The Exchanges

Q a modern bureaucracy, right? You think about how the office culture works, It's not about doing the work. It's about forwarding an email and shifting it to somebody else, and we spend all of this time, you know, just basically passing around emails, and we think that that is a proxy for work, right? But it makes me wonder, like, who's actually doing work in a lot of these organizations?

A Yeah, and that's, that was my experience. You know, you asked me before, like, you know, I was working in the real world or whatever, um, is that what people call Work was like, not really work. It was, sometimes it was, but of the 10 hours a day that we would spend in the office, you know, maybe two of them would be what you would call work, like actual writing a report, or doing research, or whatever, and the rest of the time would be chatting, and emailing, and walking around the office, and things, and, and then, you know, the person will report that they're working 60 hours a week, or whatever, and then And I want to say, like, well, you're at the office 60 hours a week, but are you actually working 60 hours? And I'm not blaming any of the individuals, it's just, that's the culture now, just the way it is, and, you know, it just, like, expands and expands, and it, it's...

AI assessment note: “maybe two of them would be what you would call work”

Q And so we can't even do that, right? Like a couple hours is just so much now. It's like we're unable to be bored or unable to be bored.

A Well, I would agree with that totally. I mean, I think that that's, that's kind of what I was saying before was that it's just, you can now, I don't think that in the, even in the recent past, you could go through a whole day being, with your, being engaged the way that you can now. Um, unless you are an extremely busy person, the average person in the world, you know, and we forget too, like the majority of people used to work on farms, and you would be, you would be sort of, your brain is just doing very different things now than it would have, um, when we were, the world was agricultural, and even before that, when the world was, you know, more of a hunter-gatherer.

AI assessment note: “Well, I would agree with that totally.”

Q that, but the strategies you employ when you go outside of that are incredibly important, and those are kind of the tools that we, we want people to build up. But you, I wanted to come back to something you said. You, before you joined Farnham Street, you were working in an organization, an office culture. How often did anybody in there actually say the three words? I don't know.

A Three magic words. Um, yeah, not that, I mean, You know, and I think it has a lot to do with the person and their ego in the sense that, like, there are certain topics that everybody feels comfortable saying, not everybody, but each individual person feels comfortable saying, I don't know. Like, if, if I were to ask you about, you know, gymnastics, you would have no problem saying, I don't know, because they're, none of your ego is wrapped up in gymnastics. But when I was working in finance, You know, if you ask somebody a financial question, their ego is wrapped up in that, because that's their profession. So even though they may, they may be at a very narrow, operating in a very narrow area of finance, let's see, let's say you're an analyst focusing on, you know, Canadian insurance companies or something, which is a niche, and I ask you about, you know, a Coca-Cola company that may be outside that circle. Well, it's a financial question, and you feel like, you know, You work in the finance industry, and you are a business person, and you understand investments and so on, and so you have, that's in your, that part of your ego is wrapped up in understanding things like that. So you feel like you have to answer that, and so you give me an answer about that. Even if you know nothing about it, you go, oh, well, coke is, you know, and it's not the same as if I asked you about gymna…

AI assessment note: “yeah, not that, I mean, You know, and I think it has a lot”

Q So do you think we've wrapped up our self-worth then in, uh, keeping up to date with our friends on Facebook and world news up to the minute, up to almost the second, right? I mean, there, there's this race to, uh, Is that because we, we have some sort of, um, self-worth in terms of being up to date, or is it?

A Uh, I would, I guess the, I don't want to, I don't want to make, stretch the analogy. I think the two things are different. The social media thing, I don't, I don't think is an ego thing so much as, um, We're wired to want to know things about other people in our network where we've been gossiping since we developed language, and it's no surprise that the most valuable social media tools are basically tools in which we gossip about one another. And the problem that I have seen beyond, beyond the concept of being busy all the time and connected all the time is that the tools we have now are also the biggest envy generators that have ever been invented. So something like Facebook, You know, I think it's destructive to happiness in a big way because people are unable to see those things and not feel tremendously envious. And envy has been part of the human DNA for as long as we've been human. I mean, it's just, that's part of who we are. Um, and I'm sure there, there is a evolutionary reason why that's true. I wouldn't pretend to be able to give you a good answer on that, but, um, You know, it was in the, you know, the old religious texts for a reason, and so on, so, and I think as much as there's value in, in the connectivity it gives us, um, that's a huge downside, and so, you know, when you combine the effect of being constantly connected and unable to be bored and, and struggl…

AI assessment note: “The social media thing, I don't, I don't think is an ego thing”

Q Where does that need come from? Do you think like this need to be up to date on everything that happened?

A I think that the success of these companies is because we have a biological need to stay in touch. Um, we're, it, it wouldn't be unoriginal for me to say that we're a social species, so those things are deeply part of us, and I think that most of these services have evolved in a very natural selection type of way so that the mo, the only ones that are left and that are thriving are the most addictive ones that play on some of our deepest Desires and provide our brain with the most, um, you know, and I don't know how much I trust brain studies. I mean, I think that science has a long way to go, but I think it would be, I think it's probably true that when we're checked, when you check your Facebook account regularly, that you're getting a hit of, uh, whatever drug. Yeah. That is comparable to a, to a dopamine, you know, again, I don't want to, I think some of that stuff gets a little sciencey where it's not, Real, but, but I believe it enough to say that I understand that it's like a drug, like a, like an actual drug, um, for the brain.

AI assessment note: “we have a biological need to stay in touch. Um, we're... a social species”

Q But how do you go cold turkey? Like, how do you go from somebody who's doing this and do you scale back? Do you stop? Do you?

A Well, that's like asking how do I quit smoking? I mean, I think everybody, the answer when it comes to smoking is probably going to be the same answer when it comes to social media, which is that a lot of people will fail and won't be able to do it, even with sincere intentions. Some people will be able to quit cold turkey. And some people will be able to, you know, sort of back off slowly with the nicotine patch. And I, I would almost guarantee that, that social media and networking tools are going to, an email included, are going to fall into that same bucket. So you have to, you have to start by being honest with yourself, like how bad is my problem and how much, you know, again, it's very, it's very AA, but like how much do I, how much help do I need? You know, and coming up with a strategy that's gonna, but I think the first thing is, like, you have to understand that it, it's okay to detach a little bit, you know, like, it's not, um, and that, expect the response to come from the network or whatever, and just prepare for it, and it's doable. I, I think it's doable. I'm not, I still live a healthy social life and everything, even though I don't use all this stuff, but I, it, it's worked out completely fine for me. People started telling me when they had babies and stuff, so you can, um, And no one expects me to post a picture of my vacations online, so I think you realize …

AI assessment note: “Some people will be able to quit cold turkey. And some people will be able to”

Q What do you think the solution is? I mean, we both heavily curate and reduce the influence others have on our lives, but

A Yeah, I, I, it's hard for me to say in this, because I don't have any problem, I didn't have any problem disconnecting from all that, so I had a Facebook account, just I'm using, I'm picking on Facebook, and I, you know, I mean, if anybody from Facebook ever listens to this, I, it's, I'm just using it as an example, because you're the most popular, so you won the game, but, um, you know, I got rid of, I had my Facebook account when I was in high school, uh, and in college, and then, and then, you know, when I, Probably, like, right after I left college, I got rid of it, and at the time, there was that homeostatic response, and people were like, I don't know how to invite you to things, like, I, we use Facebook to organize things, and I, you know, I'm like, you don't, I remember missing out early on, on a few important events that people assumed I knew through Facebook, like people getting engaged, or having kids, and announcing they were pregnant, or whatever, that the way that they would tell people is to put on Facebook. So there were a couple of those things early on that I missed out on because people didn't realize or forgot that I wouldn't find out through Facebook. But then what I noticed in a pretty short term, pretty short period of time is that, you know, when there was an event, a person would let me know directly. It was like a little bit of resentment. They'd be li…

AI assessment note: “I didn't have any problem disconnecting from all that, so I had a Facebook account”