在他们身上看到的某些积极品质。
找到这一系列的导师——因为我称之为代理父母——你不能选择你的父亲和母亲,但你可以选择这些理想。你可以选择你生命中的这些导师。你可以改写你的家庭史,通过追随这个人来找到你从未拥有过的父亲形象。但必须是正确的匹配。必须是你在情感和智识上都能联系到的人,而且他们拥有你希望自己拥有的积极品质。
When I went to Berkeley I had a professor who became my kind of surrogate father at Berkeley, who I deeply admired for his level of scholarship. So he became kind of an intellectual role model.
Later in life when I finally wrote my first book I met a man, Joost Elffers, who was a book packager who understood the business etc. He kind of saved me. He was sort of my mentor for the next phase in my life.
So on and on and on. I found people. But they have positive qualities, qualities you admire. They're not perfect. Everyone is flawed. And so at some point maybe you see too many of the flaws, you go on, I need somebody new in my life. But there's nothing wrong with that. It's not like you're violating any codes or hurting them. You move on to somebody else.
But the sense of finding people whose qualities you admire, we don't learn from people just by following their ideas. We pick up their energy, their spirit. Now you didn't necessarily pick up my energy or spirit from reading Mastery, although maybe you did, I don't know. But when you're interacting with that professor at Stanford or whatever, it's not just verbally. There's kind of a non-verbal communication going on. You're internalizing some of the positive qualities that you saw in them.
And finding these series of mentors, because I call it surrogate parents, you can't choose your father and mother but you can choose these ideals. You can choose these mentors in your life. You can kind of rewrite your family history and find that father figure you never had by glomming onto this person. But it has to be the right fit. It has to be someone that you connect to emotionally and intellectually and that has the positive qualities you wish for yourself.
但我怎么强调都不够——那种实践是多么有价值。所以当一个人面对社交媒体选项的海洋——这些本质上就是可以"关注"的人的选项——我们叫它"关注",但也许应该叫别的名字。因为"关注"达不到"效仿"或"试图效仿"的程度。但我觉得在男性和女性理想的语境下,这是如此关键。但问题就像食物的自助餐太大了。每种菜系都在桌上了。
But I can't emphasize enough how valuable that practice is. And so when one looks out on the landscape of social media options, I mean these are literally just options of people to, we call it following, but it probably should be called something else, because following falls short of emulating or attempting to emulate. But I think that in the context of masculine and feminine ideals this is so critical. But it's like the buffet of food is so enormous now. I mean you've got every cuisine on the table so to speak.
这就是为什么回到我最初说的——当你对你的生活有了使命感,知道什么是重要的,它不仅仅影响你的事业,它影响你做的一切。所以你知道吃这种食物会耗尽你创造那件对你意义重大的东西所需的能量。大脑感到活跃和有生命力对你极其重要。好吧,我不吃那些糖了,因为那对我不好。这意味着我不会被互联网上的这些事情激怒,因为那是浪费时间。我对此无能为力。它只是在喂养我的杏仁核什么的。
所以不,我不想去那里。社交媒体上的东西——一个接一个——有些是好的,有些是有趣的。我可以关注 Andrew Huberman 的播客,我享受它,从中学到很多。但很多播客是没用的。它们没有在任何方面帮助我。
所以它给你一种过滤器和雷达,帮你削减掉那一百个不同的选择——那些让我们完全崩溃的选择。我知道,也许我部分地——我不知道——我不想说我可能部分地在某种谱系上什么的——但我无法忍受太多选择。这完全让我抓狂。所以我总是必须把能量集中到有建设性的事情上。
有了使命感——无论你什么时候发现它——希望在20多岁——它给你那种能力去说:这些是我想要的积极榜样,这些是我的导师。
关于在社交媒体上关注别人这件事——太容易了。只是一个点击。毫无意义。导师关系需要付出努力。需要勇气,因为你必须真的走到某人面前,亲自请求他们的帮助。很多人写信给我说他们害怕向这个重要的、有权力的人请求做他们的学生。所以这涉及一种社交勇气——你必须真正地与另一个你敬佩的、你认为有力量的人互动。所以这是在锻炼你的社交技能。但这是一种你可以发展的技能。你不能只是关注某人。你不能只是看他们的讲座。你必须与他们互动,你必须在这个过程中克服你的一些恐惧和焦虑。
And that's why going back to what I originally said, when you have that sense of purpose about your life, about what's important, it doesn't just infect your career but it infects everything you do. So you know eating this food is going to drain me of my energy that I need to create this thing that means so much to me. And energy and feeling my brain active and alive is incredibly important. All right I'm not going to eat all that sugar because it's bad for me. It means I'm not going to get outraged by these things on the internet because it's a waste of time. I can't do anything about it. It's just feeding on my, you know, the amygdala or whatever.
So no, I don't want to go there. And on and on and on. All these things in social media, some of it's good, some of it's interesting. I can follow Andrew Huberman's podcast and I enjoy that and I learn a lot from it. But a lot of these podcasts are useless. They're not helping me in any way.
So it gives you this kind of filter and this radar to cut out those hundred different choices that drive us absolutely crazy. And I know, maybe I'm partially, I don't know, I hate to say that maybe I'm partially on the spectrum or something, but I can't stand too many choices. It completely drives me nuts. So I always have to kind of funnel my energy into things that are productive.
And having a sense of your purpose, whenever you discover it, in your 20s hopefully, gives you that ability to say these are the positive role models I want in my life. These are the mentors.
And the thing about following people on social media is it's so easy. It's just a click. It doesn't mean anything. A mentor relationship takes work. It takes courage because you have to actually go up to somebody and physically ask for their help. And a lot of people write to me and say I'm afraid of asking this important powerful person to be their mentee. So it involves a sense of social courage where you have to literally engage with another human being who you admire and who you think is powerful. So it's building your social skills. But it's a skill you develop. You can't just follow someone. You can't just watch their lectures. You have to engage with them and you have to get over some of your fears and your anxieties in the process.
所以有一天——有一本书在我心里酝酿——《思考的艺术》,关于如何使用那种过程并更深入地探索它。我在我的一个播客中谈了很多这方面的内容,那可能是一本书的种子。但这是关于死的思考和活的思考之间的区别。
想法可以是活的,也可以是死的。一个活的想法是从外部来源进入你大脑的东西——一个哲学家、一篇文章、一个你敬佩的人、一个你讨厌的人。然后你吸收它,思考它,你决定:我要把它转化成这个,我要让它活起来,让它成为我的一部分。
活的想法的另一个方面是:你有一个关于一本书、一个项目或关于世界的想法,然后你想——也许那其实不是真的,也许相反的才是真的。你经历一个过程,循环往复。你反思它、修正这个想法。也许它变成了它的反面。通过反思、修正和修改的过程,你把它变成了某种活的东西——你内心活着的东西。
而阻碍人们经历这个过程的——那将是我这本书的主题——基本上是焦虑。因为我认为你如何处理焦虑是生活中最重要的品质。它将决定你是否会成功、是否会找到你的职业道路,还是做不到。
不知道你能不能跟上这个思路。但焦虑是一个信号——告诉你你不理解某些东西,外面有一个你无法解决的问题。对大多数人来说,如果你不安全的话,你会抓住某个即时和简单的东西来消除你的焦虑感。"我不理解这个问题——哦,一定是这个答案,因为那个人说了那个。"于是你就没有发展出思考的能力。你没有发展出进入下一个层次的能力。
但如果你接受那种焦虑,然后想:好吧,也许 A 是一个答案。你开始探索 A。然后你想:不,也许 A 不是答案,也许 B 才是。你能够超越你的焦虑,越走越远、越走越远。你不会急着抓住第一个可用的答案。你能够经历一个修正的过程。
在你的事业中也是如此。如果你对成功焦虑、对金钱焦虑,你会做出错误的选择。但如果你能处理那种焦虑,说:"也许我需要更深入地思考我要去哪里,我需要想出其他替代方案"——那么你会做出更好的选择。一个接一个。
如果你是一个有创造力的人,面对那张空白的纸、那本你没写的书、那部电影或什么的——这是非常非常有挑战性的。你充满了焦虑。你必须应对它。如果你能把它转化为有创造力和有建设性的东西,伟大的事情就会发生。你会创造出一件杰作。所以能够应对焦虑、不屈服于最即时的满足——对我来说,这是一个人是否有创造力、是否会发明某些东西的标志。而那些只是回收旧的死想法的人则做不到。
So someday, it's a book stirring in me, is the Art of Thinking and how to use that kind of process and go deeper into it. And I talked a lot about it in one of my podcasts which might be the seed of a book. But it's the difference between dead thinking and alive thinking.
Ideas can be either alive or they can be dead. And an alive idea is something that enters your brain from an external source, a philosopher, an article, somebody you admire, somebody you hate. And then you absorb it and you think about it and you decide I'm going to turn it around into this, and I'm going to make it alive, and it's going to make it something that's part of me.
Another part of an alive idea is you have an idea that comes to you about a book or a project or something about the world, and you go maybe that's not actually true, maybe the opposite is true. And you go through a process and you cycle through it, on and on. And you reflect on it and you refine this idea. And maybe it turns into its opposite. And through the process of reflecting and correcting and revising, you turn it into something living, something alive within you.
And what prevents people from going through that process, which would be the subject of my book, is basically anxiety. Because I think how you handle anxiety is the most important kind of quality in life. It'll determine whether you will be successful, whether you will find your career path, or whether you won't be able to.
I don't know if you can follow that idea at all. But anxiety is a signal to you that you don't understand something, that there's a problem out there that you can't resolve. And so what happens to most people, if you're insecure, is you glom onto something instant and easy to get rid of your feeling of anxiety. I don't understand this problem, oh it must be the answer because this person said that. And so you don't develop the ability to think. You don't develop the ability to go to the next level.
But if you take that anxiety and you go all right, maybe A is an answer, and then you start going through A, and then you go no, maybe A isn't the answer, maybe B is the answer, you're able to surmount your anxiety and go past it further and further and further. You don't rush for the first available answer that's out there. You're able to go through a process of refining things.
And so in your career, if you're anxious for success, if you're anxious for money, you're going to make the wrong choices. But if you're able to deal with that anxiety and say maybe I have to think more deeply about where I'm going, I have to come up with other alternatives, then you're going to make a much better choice. On and on and on.
So if you're a creative person it's very very challenging to have that blank piece of paper before you, that book that you haven't written, that film or whatever. You're filled with a lot of anxiety. And you have to deal with it. And if you're able to turn it into something creative and productive, then great things will happen. You'll create a masterpiece. So the ability to deal with anxiety and to not give in to the most instant gratification that you can get is to me a marker of somebody who will be creative and will invent something, as opposed to people who just recycle old and dead ideas.
然后我开始修改里面的措辞。让它好一点。第二稿勉强可以接受,但还是很烂。如果把它发布出去会非常丢人。我继续工作——这是一个焦虑的过程——我太太可以告诉你那时候我简直是个苦命人。一切在我看来都是黑暗的。
我继续推进。如果我屈服于焦虑——很多书和作家都是这样——我就会发布那个第二稿。它不是很好,不是很有力量,没有被充分思考。因为我的想法在第一次审视时——我会想:那不是真的,那不是这里真正发生的事情。Robert,你没有击中目标。你想要击中那个故事中真正真实的东西。
所以你必须越挖越深、越推越狠。我不会放弃说"就这样了,这就是那一章"。我会说"必须更好,必须更好"——直到挣扎了两个月之后,它似乎终于到了我想要的地方。
但我利用那种焦虑来不断改进,让它变得更好。然后当我到达那个点——故事足够好了,可以让我太太读了,然后是我的编辑——我感觉太棒了。我有了那2%的快乐时刻。但它是通过所有那些焦虑换来的。但我可以告诉你,当我完成一个章节时的满足感非常好。当我完成一本书时——比任何人能想到的任何药物体验都好。那是一种多么美妙的成就感——推过了所有的障碍。所以我的过程涉及大量的焦虑和应对。这就是为什么我在谈论它,为什么我想写一本关于它的书。
Then I go and I start changing the words in it. I start making it a little bit better. The second version, it's kind of palatable but it still sucks. If I let it out into the world it'd be very embarrassing. I work, it's an anxious, and my wife can tell you I'm a miserable being when that happens. Everything looks black to me at that point.
And I push through it. So if I gave in to my anxiety, and this happens with a lot of books and writers, I would just put out that second version which isn't very good, it isn't very strong, it isn't thought through. Because my ideas when I look at them the first time, I go that's not real, that's not the actual thing that's going on here. Robert you've missed the mark. You want to hit what's actually real in that story.
So you have to go deeper and deeper and harder and harder and harder. So I don't just give up and go here's the chapter. I go it's got to be better, it's got to be better, until finally after two months of struggling it seems like it's gone to the place that I wanted to be in.
But I use that anxiety to keep improving and making it better. And then when I reach that point and the story is good enough and I can let my wife read it and then my editor, I feel great. I have that 2% moment of joy. But it came through all of that anxiety. But I can tell you the feeling of fulfillment when I finish a chapter is pretty damn great. When I finish a book it's better than any kind of drug experience anyone could ever have. It's such a wonderful feeling of accomplishment and pushing past all the barriers. So my process involves a lot of anxiety and dealing with it. That's why I'm talking about it, why I want to write a book about it.
说到焦虑——你在网上有一个片段,我们会在节目笔记说明中提供链接——我觉得它绝对精彩——关于如何找到浪漫伴侣和/或从现有的浪漫伴侣关系中获得更多。
So speaking of anxiety, you have a clip on the internet that we will provide a link to in the show note captions, which I think is absolutely fabulous, about how to find a romantic partner and/or get more out of an existing romantic partnership.
你提到对你来说——因此大概对你的伴侣也是——对动物的共同热爱和尊重恰好是你们关系中的这样一个东西。不是说热爱动物是必需的——
And you mentioned that for you, and therefore presumably your partner, that a mutual love and respect for animals happens to be one of those things within the context of your relationship. That not that a love for animals is required—
但也许你能展开谈谈趋同兴趣这个概念,并把它跟人们通常听到和谈论的关于伴侣关系中什么重要的东西对比一下?因为我觉得这是很多人在寻找伴侣和建设伴侣关系中都在纠结的问题。
But maybe you could elaborate a little bit on this notion of convergent interest and contrast it with a lot of what people tend to hear and say about what's important in partnership. Because I think this is something that a lot of people grapple with both in terms of finding a partner and in terms of building partnership.
你提到了动物。动物是一个很好的例子——因为我不是说你们必须都是民主党人或共和党人。那太平庸和肤浅了。但对动物的爱触及你的性格深处,触及你内心深处的某些东西。或者如果你不喜欢动物的话也是。但它传达了关于你的某些东西——如此原始、如此与童年相连——那里会有一种深层的连接。
不是说你们必须都喜欢猫——如果碰巧是这样当然好——只是泛泛的对动物的爱。你喜欢它们的能量。你喜欢它们以自己的方式是天真无邪的。你喜欢它们没有在跟你玩游戏。你喜欢你能从它们那里得到的即时的爱。你在那个层面与它们连接。这是一个非常非常好的信号——因为它超越了纯粹的智识层面,进入了情感和内脏的层面。
真正重要的是情感上的连接、你们共同拥有的价值观。金钱是另一个极其重要的。如果你们中的一个极度物质导向——金钱就是权力、成功和舒适——而另一个不太在乎,喜欢花钱,很多人会在金钱问题上无休止地争吵。因为那里没有趋同。
金钱传达了一个关于这个人更深层的价值。所以我不是说被金钱驱动有什么错。我没有在道德说教。因为那可能传达了一种价值——也许你成长中没有钱,而感到舒适、感到不必为某些事情担心对你非常非常重要。不在乎金钱也揭示了你性格中的某些东西。
所以我告诉人们:你要看这个人的性格,看到某种趋同——某种可以持久的东西。我记得有一次我为我的某本书读到了 Franklin Delano Roosevelt 和 Eleanor Roosevelt。事实是,Franklin Delano Roosevelt 是一个令人难以置信的英俊、有活力的年轻人——在他得小儿麻痹之前。非常活跃,非常运动,非常帅。所有女人都在追他。他就是完美的对象。他很富有。
而 Eleanor Roosevelt 就像丑小鸭。她不太漂亮。社交上有些笨拙。但他看到了她的性格。他看到她在智识上与他匹配。他看到他们在我所说的那个层面——那些超越表面的层面——有着类似的兴趣。他选择了 Eleanor。所有人都很震惊。没人在追求 Eleanor。
他说:我看中的是一个我可以长久相处的人,一个具有对我来说重要得多的品质的人。最终这成了一段非常令人满足的关系。当然后来他有了风流韵事,所以并不完美。但这是一段非常积极的关系。
所以在生活中审视你的价值观——在金钱方面、事业方面、舒适或不舒适方面。有些人喜欢不舒适。他们喜欢处于边缘。他们想要挑战。他们想从一个城市搬到另一个城市。如果你跟一个只想住在同一栋房子里的人在一起,你会有一个接一个的冲突。性可能很棒——一个月两个月都好——我没有什么批评的。但它不会导向一段持久的关系。
运动和体育是另一个。这个人喜欢户外吗?还是这个人像 Zsa Zsa Gabor 一样必须在曼哈顿时代广场的顶层公寓?
所以那些触及一个人性格深处的、深深植根于你几乎无法改变、无法控制的价值观——在几个层面上有一种趋同——这是你可以与那个人有深层连接的标志。这非常重要。
如果那些连接很好而且有身体吸引力——因为没有身体吸引力它会逐渐消失——你就有了难以置信的成功配方,可以真正持久的东西。拥有一段像我这样持久的关系是你生活中的一个锚。对于像我这样努力工作的人——希望对她也一样——它让我脚踏实地,让生活简单和容易得多。而且不仅仅是简单和容易。有很多爱和更深层的情感。
但如果你能拥有一段长期关系,它在很多方面都会给你回报。所以能找到那种趋同——你知道——我第一次见到我现在的太太时,我当时养了一只猫。我一直是养狗的人,但当时养了一只猫。我爱那只猫爱得要命。我简直不敢相信,它是一只多么好的猫。我第一次约会就把她带到我的公寓。我想看她对那只猫的反应。因为一般来说——我不知道,人们可能会误判这一点——不喜欢猫的女人,我没法相处。因为女性的天性中有某种猫科动物的东西,我很喜欢那个。
她爱我的猫。天哪那是最好的信号。事情就这样开花了。她也因为我爱猫而爱我。所以那里有一个我们立刻看到的巨大趋同。还有其他的东西。但那是第一个。
And so you mentioned animals. Animals is a very good example because it's not, I'm not saying that you both have to be Democrats or Republicans. That's too banal and superficial. But the love of animals reaches into your character, reaches something deep inside of you. Or your dislike of animals if that happens to be the case. But it signals something about you that's so primal, that's so connected to a child, that there's going to be a deep connection there.
And it's not like you have to both love cats, which is good if that happens to be the case, but just animals in general. You love their energy. You love the fact that they're innocent in their own way. You love the fact that they're not playing games with you. You love the kind of instant love you can get from them. And you connect to them on that level. It's a very very positive sign because it goes beyond just intellectual things into something emotional and visceral.
So really the emotional connections, the values that you have together, are very important. Money is another one that's extremely important. So if one of you is incredibly material oriented and it's all about money is power and success and comfort, and the other isn't really into it, it's into spending money, a lot of people have endless fights over something like money. Where there's no convergence there.
And money signals a deeper value about the person. So I'm not saying there's anything wrong if money motivates you. I'm not moralizing about it. Because that can signal a value that maybe you grew up without it, and that feeling comfortable and feeling like you don't have to worry about something is very very important to you. And not being interested in money reveals something about your character.
So I'm telling people you want to look at the person's character and see a kind of convergence there and something that can last. And I remember I was reading for one of my books about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. And the thing of it was, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was this incredibly handsome, vibrant young man before he got polio. Very active, very athletic, very handsome. All the women were after him. He was like the perfect match. He was wealthy.
And Eleanor Roosevelt was like the ugly duckling. She wasn't very pretty. She was kind of socially awkward. But he saw into her character. He saw that intellectually she was a match for him. He saw that they had kind of similar interests on that level that I'm talking about, that go beneath just the surfaces. And he chose Eleanor. And everyone was shocked about it. Nobody was trying to court Eleanor.
He said I looked at somebody who I could last with, who had some qualities that were much more important to me. And it ended up being a very satisfying relationship. Of course later on he had his dalliances, so it wasn't perfect. But it was a very positive relationship.
So seeing your values in life, when it comes to money, when it comes to career, when it comes to comfort or lack of comfort. Some people like not being comfortable. They like being on the edge. They want challenges. They want to move from city to city. And if you partner with somebody who just wants to live in the same house, you're going to have conflict after conflict after conflict. The sex might be great and that might be good for a month or two months. I have nothing against that, I'm not going to judge that either. But it won't lead to a long-lasting relationship.
Sports and athletics are another thing. Is it someone that likes the outdoors? Or is it someone who's like Zsa Zsa Gabor and has to be in Times Square in a penthouse in Manhattan?
So values that reach inside of a person's character that are deeply ingrained, that you can almost not change, you can't control, and there's a convergence there on several levels, is a sign that you can have a deep connection with that person. And it's very important.
And if those connections are good and there's a physical attraction, because without the physical attraction it will kind of fizzle out, you've got a recipe for incredible success, for something that can really last. And having a lasting relationship as I've had is such an anchor in your life. For someone who works as hard as I do, and hopefully for her as well, it just grounds me and it makes life so much simpler and easier. And it's not just simple and easy. There's a lot of love and a great deal of deeper emotions involved.
But having a long-term relationship if you can have it is something that pays off in so many dividends. So being able to find that kind of convergence, you know, when I first met my now wife, I had a cat at the time. I'd always been a dog person but this was a cat I had and I loved that cat like hell. I can't believe, he was such a wonderful cat. I brought her over to my apartment on the first date. I wanted to see her reaction to the cat. Because generally, and I don't know, people misjudge that, women who don't like cats, I can't get along with. Because there's something feline in the feminine nature that I love.
And she loved my cat. Boy that was the best sign of all. And things just blossomed. And she loved me for loving a cat. So there was a great convergence right there that we saw right away. And there were other things. But that was the first one.
所以你必须了解自己。你必须知道你爱什么。你必须知道你恨什么。我觉得大多数人知道自己爱不爱动物。我觉得大多数人知道自己喜欢稳定还是喜欢事情有点混乱。我不认为你需要经历多深层的自省。
但你必须做的是——当你在一段关系中时——你必须认为那些事情很重要。这才是问题。你往往觉得那些事情不重要。你觉得性比什么都重要,身体吸引力最重要。或者你觉得对方有很多钱才重要。你不认为我说的这些方面重要。如果你重视我说的东西,那你的自我觉察就会发挥作用——因为你其实基本上了解自己性格中这些本质的基本部分。
And so you have to know yourself. You have to know what you love. You have to know what you hate. I think most people know that they love animals or don't love animals. I think most people know that they like stability or they like things to be kind of slightly chaotic. I don't think you have to go through deep levels of introspection.
But what you have to do is when you're involved in a relationship you have to think that those things matter. That's the problem. You tend to think that those things don't matter. You think that sex matters more than anything, physical attraction matters, or you think that the person having a lot of money matters. You don't think that this other aspect is important. If you value what I'm talking about then your self-awareness will kick in because you really basically know these essential basic parts about your own character.
但他们往往忽视的是——那是否是他们自己的核心价值观,还是仅仅是他们敬佩的东西。在关系的早期阶段我听到很多"敬佩",后来我听到那些关系失败了。而你谈论的是更深层的东西——更多地与一个人自身的自我感联结。
这几乎让我想用一个关于能量的词。就像人们能量的融合。这听起来很 New Age,那不是我的本意。但我觉得它跟一些我们确实经常听到的、我认为是有效的东西有关——就是跟某人在不同语境下在一起的感觉。我们是否感到自在?是否感到轻松和能够表达自己的能力?我们是否享受和欣赏他们的表达?而不是仅仅欣赏他们做了什么。他们取得了某某某成就。
But then what they're overlooking often, it seems, is whether or not that's a core value for them, or whether or not it's just something that they admire. I hear a lot of admiration in the early days of relationships that later I hear about failing. And what you're talking about is something deeper, more aligned with one's own sense of self.
And it almost leads me to use the word, sort of, more about energetics. It's like merging of people's energies. Which sounds very new agey and that's not my intention. But I think it relates to something that we do hear a lot about and I think is valid, which is how it feels to be around somebody in different contexts. Do we feel at ease? Do we feel lightness and ability to express ourselves? And do we enjoy and admire them in their expression? As opposed to just admiring what they do. They've accomplished blank blank and blank.
所以你也必须非常注意对方的性格,注意表面之下的东西。确保他们确实有某些价值观,而不是只在迎合你、跟着你玩。
另一个非常重要的东西是神秘感。一个伴侣可以非常快地变得无聊。一年之后你了解了他们的每一件事。他们会说同样的话。对话反复转圈。你到了一个终点——没有惊喜了,没有神秘了。
你想要的是一个有些你一开始看不到的角落的人。他们有时候会让你惊讶。突然出现一种你之前没有预料到的品质。太明显的人、太熟悉的人、一开始就把一切都展示出来的人——最终会让你无聊。但有一点保留的人——我知道这也许是我在把自己的价值观投射到世界上——但那些让你好奇的、你不完全理解的、让你想了解更多的人。
如果两年、三年、五年之后他们仍然能这样,那太棒了。但那种"我了解这个人的每一件事,他们再也不会让我惊讶了"的感觉——就是打破魔咒、导致关系终结的东西。
So you also have to be very attentive to their character, what lies underneath. That they have some of these values, that they're not just trying to win you over for whatever, and they're playing along with you.
The other thing that's very important is a sense of mystery. So a partner can become boring very very quickly. After a year you know every single thing about them. They're going to say the same things. The conversations go around in circles. It's just, you've reached an end, there's no surprises, there's no mystery.
You want somebody where they have corners that you don't really see at first. That they surprise you sometimes. Suddenly there's a quality that you hadn't suspected before. So people who are too obvious, who are too familiar, who show everything instantly, they're going to end up boring you. But people who have a bit of reserve, I know this is maybe I'm projecting my own values on the world, but people who kind of intrigue you, that you don't fully understand, that make you want to know more.
And if they can be like that after two years or three years or five years, wow that's fantastic. But the sense of I know every single thing about this person, they never surprise me anymore, is what kind of breaks the enchantment and leads to the end of the relationship.
在我们做的四期心理健康系列中,精神科医生 Paul Conti 说,"生成性驱动力"的匹配——他定义为在世界上创造属于自己表达的东西的渴望——在关系中非常关键。他说,一个人喜欢古典音乐而另一个人喜欢摇滚乐,这不太重要——只要他们与音乐的关系是相似的就行。或者类似的东西。就是说它关于某种参与世界的驱动力。所以一个人可能喜欢音乐,另一个人对音乐不感兴趣。但他们接近生活的方式是一种共同的好奇心、想要去发现等等。这存在于一个连续体上。我很好奇这是否跟你说的相符。
During the four-episode series that we did on mental health, Paul Conti, a psychiatrist, said that a matching of generative drives, which he defined as the desire to create something in the world of one's own expression, is really critical in relationship. And he said, you know, it matters less whether or not one person likes classical music and the other person rock and roll, provided that their relationship to music is similar. Or something of that sort. Like that it's about a drive of a certain sort to engage in the world. So one person could love music, the other person's not into music. But the way that they approach life is one of perhaps mutual curiosity, desire to find out etc. And that this exists on a continuum. I'm curious if it seems to jive with what you're saying.
如果他们喜欢朋克摇滚——像你一样,我也是听着朋克摇滚长大的——那里面有一种叛逆的东西,一种非常强烈的反权威品质。你通过他们看到了那个。如果他们喜欢 Mozart 和柔和的弦乐四重奏,那是一个重视柔和、宁静和和平的人。而你不是那样的。
所以音乐展示了某种东西——关于他们性格的一种品质——可以非常有说服力、非常雄辩。不是说你们必须都喜欢 The Clash 或 Dead Kennedys 什么的——暴露了我那个年代。但你们都有那种叛逆的特质。那种叛逆特质也可以在——有些古典音乐作曲家可以相当叛逆和愤怒——我其实挺喜欢他们的。所以那种趋同我认为是积极的。
但总的来说我同意那个观点。
So if they like punk rock, like you do, and I grew up on punk rock, there's a rebellious thing to it, there's an anti-authoritarian quality that's very strong. You get to see that through them. If they like Mozart and soft string quartets, there's somebody that kind of values softness and tranquility and peace. And you're not like that.
So the music kind of shows you something, a quality about their character, that can be very telling, can be very eloquent. And so it doesn't mean that you both have to love The Clash or the Dead Kennedys or whatever, showing my own generation. But that you both have that rebellious streak. And that rebellious streak could be, there's classical music composers who could be pretty damn rebellious and angry, and I actually kind of like them. So that convergence I think is a positive one.
But in general I agree with that.
在非语言沟通方面,你写过大量关于人们经常用身体和面部表情来沟通的内容。我当然熟悉那种略有甚至非常怪异的感觉——有人露齿微笑着,然后当他们转头的那一刻,那个笑容就很快消散了。你不需要是神经科学家或心理学家就能意识到那个体验中有某种相当虚假的东西。或者说这个人的情绪体验像阶梯函数一样——开关开关——而大多数人体验情绪不是这样的。大多数人的情绪是有弥散性的。
比如我走进门的时候因为之前发生的事情很开心,所以走进门的时候会微笑。如果我看到什么令人震惊和沮丧的东西,当然我会皱眉,会擦掉那个笑容。但那是罕见的情况。所以让我们谈谈嘴巴、眼睛、面部和身体在沟通语境下的问题。有哪些重要的东西需要注意?
With respect to non-verbal communication, you've written fairly extensively about the fact that people often communicate with their body and facial expressions. I'm certainly familiar with the somewhat if not very eerie sensation of somebody smiling, like a toothy smile, and then as they pivot away that smile just dissolving very quickly. And you don't have to be a neuroscientist or a psychologist to realize that there was something quite false about that experience. Or that this person experiences emotions like step functions, on off on off, which is not how most of us experience emotions. Most of us experience emotions with some pervasiveness.
Like I was happy walking in the door because of something that happened before and so I'm going to smile while I'm walking in the door. If I see something shocking and dismaying of course I'm going to frown, I'm going to wipe away that smile. But those are rare instances. So let's talk about the mouth, the eyes, the face, the body in the context of communication. What are some important things to pay attention to?
你必须理解的关于人类的一点是:在人类拥有符号语言的短短四万到三万五千年之前,我们在没有语言的情况下进化了更长更长的时间。在那个没有文字的漫长黑暗时期,我们通过非语言方式沟通。我们在观察人们的信号。我们在观察他们行为的每一个细节——因为我们没有文字来解读它。所以对人们的非语言沟通有惊人的敏感性是深深植根于我们大脑中的。如果我们学会这种语言,我们几乎可以具有心灵感应能力。
问题是我们有这种能力但完全没有开发它——因为我们太以文字为导向了。你只是在听人们说话——如果你真的在听的话。你只是在听文字,你如此相信文字意味着什么、文字是真诚的——但它们往往不是。在你如此关注文字的同时,人们在椅子上挪来挪去,他们在看向别处,他们在看其他女人或男人,他们的声音在某些不该颤抖的地方颤抖了,他们的眼睛是死的,微笑是假的。你什么都没注意到。
所以非语言沟通中最重要的事——第一法则——是注意它。持续地发展这种练习:关掉文字,观察人们的行为——就好像你把电视静音了一样。只看他们的行为。这不容易,也不自然——因为我们就是想关注文字文字文字。但你把那个电视静音的能力将突然为你打开关于人们的很多东西。他们暴露了太多。
Sigmund Freud 说过,人们在不断地通过非语言行为渗出他们所有的秘密。如果你掌握了这种语言,你可以像读一本打开的书一样读懂他们。
在《人性的法则》中,我描述了 Milton Erickson 的故事。不知道你是否熟悉 Milton Erickson——也许是现代非语言沟通最伟大的大师。他是一位了不起的心理学家。他算是 NLP 的灵感来源——
And the thing you have to understand about the human being is that we evolved for a much longer period of time without words than the small 40, 35,000 years that we have symbolic language. So during that vast period of darkness where we did not have words, we were communicating non-verbally. We were picking up signals from people. We were watching every little detail of their behavior because we didn't have words to decipher it. So it's wired into our brains to have an amazing sensitivity to people's non-verbal communications. We can almost be telepathic that way if we learn that language.
The problem is we have the capacity but we don't develop it at all because we are so word oriented. You're just listening to people, if you're even listening to them at all. You're just hearing the words and you're so thinking that the words mean something, the words are sincere, which they're often not. At the same time that you're listening so much to words, people are shuffling in their chair, they're kind of looking away, they're looking at other women or other men, their voice is kind of trembling when they say something where it shouldn't tremble, their eyes are dead, the smile is kind of fake. You're not watching any of it.
So the most important thing in non-verbal communication, law number one, is pay attention to it. Continually develop the practice of shutting off the words and watching people almost as if you took the television and muted it. And just watch their behavior. It's not easy and it's not natural because it's the words the words the words we want to focus on. But your ability to turn that television off, to mute it, will suddenly open up so many things about people. They reveal so much.
Sigmund Freud said people are continually oozing out all of their secrets through their non-verbal behavior. You can read them like an open book if you master this language.
And I have, in the Laws of Human Nature, I described the story of Milton Erickson. I don't know if you're familiar with Milton Erickson, perhaps the greatest modern master of non-verbal communication. He was an amazing psychologist. He sort of is the inspiration behind NLP—
在瘫痪的那两年里,他做的就是观察人们的非语言沟通——在脑子里做笔记——学习每一种——他学会了20种不同形式的"是",100种不同形式的"不"。每一种语调。人们如何进入房间,如何离开房间。他们如何用怜悯或共情或别的什么表情看他。
他掌握了它。然后当他成为精神科医生治疗病人时,人们以为他有通灵能力。他能看穿他们的一切。这是因为两年来他唯一能做的就是观察他们。他不能说话,什么都不能做,不能读书。
所以你也有同样的能力。但你显然没有小儿麻痹。但你首先必须注意它。一旦你这样做了,它是一件令人惊叹的事情。实际上还挺有趣的。
我告诉人们:找一天去你所在城市的一家咖啡馆,就观察人们。因为你听不到他们的话——他们在几张桌子之外。观察他们互动时的非语言行为,看看你能不能从中捕捉到线索。
有些东西是真实情绪的标志。比如你可以做一个练习——从一个他们看不到你靠近的角度走过去,让他们大吃一惊。嘿,嘿 Mike,或者什么的。他们转过身来。那一秒钟他们的表情揭示了他们对你的真实想法。你会探测到——如果你能捕捉微表情的话——你可以的——它们只有大约150分之一秒——但它们就在那里。你能看到他们眼中的些许轻蔑。然后面具就戴上了。
或者你在跟他们说话——他们在看着你,但他们的脚朝着相反的方向。那意味着他们拼命想离开你。这些是你不一定会注意到的信号。他们的姿势会告诉你一切关于他们的自信程度。一个接一个。
假笑。如果你能掌握识别假笑的能力,它会给你带来巨大的好处。因为你真正想看到的是一个人发自内心的微笑。尤其是在浪漫关系中——一个整个脸都亮起来的人。真正的微笑不只是点亮嘴巴。脸上的这些部分都会上扬。你的眼睛会变得有生命力。你的大脑中有某种神经活动正在改变你整个面部表情。这意味着某人真正地喜欢你,真正地对你感兴趣,真正地在笑或者在与你连接。
如果你能看到这些,它在浪漫领域会帮助你太多了。然后它也会帮助你远离那些有毒的人——他们在不断地假装对你感兴趣。因为一个自恋者、一个有毒的人,靠欺骗你来得逞——用一个迷人的、有吸引力的外表让你进入他们的世界。然后他们可以伤害你。然后他们可以对你做什么。然后他们把你困在他们的陷阱里。
所以能够看到他们并非真正对你感兴趣、他们在伪装——会帮助你避免非常有毒的关系。正如我跟你说过的——不知道我们当时是否在录制——深度自恋者有"死眼"。他们几乎无法掩饰。他们可以假装微笑,可以假装其他一切,但眼睛——你必须能读懂它。因为你说"什么是死眼"?你看到就知道了。眼睛里没有生命。他们看穿你,而不是看着你。他们在看穿你。"你能给我什么?"你就是他们所说的"自体客体"。你对他们来说是一个可以利用的对象。他们看你的方式就像看一把锤子一样。
And what he did during the two years of being paralyzed like that was just watching people's non-verbal communication, and making notes in his brain, and learning every single, he learned the 20 different forms of yes, the hundred different forms of no. Every intonation. How somebody entered the room, how they left the room. How they looked at him with pity or empathy or something.
He mastered it. And then when he became a psychiatrist and he treated people, they thought he was psychic. He could see everything into them. It's because for two years that's all he could do, was observe them. He couldn't speak, he couldn't do anything, he couldn't read a book.
So you have that same power. But you don't have polio obviously. But you have to first pay attention to it. It's an amazing thing once you do. It's a lot of fun actually.
And I tell people, go to a cafe one day in your city wherever you live and just watch people. Because you can't hear them, they're a few tables away. Watch their non-verbal behavior as they interact and see if you pick up cues from them.
And there are things that are signs of genuine emotions. So for instance an exercise you can do is you go up to somebody from an angle where they can't see you coming up to them and you surprise them. You go hey, hey Mike, whatever. They turn. For that second their expression reveals how they really think about you. You'll detect, if you can pick up micro expressions, and you can, they're only like one 150th of a second, but they're there. You can see the little disdain in their eyes. Then the mask comes on.
Or you're talking to them, they're looking at you but their feet are facing in an opposite direction. That means that they're dying to get away from you. These are signals that you don't necessarily pay attention to. Their posture will tell you everything about their levels of confidence. On and on and on.
The fake smile. If you can just master the ability to detect the fake smile it will go wonders for you. Because you're able to see what you really want to do is to see the person with a genuine smile. Particularly in romantic relationships, someone whose face lights up. A real smile lights your whole face up. It doesn't just light your mouth. These parts of your face go up. Your eyes get alive. There's like a neuro thing going on in your brain that's changing your whole facial expression. And it means that someone genuinely likes you, they're genuinely interested in you, they're genuinely laughing or connecting to you.
And if you can see that, it'll help you so much in the romantic realm. And then it'll help you get away from those toxic people that are continually faking interest in you. Because a narcissist, a toxic person, thrives by deceiving you with a charming, alluring front that makes you come into their world. Then they can hurt you. Then they can do something to you. Then they have you in their trap.
So being able to see that they're not genuinely interested in you, that they're faking it, will help you avoid very toxic relationships. And as I said to you, I don't know if we were on air or not, but deep narcissists have dead eyes. They almost can't help it. They can fake the smile, they can fake everything else, but the eyes, you have to be able to read it. Because you say well what are dead eyes? You'll know it when you see it. There's no life in them. They're looking through you, they're not looking at you. They're looking through you. What can I get of you? You're what they call a selfobject. You're an object for them to use. And that's how they're looking at you, like they would look at a hammer or something.
所以当一个人表达高兴的话语时,瞳孔会稍微放大。反之亦然。当一个人不那么兴奋、处于失望的时刻、表达失望时,瞳孔应该会稍微缩小——因为唤醒程度在下降。
所以我认为我们在无意识层面捕捉了这些东西。"死眼"是——如果我们在注意的话——弹出来的结论。
So as one expresses words of glee, the pupils dilate a little bit. And vice versa. As one feels less excited, sort of moments of despair, expressions of despair, the pupils should get a little bit smaller because arousal is going down.
And so I think we pick up on these things at an unconscious level. The deadness of the eyes is kind of the conclusion that pops out at us if we're paying attention.
所以你首先必须信任这些直觉是非常有价值的。另一件事是深入关注声音的语调。声音——正如演员会告诉你的——是最难伪装的东西。很难假装兴奋。你的声音要么有就有,要么没有就没有。很难假装自信。关于这个有很多书。我不打算展开所有细节。但一个人会通过声音揭示他们正在经历的大量情绪,尤其是自信水平。
在诱惑的层面上,男性对女性的声音非常非常敏锐——但我们没有意识到。因为我们母亲的声音在非常非常非常早期的童年就对我们产生了不可思议的影响。她的歌声、她声音的音调。那可能是我们经历的第一次诱惑。女性的声音对我们有巨大的力量。
所以听到一种让你刺耳或烦躁的声音是一个不好的信号。这比我们谈到的所有那些特征都更深层。但一个让你想起那种母亲般的、歌唱般的、不管什么感觉的女性声音——那是一个非常容易诱惑你的人。
So you have to first kind of trust that these intuitions are very valuable. The other thing is pay deep attention to the tone of voice. The voice, as actors will tell you, is like the hardest thing to fake. It's very hard to fake excitement. Your voice either has it or it doesn't. It's very hard to fake confidence. Books have been written about that. I'm not going to go into all the details about it. But the person will reveal so much of the emotions that they're experiencing, particularly levels of confidence.
And on the level of seduction, men are very very attuned to the voice of a woman but we're not aware of it. Because the voice of our mother had an incredible impact on us in early early early childhood. Her singing, the tone of her voice. That was probably the first seduction that we ever went through. And a woman's voice has tremendous power over us.
So hearing a voice that kind of grates or irritates you is something that's a bad sign. And that goes deeper than all the characteristics that we were talking about. But a woman's voice that kind of reminds you of that mother, that sing-song, whatever feeling it was, that's somebody that can very easily seduce you.
我忍不住想到——之前我们谈到了现在几乎无限多的可以参与的事物和可以互动的人的选择。但同时——当你刚才谈到这些微妙的声调变化和身体沟通的细微之处时——不管是表情符号、人们发送经过滤镜处理的图片,还是现在如此普遍的默认文字消息沟通——似乎我们现在有了更多的选择、更多的输入,但输入之间的定性差异已经被归入了几个简单的类别。
就好像我们退回到了只有三原色——但画布却是巨大的。我不知道这个比喻是否成立,但你懂我的意思。因为最终,为了对职业、浪漫关系、友谊做出好的选择,你需要大量的例子和大量的信息来让你领会细微之处。但只要是表情符号和特定角度拍摄的滤镜照片——通常是从上方——你要求从正面和下方拍一张试试?发给我你最差表情的照片。
所有这些——似乎现在被欺骗的机会增加了。我不仅仅是说人们误导他人。我也是说我们在误导自己。比如:天哪,我怎么又一次对生活的某个方面如此失望?不一定只是浪漫互动,也可能是其他领域。我怎么会被愚弄?因为输入的信息是有缺陷的。数据不好——用我们的话说。
I couldn't help but think about the fact that earlier we were talking about the now infinitely vast number of choices of things to engage in, people to engage with etc. But at the same time, as you were now talking about these micro inflections and the subtleties of voice and bodily communication, whether or not it's emojis or people sending filtered images or the default to text message communication that is so prominent now, it seems like we now have more choices, more input, but the sort of qualitative differences between the inputs have been binned into a couple of simple bins.
As if we've regressed to primary colors only, but the canvas is huge. I don't know if that analogy works but you get the idea. Because ultimately in order to develop good choices about profession, romantic relationships, friendships, you need a lot of examples and a lot of information that allows you to glean the subtlety. But as long as it's emojis and filtered pictures taken at a particular angle, usually from above, ask for the picture head on and below, send me a picture of your worst expression.
All of that, it seems that there's now increased opportunity for deception. And I don't just mean people misleading others. I also mean us misleading ourselves. Like oh my goodness how could I be so disappointed yet again about a particular landscape of life? It doesn't just have to be romantic interactions, it could be other landscapes. How could I be fooled? Well you're fooled because the inputs were deficient. Not good data as we say.
这是一块肌肉。你必须注意非语言沟通。如果你只是在刷表情符号或 Tinder 应用——那块肌肉完全萎缩了。你没有力量。你无法解读任何东西。这就是很多使用这些应用的人正在经历的事情。
社交技能跟任何技能一样。你必须开发它们。它是一块你必须锻炼的肌肉。你们可能都在自己的生活中注意到了——如果你经历了一段退缩的时期,不想跟人在一起,花了一个月这样——然后你出去了,你会感到尴尬。你需要好几天才能适应跟其他人在一起。你说蠢话。你的肢体语言很笨拙。
但如果你处于一种几个月里不断跟人互动的情境中——比如在一个片场,日复一日——那种技能就开始发展。但你必须在外面的世界里。你必须在互动。你必须在观察人们的情绪。你必须在实时衡量它们。我们不是为虚拟交往而生的。我们是血肉之躯,我们需要面对面地看着对方的眼睛,关注所有这些只有在面对面时才能获得的细节、细微差别。
It's a muscle. You have to pay attention to non-verbal communication. And if you're just going through the emojis or going through the Tinder apps that muscle completely atrophies. You have no power. You're not able to decipher anything. And that's what's happening with a lot of people who are using these apps.
Social skills are like any skill at all. You have to develop them. It's a muscle you have to develop. And you've all noticed this probably in your own life. If you've gone through a period where you're kind of retreating, you don't want to be around people, and you spend a month like that, and then you go out, you feel awkward. It takes you like a couple days to get used to being around other people. You say stupid things. Your body language is awkward.
But if you're in a situation for months where you're constantly interacting with people, you're on a film set and day in day out, that skill starts developing. But you have to be out there in the world. You have to be interacting. You have to be looking at people's emotions. You have to be gauging them in real time. We're not built for virtual encounters. We're creatures of flesh and blood and we need to be looking at each other in the eye and paying attention to all these little details, these nuances that you can only get in person.
智能的另一个方面是自我觉察。审视自己的能力——我有偏见。我有确认偏误,我有信念偏误,我有近因偏误。我必须克服这些东西。我还有阴暗面。我有攻击性。我必须意识到它们如何影响我的思考、我的情绪。
构成智能的第三种品质——我现在谈的是智能而不是人工智能——是应对焦虑并进入第三个层次的能力。第二种是审视自己并看到自己偏见的能力。第三种是看到整体图景的能力。那种科学家会有的"顿悟"时刻——你积累了各种数据点,然后突然一个图像浮现在脑海中——是的,那就是答案。你看到了全貌。你看到了整个格式塔。
Simone Weil 把它比作一个正方体。你只能从一面看到一个正方体。如果它在旋转,你仍然只看到各个面。只有在你的脑海中你才能想象整个东西。所以头脑必须经历一个过程才能实现整体性思考。
如果他们能发明一台能应对焦虑的机器——拥有焦虑的机器——能进入第三层。如果他们能制造一台有自我觉察的机器——能说"编程我的人有偏见所以我有偏见,我也有阴暗面因为编程我的人有阴暗面"。如果这台机器还能超越所有数据点和它整合的大量信息进行整体性思考——能有那个顿悟时刻。好吧,我可以看到一种人类意识。我可以看到那里有创造力。
另一件我想说的是——当我还是 Berkeley 的学生时,回到很久以前,我19岁。一个暑假我做了一个重大决定——这对我来说是一个范式转换。我要在六周内上一门古希腊语课。他们在六周里教你一年的古希腊语。这意味着每天都有考试。每个星期五都有期末考试。一门死语言每天八小时。对于一个之前嗑药嗑太多的人来说,我觉得这是最好的训练。
终于有一次,接近课程结束时,他们给了我们最难的古希腊语作家的一段话让我们翻译——修昔底德。我盯着看。我整个晚上都在试图翻译一段话。我搞不懂。你必须理解古希腊语的怪异之处——所有的词尾变化、奇怪的思维方式。
那个顿悟时刻、整体图景,一直在逃避我。有一刻我以为我搞懂了,翻译了,第二天交给老师。我记得他是那种你在 Berkeley 会遇到的嬉皮士型教授。Dennis——经典的教授但也是个嬉皮士。
Another aspect of intelligence is self-awareness. The ability to look at yourself and go I have biases. I have confirmation bias, I have conviction bias, I have recency bias. I have to counteract these things. I also have a dark side. I have aggression. I have to be aware of how they color my thinking, my emotions.
The third quality that goes into intelligence, I'm talking about now intelligence not artificial intelligence, is the ability to deal with anxiety and go to a third level. The second is the ability to look inside of yourself and see your own biases. And the third thing is the ability to see a holistic picture. The kind of aha moment that scientists have where you accumulate all kind of data points and then out of nowhere an image comes to your mind of yeah there's the answer. You see the whole thing. You see the whole gestalt.
Simone Weil compared it to a square cube. You can only see a cube from one side. If it's rotating you're still only seeing sides of it. Only in your mind can you picture the whole thing. So the mind has to go through a process to have holistic thinking.
If they can invent a machine that can deal with anxiety, and has anxiety, and it can go to level three. If they can make a machine that can be self-aware, that can go "the people who programmed me have biases therefore I have biases, I also have a dark side because people have programmed me who have a dark side." If this machine can also think holistically beyond all of the data points and all the mass of information it's combined, it can have that aha moment. All right, I can see a human consciousness. I can see creativity there.
The other thing I would say is, when I was a student at Berkeley, going way back, I was 19 years old, I decided one summer, it was a big paradigm shift for me. I'm going to take this class in ancient Greek in six weeks. They teach you a year of ancient Greek. That means every day you have an exam. Every Friday you have a final exam. Eight hours every day of a dead language. I thought this would be the best discipline for me after someone who'd been doing too many drugs to be honest with you.
And so finally at one point they give us this paragraph of the hardest ancient Greek writer of all to read, this was near the end, Thucydides. I stared. I had like the whole night to try and translate one paragraph. I couldn't figure it out. You have to understand the weirdness of ancient Greek, all the endings, the weird ways of thinking.
The whole picture, that aha moment, was eluding me. At one point I thought I got it and I translated it and I gave it to the teacher next day. I remember he was this kind of hippie that you'd have at Berkeley. Dennis, classic professor but also a hippie.
如果当时我掏出了一本修昔底德的译本直接抄?或者如果我把它扔进 ChatGPT 让它给我翻译?我大脑中那块我花了40年开发的、让我能写书的肌肉——永远不会发展起来。那块肌肉就是——我不知道答案,我必须到下一个层次,我必须更努力思考,我必须让那个引擎运转起来。
但如果我只是伸手去拿 ChatGPT——它就死了。然后我们将有一整代人停止思考,不再经历那个过程。
你听说过 Douglas Hofstadter。我觉得他说过:人们训练着去登珠穆朗玛峰。需要好几个月的体能训练,很痛苦。然后他们登上珠峰。他们看到了山顶。哇,多么伟大的时刻。他说 ChatGPT 就相当于坐直升机到珠峰山顶——不需要任何训练——然后体验同样的时刻。但那不一样。你需要经历那个过程。你需要经历那种痛苦。
关键是——ChatGPT——我们以为自己多现代多高端——但实际上我们只是被魔法诱惑了。你输入东西然后看到文字刷刷地出来——哇,就像魔法,像魔术师。但它是空的。那不是你的大脑在运作。那是我们的异教部分。我们喜欢那种魔法。而不是真正经历思考过程本身。
我不反对拥有工具。我使用工具。我使用互联网。我使用 Google。我在为我的书搜索某个事实——找到了——用了——我喜欢这样。但我也学会了锻炼我的大脑去思考,让那个引擎不断运转。我深深担忧——一代人学不会外语,不能掌握任何东西,只是立即抓住它生成的第一个答案。我有顾虑。
Now what would have happened if I had pulled out my translation of Thucydides and just copied that out? Or what would have happened if I put it through ChatGPT and it gave me the translation? That muscle in my brain that I have developed for 40 years that allows me to write books would never have developed. And that muscle is, I don't know the answer here, I have to go to another level, I have to try harder, I have to think, I have to have that engine working around.
But if I just grab for ChatGPT, it's deadened. And then we're going to have a whole generation of people who stop thinking, who don't go through that process.
You've heard of Douglas Hofstadter. I think he said people train to go to Mount Everest. It takes months, physical exertion, it's painful. Then they climb Mount Everest. They see the top. Whoa, what a great moment. He said ChatGPT would be the equivalent of taking a helicopter to the top of Mount Everest without any of that training and having the same moment. It's not the same. You need to go through that process. You need to go through that pain.
And the thing is, ChatGPT, we think we're so modern, so sophisticated, but really we're just seduced by magic. You put it in there and you see the script going, whoa, it's like magic, it's like a magician. But it's empty. It's not your brain functioning. It's the pagan part of us. We like that kind of magic. As opposed to actually having to go through the thought process itself.
So I'm not against having tools. I use tools. I use the internet. I use Google. I'm searching for some factoid from my book, I find it, I use it. I like it. But I've also learned to develop my brain to think, to get that engine constantly moving. And I'm deeply concerned about a generation of people who can't learn a foreign language, who can't master anything, who just immediately grab the first answer that it generates. I have concerns.
之前这档播客的一位嘉宾——Lisa Feldman Barrett——她是情绪方面的专家——谈到当一种文化有了某种特定焦虑感受的专用词时会怎样。比如她教我说日语中有一个专门的词来形容剪了一个糟糕的发型时感受到的那种悲伤。
A prior guest on this podcast, Lisa Feldman Barrett, who's an expert in emotions, talked about how the moment that a culture has a word for a particular subset of anxious feelings, so for instance she taught me that in Japanese there's a word for the sadness one experiences when they get a bad haircut.
因为如果你把东西归并得太多,一个领域无法进步。你给自己制造了进步的幻觉但实际上没有。但如果你把东西分裂成一百万个亚类别——就像"肾上腺素"这个词也叫"adrenaline"也叫"epinephrine"——这基本上是因为人们在争论谁得到了功劳。疯了。它让人们困惑了几十年。那里面还有另一个故事。我对涉及的科学家了解太多了。有一个关于命名神经系统某些部分的三角恋故事。人们跟别人的伴侣上床、三角恋在科学命名法上制造了更多的戏剧性。关于这个我可以讲一整个小时。
不管怎样——我从你这里听到的是:我们不能失去细微差别的感觉。因为那种细微差别的感觉触及了我们真正正在经历的东西。而 AI 威胁到了这一点——我们可能变成自己的虚拟替身。
Because if you lump things together too much a field can't progress. You give yourself the illusion that it's progressing but it's not. But if you split things up into a million different subcategories, like just even the word adrenaline is also called epinephrine, and that has to do with basically people arguing over who got credit. Crazy. And it's confused people for decades. And there's another story there. I know far too much about the scientists involved. And there was a love triangle about naming of certain parts of the nervous system. People sleeping with other people's partners and love triangles have created more drama of nomenclature in science. I could do a whole hour on this.
In any case, what I'm hearing from you is that we cannot afford to lose our sense of nuance. And also because that sense of nuance taps into what we're really experiencing. And AI threatens that, that we can become avatars of ourselves.
让我们崇拜你脑袋里的那个大脑吧。你只有这么多年来使用它。你只有这么多年来开发它。它是如此美妙和强大,它能给你带来如此多的快乐、如此多的生命力量。工具没问题。我们都需要工具。我们需要锤子,需要钉子,需要锯子。但真正重要的是使用它的那只手——连接手和锤子的大脑——那个知道如何敲击的大脑。
我想到了19世纪伟大的画家 Renoir。他中了风什么的。最后几年他没法动右臂——那是他画画用的。这是灾难性的。所以他把画笔放到嘴里然后画。他用这种方式画了一些美丽的画。因为他的大脑已经掌握了绘画的艺术——不是他的手。但他的大脑掌握得如此之好,以至于他实际上可以用嘴含着画笔画得很好——因为他能控制它。他有如何把东西画完美的知识。
大脑绝对令人不可思议。大脑的可塑性——我中风之后正在发现的——绝对是一个奇迹。我不确定——是 UCLA 的 Schwartz 教授在研究 OCD(强迫症)吗?他能通过某种可塑性练习让人们克服 OCD——让他们意识到自己的"大脑锁定"等等并让他们摆脱出来?
大脑的可塑性是迄今为止最伟大的奇迹。它一直持续到60多岁、70多岁甚至更久。让我们都跪下来崇拜大脑吧。如果我们这样做,它将彻底改变我们的价值观。我们就不会那么快地被技术诱惑和迷住和崇拜了。我们会崇拜创造技术的大脑——而不是反过来。
Let us worship that brain that's in your head. You only have so many years to use it. You have so many years to develop it. It is so wonderful and powerful, it can bring you such pleasure, so much power in life. So tools are fine. We all need tools. We need hammers, we need nails, we need saws. But the real thing is the hand that uses it, the brain that connects the hand to the hammer, that knows how to hit things.
I think of the great painter Renoir in the 19th century. He had like a stroke or something. The last years he couldn't move his right arm, which he painted with. And it was disastrous. So what he did is he put the brush in his mouth and he painted. And he painted some beautiful paintings that way. Because his brain had mastered the art of painting, not his hand. But his brain had mastered it so well that he could actually paint well with the brush in his mouth, because he could direct it. And he had the knowledge of how to make something perfect.
The brain is absolutely incredible. The plasticity of the brain, which I'm discovering after my stroke, is absolutely a miracle. I don't know, is it Professor Schwartz at UCLA who was studying OCD and how he was able to kind of cure people of OCD through certain plasticity exercises? Making them aware of their kind of brain lock etc. and getting them out of it.
The plasticity of the brain is by far the greatest miracle of all. And it goes on into your 60s and 70s and onward. Let's all get down on our hands and knees and worship the brain. And if we did it would create a complete shift in our values. And we wouldn't be so instantly seduced and enamored and worshipping the technology. We would worship the brains that create the technology instead of the other way around.
但他们遗漏的一件事——你提到过的,值得再次强调的——是大脑在整个生命周期中都保持着巨大可塑性的能力。这是绝对明确的。条件从早年到晚年会改变。但你的具体情况真正突出了这一点。这是我非常想谈几分钟的——如果你愿意的话。
正如你提到的,你经历了一次中风。也许有些人知道但也许不是所有人都知道——尤其是只在听播客而不是看视频的人——你的衬衫虽然原始设计很好看,但也有一些独特的缝线。
也许你能跟我们分享一下——对于在听的人来说——有一条锯齿状的缝线从 Robert 的左短袖延伸到他的中线——也就是衬衫纽扣的位置——另一条从他的右短袖也延伸到中线——两条是错开的。这种缝线看起来像是也许我坐在缝纫机前缝的——而不是一个熟练的人——但他们做得还不错,基本上把它重新拼起来了。为什么你的衬衫上有那些缝线?告诉我们关于中风的事,让我们谈谈神经可塑性。
But one thing that they missed however was something that you mentioned and is worth highlighting again, which is that the brain maintains the capacity for immense plasticity throughout the entire lifespan. That's absolutely clear. The conditions change from early to later in life. But your specific situation really highlights that. And it's something I'd really like to talk about for a few minutes if you're willing.
As you mentioned you experienced a stroke. And perhaps it was aware to some but perhaps not all, especially the people just listening to this podcast and who are not watching on video, that your shirt, while very nicely designed in its original state, also includes some unique stitching.
So maybe you could share with us, and for those listening, there's a jagged line of stitching that extends from Robert's left short sleeve to his midline, to where the buttons on his shirt are, and from his right short sleeve also to the midline, offset from one another. This is the sort of stitching that looks like perhaps I had been at the sewing machine and not somebody who was skilled, but they did a good job basically putting it back together. Why are those stitches in your shirt? Tell us about the stroke and let's talk about neuroplasticity.
那是2018年5月。是我的生日。我太太送了我这件衬衫。我很喜欢格子花纹。我不知道为什么。我就是喜欢图案和格子。大概是我内心某种苏格兰的部分,某种祖先的东西。但我就是喜欢格子。
Well it was May of 2018. It was my birthday. And my wife gave me this shirt. I have a love of plaids. I don't know why. I just love patterns and plaids. Must be like some Scottish part of me, some ancestor thing. But I love plaids.
然后突然一切开始变得真的很奇怪。一切看起来都不对劲了。我的声音听起来也不一样了。她吓坏了但她其实相当冷静,这很了不起。
我正在经历中风。一个血栓堵住了通向大脑的血液流动。我有一刻竟然下了车——我不知道当时在想什么。然后她把我拉了回去。然后剩下的就一片空白了。
我有一些奇怪的感觉至今仍然留在我身上——因为本质上我当时处于死亡边缘。因为血液不流向大脑基本上就是你的终结——除非很快有什么事情发生。否则你就会有严重的脑损伤。
所以她立即打了911。她注意到了什么——我整张脸看起来不对劲。他们赶到了。我已经失去意识了。他们基本上拿着这件衬衫用剪刀剪成两半脱掉了。然后他们在我的髋部区域做了插管——我记得是为了取出什么。血栓在我的脖子里,他们成功地清除了它。然后他们紧急把我送到了医院。
我是无意识的。然后我醒来,我在医院的担架上。有那么一刻我在想也许我已经死了。因为我躺在担架上,几乎感觉像是在棺材里。我不知道发生了什么。
我有各种奇怪的感觉。我告诉人们——我们对死亡如此好奇。我们经常想到死亡。它是最终的吗?它意味着什么?我们其实应该关注"正在死去"这个过程。在某些方面,"正在死去"比"死亡"本身有趣得多。经历了足够长时间的人会经历一个过程。像我这样有过濒死体验的人经历了那个正在死去的过程,然后又回到了生命中。
在正在死去的过程中,大脑里会发生奇怪的事情。尤其是中风这种情况——血液停止流动、氧气停止流向大脑。你会有某种幻象和异象——你可能以为它们是幻觉。但之后看起来,其实你窥见了真实,而不是大脑通常制造的幻觉。
我在新书中写了这个。但我对大脑的看法是——它为你创造了无尽的幻觉。它创造了一个无缝的现实版本。一个"自我"的感觉。一个贯穿时间的连续自我的感觉。它创造了一种线性的时间进程感。它创造了颜色。它创造了一个视觉上看起来熟悉的世界等等。但这一切都是幻觉。都是建构。
图像进入你的大脑,它们没有以任何方式组织。大脑以你能理解的方式组织它们。当你正在死去时,所有这些都被打乱了——你实际上看到了别的东西。
比如我看到了——我其实没有一个自我。它实际上并不存在。浮现在我脑海中的画面——因为我坐在那个担架上——是一种奇怪的感觉。我几乎无法解释。但就好像你把现实世界中某个真实事物的图像完全打乱了,它全是波浪形的,你看不清它到底是什么。对我来说那就是自我的图像。
你内心有大约50个不同的自我在相互竞争。而你以为只有一个,以为它是一致的。但不是。那是幻觉。自我就是你大脑建构的一个幻觉。当你正在死去时你会看到这些。
正在死去时你还会看到其他类似的东西。你看到时间是一种非常奇怪的东西。我有过一种体验——当我下了车然后被拉回来时——我以为大概过了10秒。我太太告诉我:不,那大概有10分钟。我完全没有时间感。一切都被打乱了。
所以那是一次非常非常启发性的体验。它教了我太多东西——我现在几乎无法用语言表达。我现在总是在想各种奇怪的东西——它们来到我脑海中是因为我的大脑受过损伤。它让我意识到大脑创造了一切。我没法跟我的手、我的手指沟通。我没法跟我的腿沟通。
你以为走路、写字、处理东西只是你的身体以某种方式运作。那是你的大脑在告诉你如何移动这些不同的部件。当那个大脑停止运作时,你才意识到你的大脑决定了一切。一切都从那里开始。
当大脑受到损伤时,你整个思维方式都改变了。更不用说经历了这样的事情之后你如何看待生命本身。所以这是一次可怕的经历。它毁掉了我生活中很多我热爱的东西。但它也给了我很多回报——我可以花好几个小时来谈论这些——因为这是我一生中最强大的经历。
And then suddenly everything started getting really strange. Everything looked strange. My voice didn't sound the same. And she was freaking out but she was actually fairly calm, which was amazing.
I was undergoing a stroke. I had a blood clot that was blocking the blood flow to my brain. I actually at one point got out of the car, like, I don't know what the hell I was thinking. And then she pulled me back in. And then the rest goes blank.
And I had some weird sensations that still remain with me because essentially I was on the verge of dying. Because blood not flowing to your brain is basically the end of you unless something happens very quickly. Or you're going to get severe brain damage.
So she called 911 right away. She recognized something, my whole face was looking funny. And they got there. I was unconscious. And essentially they took this shirt and just scissored the thing in half and took it off. And then they intubated me, I believe in my hip area, to get something. The blood clot was in my neck and they were able to free it up. And they rushed me to the hospital.
And I'm unconscious. And then I wake up and I'm in a gurney in the hospital. And I don't, for a moment I'm thinking maybe I'm dead. Because I'm lying in a gurney and I almost feel like I'm in a coffin. I don't know what's going on.
And I have all of these weird sensations. And I tell people, we're so curious about death. We think about death a lot. Is it final? What does it mean? We really should pay attention to dying. Dying is actually much more interesting in some ways than death. And people who have died go through a process if it's long enough. And people who have had near-death experiences like I do have gone through that process of dying and have come back to life.
And in the process of dying, strange things happen to the brain. Particularly with a stroke or something like that where blood stops flowing, oxygen stops flowing to your brain. You have kind of visions and things that you might think are hallucinations. But that later seem like actually you are glimpsing the reality as opposed to the illusion that the brain creates.
So I've written about this in my new book. But my idea of the brain is that it creates endless series of illusions for you. It creates this seamless version of reality. The sense of a self. The sense of a continuous self through time. It creates a linear sense of time progressions. It creates colors. It creates a world that visually seems familiar etc. But it's all illusion. It's all a construction.
Images come into your brain and they're not organized in any way. And the brain organizes them in a way that you can understand it. Well when you're dying all of that scrambles up and you actually are seeing something else.
So I saw for instance that I really don't have a self. That it doesn't really actually exist. And the image that came to my mind, because I was sitting in that gurney, was a weird feeling of, I can almost not explain it, but it's as if you took an image of something real in the world and you completely scrambled it up and it was all wavy and you couldn't see what exactly it was. To me that was the image I had of the self.
There are like 50 different selves inside of you that are all competing. And you think there's just one and you think it's consistent. But there's not. It's an illusion. The self is literally an illusion that your brain constructs. When you're dying you see these things.
When you're dying you see other things like that. You see that time is something very weird. So I had an experience of, when I got out of the car and I got pulled in, I thought like 10 seconds had passed. My wife told me, no, that was like 10 minutes. I had no sense of time. Everything was scrambled.
And so it was very very illuminating. It taught me so much, things that I can barely even express now. I'm always now thinking of strange things that come to me because my brain was damaged. It made me realize that the brain creates everything. So I can't communicate with my hand, my fingers. I can't, my brain can't communicate with my leg.
So you think that walking and writing and handling things is just your body operating a certain way. It's your brain telling you how to move these different things. When that brain stops functioning you realize how much your brain determines everything. It all starts there.
And when there's damage to your brain your whole thinking alters. Not to mention how you look at life itself after something like that. So it was a terrible experience. It's ruined so many things that I loved in life. But it's given me an awful lot as well in return that I could go on for hours and talk about, because it was the most powerful experience of my life.
但我有一个异象——我一开始恢复意识时以为自己已经死了——我在天上,我在往下看。我母亲和我太太在说话。好像是在我的坟墓上方。我有一种感觉——嗯,一切都还好。我走了但生活继续。她们都好好的。没事。
所以关于那种自我感——是不是我在意识到它正在发生——我不确定。但我有一种感觉那是从外部看到的。我真的不知道答案,因为那太混乱了。
另一种感觉是——中风的时候——生命在从我体内流走。我的骨头变得越来越软、越来越软、越来越软。我真的无法从逻辑上解释这个——骨骼变软和溶解的感觉。但中风后好几周好几个月我都能重新体验到那种骨骼在溶解的感觉。那是一种所有能量从你体内流走的感觉。你在死去。真的在死去。
读关于濒死体验的书——因为那是我下一本书的重要部分——天哪,太迷人了。有太多有趣的东西可以深入,因为它教了我们太多。
But I had this vision that I was dead at first, when I first became conscious, and that I was up in the sky and I was looking down. And my mother and my wife were talking. And it was like over my grave I suppose. And I had this feeling, huh, everything's okay. I'm gone but life goes on. They're doing fine. It's okay.
So I don't know about that sense of self, whether it was like I'm aware of it happening. But I have a feeling it was something from the outside. I don't really know the answer to that because it's very confused.
The other feeling I had was, when I was having the stroke, life was draining out of me. And my bones getting softer and softer and softer. And I can't really logically explain that, the feeling of bones softening up and dissolving. But for weeks and months afterwards I could access that feeling of my bones dissolving. It was a feeling of all your energy draining out of you. And you're dying, literally.
So reading books about near-death experiences, because that's a big part of my next book, God, it's fascinating. There's so many interesting things to go into because it teaches us so much.
你知道人们总是会想。实际上人们最常见的恐惧之一就是——自己正在失去头脑或记忆而周围的人没有注意到。我有家人说过——如果他们开始表现出严重痴呆的迹象——让我结束他们。我不会那样做的。那不是我在这个世界上的角色。但我觉得这是人们常见的恐惧。
但你仍然极其敏锐,谢天谢地。你提到虽然你失去了某些能力,但新的感悟和新的能力浮现了出来。你能不能分享一下其中一些是什么,对你意味着什么?因为我觉得当听说一个人中风时,我们往往关注失去了什么。但显然这也是一次在积极方面具有变革性的经历。
You know one always wonders. Actually one of the most common fears people have is that somehow they're losing their mind or their memory and people aren't aware of it. I have family members who have asked that if they ever start to exhibit signs of severe dementia that I put an end to them. Which I won't. That's not my place in this world. But I think it's a common fear among people.
But you're still extremely sharp and thank goodness for it. And you mentioned that while you've lost certain abilities, that new appreciation and new abilities have surfaced. Could you perhaps share what some of those are and what they mean to you? Because I think that when one hears about somebody having a stroke we tend to focus on what's lacking. But clearly this has been a transformative experience also in positive ways.
另一件事是——我以前很喜欢徒步。我身体很活跃。现在我坐在办公室窗前看着人们跑步、骑自行车、遛狗。天哪我太嫉妒了。如果我现在能遛一只狗,我就是世界上最幸福的人。
但然后我经历了一个思考过程——也许不完全健康——就是:他们没有意识到仅仅遛一只狗是多么美好。但我意识到了。所以当我走到后院——我不能走路——我看到——我知道这听起来会很悲情煽情——但我看到蝴蝶或花园里的东西。我的反应是:哇,太不可思议了。以前这些东西我无法欣赏——因为我现在是久坐不动的,不能移动。我必须突然关注我周围的东西。不把它视为理所当然,尽可能地从中榨取所有的快乐。
所以现在当我坐在书桌前写我的新书——4个小时,因为那是我能承受的全部,有时候只有3个小时——那4个小时对我来说就是极大的幸福。我现在真正地感激它——因为我知道我的大脑差点就没了。所以它对我意义重大。
仅仅活着就是一种奇妙的体验。我的新书中有一章叫做"醒来面对活着的奇异"。它讲的是:如果你想想我们人类进化出来有多不可能——我们能存在有多不可能。进化过程中所有我们必须通过的瓶颈——包括恐龙的消失和哺乳动物的出现。但在进化历史上还有20个其他巨大的瓶颈,我们都必须通过。
8万年前我们差点灭绝——某种病毒感染了——当时地球上只有8000个人类。所有这些不同的事情。然后我们在这里开 Zoom 会议什么的。这是你能想到的最奇怪的故事——比科幻小说还离奇。但没有人想到这些。没有人坐下来想:天哪,我还活着。
如果你回溯那条必须相遇并生育后代、一直通向你父母的人链——你出生的不可能性是天文数字级的。除非我的科学全搞错了——7万代人的相遇等等——最终汇聚成你的 DNA。除非我遗漏了什么——这是相当不可能的。但没人想到这些。
我当然现在会想——因为我差点死了。我没有别的东西可以想。我必须像 Milton Erickson 通过观察人们来娱乐自己一样来娱乐我的大脑。所以中风从我这里夺走了很多。我不能游泳了。我在骑我的躺式自行车——我喜欢骑——80岁的老奶奶们从我身边"嗖"地飞过——天哪——多糟糕。我太嫉妒了。我所有的不安全感都冒了上来。
但然后我意识到——嘿——我就像在一条船上——我在航行——很美好——我在户外。我必须经历这些思考过程。但我觉得这以某种最终非常积极的方式发展了我。
The other thing was I used to love hiking. I was very physically active. And I'm sitting at my window in my office and see people running up and down, bicycling, walking their dogs. God I'm so envious. If I could walk a dog right now I'd be the happiest person alive.
But then I go through a thought process which maybe isn't completely healthy, which is they're not aware of how wonderful it is just to walk a dog. But I'm aware of it. So when I go out in my backyard and I can't walk and I'm seeing, I know this is going to sound really tragically sentimental, but I see butterflies or things in my garden. I'm like wow, that's incredible. Things like that that I couldn't appreciate before because I'm sedentary and I can't move. I have to suddenly pay attention to what's around me. Not take it for granted and find and suck all the pleasure out of it that I can.
So now when I sit at my desk to write my new book, it's 4 hours because that's all I can stand, maybe three sometimes. Those 4 hours are like such bliss for me. I truly appreciate it now because I know that my brain was almost gone. So it means so much for me.
And to just be alive is a wondrous experience. I have a chapter in my new book called "Awaken to the Strangeness of Being Alive." And it's about the fact that if you think about how unlikely it is that we humans evolved at all, even that we even exist. All the bottlenecks in evolution that we had to pass through, including the disappearance of the dinosaurs and the emergence of mammals. But there are 20 other huge bottlenecks throughout the history of evolution we had to pass through all of those.
We nearly went extinct 80,000 years ago from some virus that infected, there were only 8,000 humans on the planet. All these different things. And here we are with Zoom meetings etc. It's like the strangest story you can ever, it's beyond science fiction. But nobody thinks about it. Nobody sits down and goes, God, I'm alive.
If you went back to the chain of people that had to connect and have children leading up to your parents, the unlikeliness of you ever being born is astronomical. I mean unless my science is all wrong, 70,000 generations of people meeting etc., finally ending at your DNA. Unless I'm missing something, it's pretty unlikely. But nobody thinks about it.
Well I certainly think about it now because I almost died. I have nothing else to think about. I have to entertain my brain the way Milton Erickson had to entertain himself by observing people. So it's taken a lot away from me. I can't swim. I'm riding my recumbent bike which I love and 80-year-old grandmothers are zipping by me and god damn it, how awful. I'm so envious. My insecurities all well up.
But then I realize, hey, I'm like on a boat, I'm sailing, it's wonderful, I'm outside. I have to go through these processes. But I think it's developed me in some way that's in the end very positive.
我告诉人们——不要对自己这样做。我试着教他们。它明天就可能被夺走。当你出门散步时——想想我——想想我不能遛狗。感激那些我没能感激的东西。所以我尽我所能用这种方式帮助人们。
I tell people, don't do that to yourself. I try and teach them. It can be taken away from you tomorrow. When you're out walking, think of me, think of me that can't walk the dog. And appreciate those things which I didn't appreciate. So I try and help people in that way when I can.
这个概念对我来说非常重要——我是从你那里学到的——如何走出困境?开始更深入地关注你周围和你内心的事物。也许不是巧合——你把它称为"死地"。所以告诉我们。
I mean this is a concept that was super important for me to hear about and I learned about it from you, was how do you get yourself out of a rut? You start paying deeper attention to the things around you and inside you. And perhaps not coincidentally you referred to that as quote "death ground." So tell us about that.
你可以把它想象成气压。当必要性在压迫你的时候——你背靠墙壁——你必须完成某件事——周围有这种压力——你会在自己身上找到你之前从未相信过的能量。
William James 谈到过这个——他谈到获得"第二次风"。他非常雄辩地解释过。当你觉得生命受到威胁时,你突然能跳过以前从来跳不过去的东西。所以孙子说:把军队置于死地,它就会战斗到获胜。意思是把军队的背靠向大海或大山。要么胜,要么死。他们会拼命战斗十倍。
当死亡直视你的脸,或者紧迫感、截止日期、来自他人的压力——当那种气压存在时——你会找到你通常缺少的能量。当那种气压松弛了——没有了——你以为自己有世界上所有的时间——你什么也做不成。"天哪哥们我才23岁,我还有好多年,我会想明白的。我不会死的。我还有50、70、80年。"不,你没有。
那种压力现在消失了,你在浪费时间。你在做各种不会通向任何技能的事情。你什么也没学。你需要把自己置于死地。你需要感受那种气压——那才是真正的现实。真正的现实是你明天就可能死。你明天就可能中风。你明天就可能被解雇。一切都可能崩塌。
你需要现在就有那种紧迫感——因为那才是现实。你以为自己有那么多时间是在欺骗自己。当你感受到那种压力时,你突然可以移山。你有能量。你的生活——你就是有了专注力。从神经学上来说一切都对上了。
有过那种经历的人——感觉船要沉了、必须振作起来生存下来——他们谈论各种身体过程。在我的新书里我有一个故事——希望我没有让你感到无聊——
The idea is you can almost think of it like barometric pressure. When necessity is pressing in on you, like your back is against the wall, like you have to get something done, and there's this pressure around you, you find energy in there that you never believed before.
William James talks about this when he talks about getting a second wind. He explains it very eloquently. When you feel like your life's in danger, suddenly you can leap over things that you never could leap over before. So Sun Tzu says put an army on death ground and it will fight until it wins. Meaning put an army with its back to the ocean or back to the mountain. And it's either win or die. They're going to fight 10 times harder.
You're going to find the energy in you that you normally lack when death is facing you in the face, or urgency, or deadlines, or people pressing in on you. When that barometric pressure loosens up and there's none of it, you think you have all the time in the world, you get nothing done. Wow man I'm 23, I've got all these years ahead of me, I'm going to figure it out. I'm not going to die. I got 50, 70, 80 years ahead of me. No you don't.
That pressure now is gone and you're wasting time. You're doing all sorts of things that aren't leading to any kind of skill. You're not learning anything. You need to put yourself on death ground. You need to feel that barometric pressure, which is the actual reality. The actual reality is you could die tomorrow. You could have a stroke tomorrow. You could be fired tomorrow. Everything could fall apart.
You need to have that sense of urgency now because that's the reality. You're fooling yourself by thinking you have all of this time. And so when you feel that pressure, suddenly you can move mountains. You have energy. Your life, you just have focus. Neurologically everything clicks in.
And people who've had that experience, where they felt like the ship was going under and they better get their act together and survive, they talk about all these physical processes. I have a story in my new book, I hope I'm not boring you here with all—
然后突然他设法站起来了。他没法解释怎么做到的——但所有这些能量、所有这些肾上腺素开始在他体内流淌。他说他就像一只山羊一样。他沿着悬崖往下走。他跳了下去。他设法到了另一个悬崖。他脱险了。
接下来的20年他一直被这个问题困扰:那是怎么发生的?我想要那种感觉回来。因为那其实是最狂喜的感觉。我有了我从未想到自己拥有的能量。所以他尝试各种办法来找回那种感觉。他尝试爬其他的山。他尝试去珠穆朗玛峰。他尝试了。但那种感觉没有回来。
最终他算是弄清楚了这件事的公式——为什么它会发生。他研究了大量的神经科学。那是一本很棒的书——我在新书中引用了——叫《Bone Games》。非常有趣的书。里面有很多科学。
他以一种较小的程度找回了那种感觉。但那种感觉就是——你的生命危在旦夕——我最好振作起来否则就完了。然后突然肾上腺素、多巴胺和所有其他东西都在他体内涌动。他找到了那种能量。这就是终极的死地。人类的求生意志真的令人难以置信。
And suddenly he managed to get up on his two feet. And he can't explain how but all of this energy, all this adrenaline, started flowing in him. And he said he was like a mountain goat. He was going down the ledge. He jumped. He was able to kind of get down to another ledge. He got out of it.
And for the next 20 years he was haunted by, how did that happen? I want that feeling again. Because it was actually the most ecstatic feeling. I had energy that I never suspected in myself. And so he tries everything to get that feeling back. He tries climbing other mountains. He tries going to Mount Everest. He tries. And it doesn't come back.
And finally he kind of figures out the formula for it and why it happened. He studies a lot of neuroscience. It's a great book I'm using in my new book. It's called Bone Games. Very interesting book. A lot of science in it.
And he got the feeling back in a smaller sense. But it was the feeling of your life is in danger, I better get my act together or it's the end. And suddenly adrenaline, dopamine, all the other things were occurring in him. And he found that energy. So that's the ultimate kind of death ground right there. The human will to live is truly incredible.
所以我想代表我自己——以及多年来了解你和你的作品的人——也代表那些现在一定会知道你是谁、你在做什么的很多人——说:太明显了,这些东西来自内心。无论是什么早期的种子催生了这一切——我们都对此心怀感激,我们都因为那颗种子而变得更好。
这个清单可以列得非常非常长——你以多少种具体方式改善了我们的人生旅程,让它更清晰。生活当然可能很艰难,但它也可能很令人困惑。我觉得 Robert Greene 的路线图——即使它只是一张路线图——是一张极其有价值的、值得拥有和使用的地图。对我来说当然是这样。
向你献上巨大的感谢,Robert。谢谢你今天的分享。谢谢你做的一切、你正在做的一切、以及你将来一定会做的一切。
So I want to say on behalf of myself, and for those that have known you and your work for a number of years, but also for the many people that are now sure to know who you are and what you're about, that it's just so clear that this stuff comes from the heart. And that whatever early seed planted this, we're all grateful for and better off as a consequence of that seed.
I could make this list very very long with the number of specific ways in which you've improved the journey through life and made it clearer. Life certainly can be hard but it also can be really confusing. And I feel that the Robert Greene road map, even though it's but one road map, is an extremely valuable map to have and to use. Certainly has been for me.
So just an enormous thank you Robert. Thanks for sharing today. And thanks for all you do and all that you're still doing and sure to do in the future.
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再次感谢你收听今天与 Robert Greene 的对话。最后但同样重要的是——感谢你对科学的兴趣。
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Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Robert Greene. And last but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.