 Boom, what's up, everyone? Welcome to Simulation. I'm your host, Alan Sacian. Very excited to be on site still in Boston, Massachusetts. We are now gonna be talking about what it's like to go through a process of getting into Ivy League schools. We're gonna be talking about a lot of high-level conversation around finding meaning in life. I'm really excited to be sitting down with Whitney Nimit Patana. Hello. Hi, everyone. Thanks for coming out to the show. Thanks for inviting me. I greatly appreciate it. I'm really excited to talk to you. We have a lot to talk about. I'm really happy that Alex Chen introduced us. Yeah, Alex is the best. I'm really glad I got the opportunity to meet you too. I feel really honored because I think if he thinks that I'm interesting enough to be interviewed, well, so be it. We had a lot of good conversation last night. We did. Yeah, I'm super pumped for this. There's a lot of good stuff to unpack about your life and about where we're gonna go with this convo. Excited. Okay, let's talk about this because this, I don't think many people even realize what goes into the process of working someone's ass off until they're like 17, 18, and then going and getting into a bunch of different Ivy League colleges. This is hard work. Okay, so you were born in Brooklyn. Right? No, so actually, I guess. Tell us. So I guess just, where do I start this story? So I'm, both my parents are ethnically Chinese, but my mom is from Burma, which is also known as Myanmar. She grew up around the capital, whereas my dad is from Thailand and he also grew up around the capital there. Both of them immigrated to the US around the time. They were teenagers or they're early dirties. I mean, Tony's, I believe. And then. Directly to New York? Yep, directly to New York City and that's where they met too. Okay. So when I was, so when my mom gave birth to me, we were living in Manhattan in that time around the Chinatown area. Okay. And then when I was very young, around four years old, that's when we moved to Brooklyn. Okay. And then, okay, so this is already interesting because a lot of us have had these sort of parents that have come from other places and immigrated to the United States and were raised children in the United States with a kind of like a cultural lineage from a different part of the world. Okay. So when you're, you ended up now at four years old in Brooklyn and did you grow up with brothers and sisters too? Yep. I have one older sister. An older sister. Okay. And how many years older is she? Two years old. If Susie, if you're watching this, hi. Shout out to Susie. Shout out Susie. Okay. So then you're growing up with her. You're four, she's six. And what is that like with your parents, with you figuring out who you are in the world? Tell us about that. I think that at that age, you don't, I think you don't really know enough about the world or at least like most people don't know about the world in order to, I think to really fathom, like sort of, I think, because especially given that now are very, it's very tumultuous and also some very anxious times. I don't think we knew about all of that going up. I think I'm also very lucky to have lived in a very diverse ethnically, socio-economically in terms of like religious background neighborhood. And so that also affected me based on where I went to elementary school and middle school and high school. Okay, so it was socio-economically, religiously, culturally diverse. Yes, uh-huh. Yeah, in Brooklyn growing up. Yep. It's very interesting because I'm growing up. I think that's something I took for granted when I was younger because I think a lot of people, especially when you live in more racially homogenous areas, you don't really, I think the thing about New York City is that you literally have people from every single ethnic category in like perhaps in the same like square mile. And so you grow up. So I grew up eating it, you know, like Chinese food, Turkish food, Russian food, Jewish food, I mean like, you know, like kosher food, all that good stuff. And then I think it's just that you grew up in this very, it seems like the world is very tolerant, like it's such a mixing pot. And then you go to other places and then you realize that, oh, the world is actually more homogenous in certain places and it's not actually so, I guess like, you don't actually have like people who come with lots of different, certain like viewpoints in those places. Yeah, okay, so that right there is a huge point that you just brought up because I grew up in a vastly white area of South Dakota. And when you grow up there, it's odd when you see people that look different than a white person. Yeah, exactly. And that is weird because when you grew up in Brooklyn, you get to see all of the different cultures. You get, they're not different, they're human. Yes, exactly. Yes. I mean, and also they think the thing is even if like people are like, so Hollywood has a long way to go in terms of representation of minority people, I think the thing is that you also grow up with all these diverse, knowing people of all different races and ethnicities. And like you said exactly, that makes them very human. So you, I think it's like, I mean, well, I guess like you could say that racial prejudices still exist between like cultures. I think at the same time, I feel like it's a very humbling experience. And I feel like it's, I guess like real is the word that I would use to describe it. Yeah. I'm glad that we made sure to touch on the humanization side of things as we melting pot our cultures together, it becomes a whole, a planet full of humans. And that's moving forward, how we can prosper most effectively as when we treat each other that way. Okay, so growing up in the melting pot and then slowly but surely figuring out what you wanted to do a little bit in your high school. So tell us about it. Sure. I think I didn't, like, so I think everyone's very familiar with the tiger parent archetype. But I think it would, I mean, like actually kind of unique in the sense that my parents like, I was never really pushed to become like, oh, you have to become an engineer or a doctor. Well, of course there's, I was always taught that, okay, to have ambitions and to want to achieve more. But at the same time, I think they were also chill in certain aspects as long as I got good grades and I got into a good school and that's all. And then I chose a lucrative career path and that's all that mattered. Yeah, even that sort of parenting of like, we worked so hard to bring you into the world and make sure you do something that's lucrative and there's a sort of a, the most important thing is for that the child just has their fullest potential brought into the world. Exactly. Yeah. It's funny because I think, so there's this Facebook group called Subtle Asian Memes that's exploded in popularity in the past month. And I think there's one meme that really stands out to me because a lot of, like especially for like first generation Asian parents, they come here, they teach their children, they enroll their children in music lessons for the piano and violin and usually only those two instruments because there's some sort of, I think clout with those specific instruments. So no like guitar or anything wacky. And then so, and then you, and they like they, they encourage their children to continue with music lessons and to achieve and to continue playing those instruments. But then when let's say, if like you're, but then when they're children, like they, let's say like, you would think that the logical path is to become like to pursue a career in music after all that musical training, but that's obviously forbidden. That's like sort of forbidden because of that, because it's a creative career. So I think it's just like that sort of dichotomy is like something that I just like said that, yeah, it's something that's very ironic. And I want, because I think I feel like down the line, we're going to end up figuring out a more effective way to open up both an equality of opportunity for young kids to figure out what they're passionate about and do it. And also for parents to figure out, you know, motivate the kids, but also give them, you know, congratulate them when they do well along the way and don't maybe thwart off some sort of part of their creativity because it may not be lucrative because we're going to potentially start, the market's potentially going to start correcting and going towards creativity a little bit more. It already is in some regards. I think that's accurate to say, for one thing, I strongly believe that change begins at the generational level. So us, like first and second generation kids who were brought up in the US and other countries as part of this some Asian diaspora, I think we recognize that our parents did the best they could when they were raising us and while their methods may not have been the best, I think it's on us to make sure that our offspring, that we push them in the right directions so that they can achieve their full potential regardless. We don't have to focus on just STEM or careers that we consider lucrative or prestigious. We want them to achieve to the best of their ability. And to your point, I think in terms of rewarding creativity, I think it's just popped in my head, especially as jobs get more and more jobs get automated, just building creativity and other soft skills, especially just being able, I think those will become more and more important as a lot of the current jobs get automated. But the new jobs will, I think new jobs will arise based on how society is changing. Yeah, I'm glad that you're really honing in on creativity and social, emotional skills being super important as automation arises. They're gonna, it's gonna be a very interesting transition that occurs in the next couple of decades. And for us, we are around 25-ish versus for kids that are born today when in 20, 45 things are gonna be incredibly challengingly different to what is it gonna be like to be creative in 25 years? And what is it gonna be like to go through the high school process? So as, okay, so as, I know we can go off so many ways. Wendy and I can talk about a bunch of different things together and let's come to this because you mentioned this already once and I wanna see if we can maybe even identify some of the cultural transgenerational sort of the pressures that occur that kind of, that make it so that parents act in a certain way with their kids that potentially maybe drives them in a certain direction rather than enables them to freely explore and figure out who they are. Sure, I guess like where should we start then? Okay, well you brought up Tiger Parenting and you kind of gave that, you gave it a good example. Because, okay, let's start maybe with this. We've seen time and time again more and more data showing that the more that you are born into low SES, the different your life outcome is from someone that's born into a high socioeconomic status. That similar sort of concept can be applied to your parent, your parenting. If the parenting skills are high openness, high explorativity versus if it's a nope, you gotta follow this path and this is what only things that we're giving you. Something like that. Yeah, I can imagine that being the case because parents who are higher openness and more open to other methods, I think they're more able to adapt their parenting to different sorts of personalities and just provide a fostering environment for their children. And of course, I think like, of course, having more means too also means that you can prepare your child for this rat race sooner. It's like, it's very interesting because I read an article recently on Buzzfeed. They have pretty good long form pieces besides their listicles about millennials being the burnout generation. I think, and one of the tenets of that piece was that where everyone is so, or at least people our age are so burnt out all the time is because we were raised to optimize all aspects of our life from, and not just our career and academics, but even our leisure. So it's like, oh, things that we would do in our off time like exercise or eating or even cleaning are things that have to be optimized as well. Give me a little more on the optimization of what is that like? Tell me about that. I guess maybe one example is that like, I feel like nowadays, especially like with the proliferation of social media and how that gives you like sort of like a panopticon into what everyone is doing. I think there's a lot of moralism regarding how people eat. So for example, like the shift towards organic and vegan foods. I think I can't help but notice that there's also a little change of like moralism there and which sort of says like, oh, the quote unquote cleaner, you eat the better of a person you are. I mean, at the end of the day, it's like, you know, eating is just eating. It's like for fun. And I think, and especially for people who grew up in immigrant families, it's also part of your culture and your childhood as well. And who is to determine what clean is or what good is? Well, okay, sure, clean energy. Okay, we can probably determine that solar with. Yeah, exactly. Things that don't contribute to environmental pollutants but with regards to quote unquote clean eating, I think. Who gets to decide? It's like trying to decide who gets to decide what hate speech is. And that's been a pressing issue that is permeating through culture right now as people throttling the pay of artists and comedians and other performers because they're deciding on whether or not that performer is using hate speech or not. Who gets to decide? How does civilization figure out what of course there's a big difference between things like the KKK, between someone that's trying to make a statement about potentially race or gender or obesity or whatever it may be. And now all of a sudden, they can't potentially do that. What's up with the clean food too? You can't, you tout around a veganism attitude or carnivorous attitude. And you may potentially be stuck in a single mode of thought that's not open to, again, experience looping back to what we're talking about with parents as well. You make a very interesting connection there. In terms of freedom of speech, I think it's especially where we live in an age where we're saturated with information and we have unprecedented access to information through our Facebook news feed, through our Twitter feeds, through everything. So not only do we get the nitty gritty details on what people or our social circles are doing or rather what they want us to see that they're doing, I think we'll probably touch on this topic later. But I think, so once someone release, so let's say an artist releases a song, then I think because of how ubiquitous social media is, people are free, and especially since you have the freedom, you technically have the freedom to say anything you want on the internet. So people feel like people are going to say what they want to say. And then I think it's just that perhaps like in a different age, we didn't have access to that mediums that could proliferate information so quickly and so efficiently. But now I think, especially as societal attitudes change to especially in regards to what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. And so I think, yeah, I guess it's hard to be a celebrity I would just say it's hard being a celebrity these days because no matter what you say, there's always going to be someone who's like, I think who will have something to say about it, whether it's a think piece or whether it's like, I don't know, some random YouTube comment. Yeah, yeah, there was even a recent way of viewing things from a multi-decade long process which I thought was interesting. People that have been around for almost like a half century that they have said things that back in the day it was completely different trying to get press. Now you can just make a Twitter post and it's called press. And so it's just a democratization of dissemination of information, but there's a lot more that that's doing across the world. Okay, so let's jump back to the high school days. So how did you end up figuring out that you wanted to go Ivy League style and what's that whole process like of who you were in high school? No, so now that I think about it in retrospect, I think the only reason I strive for those schools is because like, oh, it's always good to strive for the best. And I think, but now that I think more about it, I'm really, really grateful for having had the opportunity to attend those institutions, especially when bringing up to return to the conversation about SES, like socioeconomic status. There's some, I think when it comes, I think education is one of those things that can really catapult people who are like, from a certain SES into a higher level SES within one generation. Yeah, that's a huge point. It's almost as though if you work really hard for one generation, you can start surrounding yourself with a couple of potentially income brackets higher than your previous generation and then build on that. But then again, it's not to say that it's easy though or anything because of course, I mean, I think so. And not to say that it's all only about SES. Yeah, but it's not only about SES. I think, yeah, there's so many factors that go into college admissions, honestly. I think I feel lucky that like, okay, I got in when I got in because I can only, to be honest, I can only see it getting more competitive unless there's some great revolution. Then I think it's only going to get more and more cutthroat. It's already damn cutthroat. You were like a great, amazing GPA, amazing test scores, amazing extracurriculars, amazing essay writing and you got into Ivy Leagues. And then on top of that, then there's the limitation in spots that's going on. There's people from around the world that are applying, not just, yeah. Yeah, and I think it's just crazy because it didn't recur to me until I actually set foot on campus, but they're actually, it's just like, it's crazy because some people have been like, groomed there for their entire lives for success. And then I think especially when you go to like certain private schools too, the way that their curriculum and like their requirements are set up or is that, it actually, it makes you be successful in the college application process is because you have to do extracurricular, you have to take certain classes. So it, and then of course, then it's like your, if you go to like certain private school, then like your parents, it's very likely that your parents likely have access to more resources too. But yeah, I think when I was in high school, to be honest, I hadn't really thought about it and all this college stuff until like my sophomore or junior year. So I think I also, perhaps I got like, maybe perhaps I got lucky a little too. It's so important to identify that we get lucky. A lot of, we see a lot of people run around with the mentality of like, I earned everything myself, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's so important to say that we stand on the shoulders of giants that already made a ubiquity in food, and electricity, and water, and so many of the things that we got to build on top of. And even then, we got lucky a bunch in our lives. I did, you did, and so many people do. And so it's important to be humble about that. Yeah, okay, so give us, give us the, so it ended up being Harvard is ended up being where you ended up going. And that was a class of 2016. Yeah, so that was from 2012, 2016 at Harvard. This is actually an interesting point. I mentioned this to you, and I think this is an interesting thing that people keep talking about is that you, you're like, you're such an exceptional figure at your high school, and then you go to your Ivy League college, and then you're surrounded by other exceptional figures. And then it's like, whoa, because then you're, it's just a total change in perspective. I mean, to be honest, I feel like every single person at Harvard experiences that to some extent, especially, I think, especially the more unprepared you come to, like, at least for me, when I was in high school, I could put the minimal amount of effort into, you know, like studying and still get like, let's say perfect scores on tests. We're, but we're as in college, okay, you're out in the big open world for the first time with no parental supervision. And then not, and not only that, and in most like public schools, like, you know, it's like, your day is already laid out for you. You have to go to this class, and then you have to go to this class, and you have to go to this class where, but in college, your schedule is a lot more flexible. And also, and it's not like they're going to, and the professors don't hold your hand in terms of the curriculum. You have to become prepared to class in order to learn well. And you also have to be proactive in your learning too. So there's not, so there's already that like, you know, factor, but then there's also, there was also, I feel like there was also a culture shock for me, but because I think, I guess like, so I came from a high school where a really big public high school, where like I mentioned before, it was really diverse, not only in terms of race and ethnicity, but also just like socioeconomic status. And I feel like places like Harvard and other elite institutions, you don't necessarily have that diversity, where you could say that like, I mean that you don't, yeah, you could say like, you could say that in terms of racial diversity, in terms of socioeconomic status, but I think there's one, but one really incredible thing about these institutions though, is that I feel like you get people with lots of different life experiences and viewpoints even. It's as though you take the best of a bunch of different local areas and across the world and you bring them to one point. And this is very, that's kind of exciting. It reminds me a little bit about kind of like what it's like to be at, like Google campus. Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. And to be there or to be at Harvard, right? To be at these sort of like epicenters of an intellectual group that has already worked quite hard to achieve something in their lives, already that's exciting. And then trying to learn from a bunch of the different ones about what their world perspectives are, what they're doing. You decided on physics, which is exciting. So like what was that like to figure out that it ended up being physics? Well, I guess like going into Harvard, I already knew that I wanted to study physics. I think probably because I had some good physics teachers in high school. And also I think I just felt like, okay, it's interesting. It's also very, it's also very good to be honest, like not going to lie. It's also very, you know, it's like something that you can put on your resume and then people, and then you're like, it looks good on your resume too. Yep. Okay. And then, now, what is the like for you? Give us kind of like a snapshot of what some of like the most profound takeaways were for you in that four year period. Hmm. Well, oh man, I'm trying to like think of all the academic material now. And I'm like, ah! Ah! I'm like, ah, I haven't done physics in a long time. Oh man. Yeah, yeah. And just like off the top of my head though, I guess like, in terms of like profound takeaways, I guess like one, I guess like, well, I guess like we are, for one thing, I like take, always take, always like look around you and take advantage of all the opportunities that are around you. And so, okay. So I guess like to give a concrete example, I really, I sort of regret how I didn't take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities at Harvard. So for like, for example, getting funding to do certain things, like let's say funding for study abroad programs, going to places that you would have like never dreamed of, or getting funding to do certain projects or to pursue like certain things. I think like, especially one, like I guess like one interesting thing about Harvard is that like, like when your club wants to invite a speaker to campus, it just say, like, oh, we're from Harvard. And then that probably pikes their attention. I like how you brought up, you know, seizing the day, seizing these opportunities that come, the doors that are presented to you open, walk through them, go through those doors. Exactly. And that's a way to maximize your potential in the world. You end up figuring out that you could have learned potentially so many, so much different information when you went and maybe studied abroad or when you actually reached out to those couple of speakers to have the mentor you, to have them speak at your organization or go and take the risk of getting involved with different projects. I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Oh man, I'm just thinking about all the things I could have done. But I guess it's never too late, even when you leave college. Yeah. I think, yeah. Oh, sorry. The Whitney and all the other concurrently running parallel universes are exploring the things that you didn't get a chance to do in this one. I don't know. I hope, I hope, those Whitney's converge into this timeline soon. They do. Yeah, you tap into all of them at the same time. Okay, so now 2016 comes around and you're figuring out, this is actually interesting because you ended up doing a lot of work in data. And I actually thought this was really cool because there seems to be a growing movement for outcome-oriented data in healthcare. Exactly, huh? Tell, teach us about this. Sure. Well actually, I'm not too, to be honest, I'm not too familiar with healthcare, like the nitty gritty of healthcare data science, that sort of stuff. But recently I worked for the Accountable Care Organization, like part of the Massachusetts Medicaid program. So Mass Health provides like health insurance for like let's say millions of members in the Massachusetts state. And I had the opportunity to work within their payment reform division on this ACO program. So I actually, well I didn't work on the policy or the operational side, I worked on data management. It was a really educational experience for me overall. Yeah, we're transitioning to outcomes on the healthcare side of things. And that's so important to make sure that people are actually healthy and that when they come into our institutions that they leave healthier. This is a lot of weird corruption that's occurring that we need to actually take a second, third, fourth glance at and solve. So okay, so what has, what's going on with, okay we're like 25, 26, and we're mid 20s, and there's so many people that are graduating college that are like, they're in many ways, they're struggling to find meaning in their lives. And it's hard because we even go through these ups and downs like one day you're roaring with meaning and the next day you're like, oh it's so meaningless, what's going on? So how does one find a sustained sense of meaning? Well, so for one thing, I am one of those 20-something year old and I'm also struggling to find meaning in my own life. So perhaps this is the blind leading the blind. But I think from what I figured out so far though, I think I would, I guess, like at first I think, okay I started chasing just hedonistic materialistic things, but, and there's nothing wrong in chasing those things too, but more often than not chasing those things. I think they only provide ephemeral temporary relief, but I think, and I guess like, what made, I guess like when some, the first thing that comes to mind in terms of what gives me meaning to my life is having genuine valuable connections with people. And when I say valuable, I don't just mean that in a materialistic or a transactional way. I think like one thing that you especially learn when going to Italy institutions like Harvard is that I think a lot of people there tend to see relationships in a transactional way. Like, who can you refer me to? Who do you know? Can you get me into this like sorority or club? Can you like get me a referral for this job? And I don't blame them because I think it's just, it's just a really cut road environment. It really fosters that attitude, but it doesn't necessarily have to be like that all the time. And I guess having transactional relationships itself isn't a bad thing, especially if like, if they're mutually beneficial, then that's good, but then I don't think it's bad to want to have genuine relationships either with genuine human connection. Well, I like where you took us there. Okay, so there's this sort of, there's a spirit that one can move themselves with through the world that is a loving, kind essence to everyone, to all humans, period. And then further than that, it's like, okay, well what brings you meaning? Okay, well maybe it's for me, it's building this project. And then of course I'm gonna look for people that I think are interesting to sit down and talk to. And so then that's the idea of finding like utility. And I was, I'm really just, I'm hesitant to even like start just trying to intellectualize what being transactional or materialistic or all these different things are. If you carry yourself with that unconditional love period, it's almost as though things kind of just come. They come to you, you give, you come and give, things arise and go. Yeah, that's a really interesting point. It's something I've actually been thinking about recently too. I think one thing that a lot of people especially like when you can't look, especially people who have, let's say, I guess like grew up with like Asian immigrant parents is that I think you just like, you struggle to think about, oh, what value am I giving to people? I think a lot, a theme that I've noticed among like second generation Asian children like those whose parents were immigrants is often it's that, oh, like no matter how well you do it seems like it's never enough. You're always going to be compared to like cousins so and so who plays the piano or even if like you could be a world class violinist and you have three Ivy League degrees and you're an astronaut and a doctor and whatnot but then still like, oh, why aren't you married? Yeah, where's my grandkids? Damn, that's legitimately a parenting conversation that occurs, yeah. Oh yeah, and it's not, of course it's not just limited to Asian immigrant parents. I feel like it's something that like, like it's probably like something that like, you know, a lot of people our generation feel like the idea of just comparing your, like just being compared to other people and the idea that, oh, it's like, am I ever good enough? Gosh, that one sits, ooh. It's, you know, Mr. Rogers did a really good job at telling people that they are good enough and that they are loved as they are and that there is a, it's such a, it's a soothing and calming feeling to know that one is loved and that one is loved and that they do provide that love to others as well. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it's like, it's hard to embrace that feeling because I just think, or at least like, so to go back to your point about like, if you live your life sincerely, if you're loving-kindness, then you don't have to be transactional. Then things, that loving-kindness and like, and I guess like, end of material ways in which that manifest will come to you naturally and organically. It's something that I think, okay, I should notice on a, I should notice already, I should live my life that way, but I guess if I feel resistant to live it that way, because I'm afraid, I'm afraid that like, oh, what if like, I like, I live my life that way, but then I'm taking it, taking advantage of or like, I'm left with nothing. There's a feeling of slight vigilance with love that it's because there will be a slow fading of the malevolent instances that you speak of. It'll fade away over time, but to remain a little bit vigilant as you go is important. So you carry the wake of positivity and love and then stay slightly vigilant as you go through to make sure that you can continue bringing forth yourself fully. Right, like so setting healthy boundaries for yourself. So that you, I guess like one way you could put it is that set healthy boundaries for yourself and you'll be able to love yourself as well. And that helps you, I guess like, give to other people. Yeah, if you take a practice in like future authoring, goal setting, conscientiousness, just see if, maybe if I choose to pursue a non hedonistic thing for a week or a month that I take something off of the list and I just add something else, maybe creative to the list, something else that could unlock a new way of thinking for me. And I do that for a week or a month. What would happen? And then you just do, you know, self quantified self. You just analyze yourself afterward how you feel after that week or month. These are the sort of ways that you can actually figure out who you are better, yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. But I think like, I couldn't help but think about an earlier part of our conversation where I mentioned how us millennials were so burned out all the time is because we feel like we have to optimize every part of our life. And then I guess another, and then as a result we were expected to be productive all the time. So we feel bad if we're not being productive and hence even mundane tasks like, I don't know, filing your taxes or like sending a form that are supposed to be, you know, they're supposed, they're technically, they're supposed to be easy. Or I guess filing your taxes isn't a good example. But yeah, sending, like let's say sending a voter registration form or giving a call to like your primary care provider or like going to the pharmacy to pick up your prescription, those things are technically mundane, technically very easy, but you feel resistance to doing those as well. That's such an interesting point because that happens all the time with the mundane sort of, I have to go drop off a physical letter at the post office and it's like, what can I do with that half hour of my life? I could do something else. There's so many things like that that even the optimization for food is just like, I'm gonna drink Soylent instead of have to go and leave. Like what is food anymore? Oh man, I hope, I don't wanna be in a room with people who've only eaten soy. I imagine that was just things to your digestive system. Very strange to test what it is like to consume that for years or something. This is an important subject that we're talking about. There's such a rage for productivity and that is all affecting mental health and where's the meditative spirit? Yeah, I think especially, of course it sounds like I'm raging in social media all the time, but I think I don't have anything against social media. I love it, I scroll on Facebook all the time. But I think the idea that we are supposed to be productive all the time also ties into the idea that we have to project the best image of ourselves all the time too. So when I say that we're supposed to optimize even our leisure activities, I mean that by saying, oh, we have to project the best image of ourselves on our social media. We have to cultivate even our leisure activities to seem like we're doing the best things all the time or at least show the best parts of ourselves. Yeah, ain't nobody taking an Insta story on the way to the post office. I'm going to drop off a letter right now. Exactly. It's always that this super profound moment of my life that I'm capturing and sharing with other people where I look the best and one of my friends, I'm a shout out to Casey and myself occasionally, will purposely take photos that are not the most good looking of ourselves and post those because it changes the culture and it's those little things that if you upload potentially the more mundane or not as pinnacle appearing ones that that could actually potentially let other people be like, yeah, it's fine to not wear makeup or it's fine for me to do a little bit of like this and something or whatever, you know? Yeah, I think I really respect people who are able to post about their vulnerable moments on Facebook too. Like I think, yeah, that's something I really respect. Well, I don't think there's anything inherently bad and wanting to share those wonderful shining moments. Like, oh, I just ate something really delicious or oh, here's a thirst trap picture of me. But I really do have, I think it's like, yeah, I really value people who are able to share like more, how do I, not necessarily intimate, but just more meaningful or like not in like moments on Facebook where like, okay, it's like, okay, I admit I'm not feeling the best right now or okay, like something bad happened to me. So, and then I think like people who can ask for help too, I think is also like, yeah, I think that's like a very valuable utility of these platforms that gets underused. Asking for help and sharing vulnerable stories, I totally agree that that's such an underutilized part of being able to talk to others on social platforms. Okay, I wanna do some power round thoughts. Okay, what do you think is sort of transcendent of the human experience? Some people call it God or all that is or whatever exists past the three dimensional reality. You know, what do you think the simulation? What do you think about that? Transcendent of the human experience. Could you elaborate on that a little more? Some people think that there's some sort of an ethereal power within the cosmos, you know, or that it is a simulator or that it isn't God or that it isn't you are a character and what do you think about things like that? Well, without getting into metaphysical things or spiritual things, I guess like one thing that does transcend the human experience is narratives and stories and the tropes that make up those stories. It's something, this is something I've been thinking about for a while, but I think a lot, I think, or at least like I'm the type of person who likes to daydream a lot and come up with stories in my head, scenarios of people, especially like, oh, sometimes like I think about, oh, what would happen if like something else happened or I'm daydreaming about, oh, what if like I got into this, like, or what if this scenario happened with like, you know, with like with the people in my life as the characters or like the NPCs, if this was for a video game. I think that even if the tropes that appear in stories may not always hold true in real life, I think there's something that's very powerful about them that causes us to perpetuate those tropes, even if they don't always fulfill reality. What about, what do you think is the most beautiful thing in the world? Oh, that's another really good question. I guess, I don't want, I think, or I have a couple of things in mind. Do I have to say just one or can I say multiple? Okay, I guess like, well, I guess like, hmm, I guess one thing is just, I guess like, especially, I guess like coming from the experience of someone who studied physics, just like how certain laws of nature just seem to work out so well. I think that just without going into too much detail, I just think that's something that's like very beautiful and profound. Another thing is just having genuine human connection and just realizing that you're loved by so many people. I know that sounds like really cheesy, but I think especially when you're like in a very dark, like during very dark moments or when you're feeling really low, you really underestimate the impact that you have on other people. So while, okay, maybe you are just like one in seven billion people on this world or you, and you might not be the most influential, there are still people who care about you and people who would notice if you stopped existing. But then the question becomes how long do they? How long do they notice? Yeah, I think, well, I guess that's a good question. Then you're done. Well, 100 billion people that lived and died before us today, how many can you name? 20? 100 maybe? I don't know, a thousand if you give me some time. Yeah, out of the 100 billion, there you go. But I guess like, I mean, and I don't think in my lifetime that I can achieve immortality and I wouldn't want to be immortal either because I think I would just get annoyed at this after a certain point, just like seeing the same people. Or I guess if everyone else achieves immortality too, then I just see the same people over and over again and it might get annoying. If other people don't achieve immortality like in a tuck everlasting sort of scenario, then that would actually be sad. Just jump into different designed virtual worlds and then you can go explore whatever you want. Yeah. Different people. I mean, I guess like after a couple of thousand years, I guess like, don't you get bored? Yeah, I guess that's another question, Ms. Zory. Where was I going anyway? Oh, that's funny. So after several thousand years, would you end up getting bored of all of the different things that you can actually do? Yeah. Okay. When is there something else that you think we should cover on the way? Well, we had a really interesting conversation about simulacra on our ride here. That's a good point. And if I guess like, if there was one takeaway that I want to give to this audience tonight, it's that social media like social media and the projections of ourselves that we put on social media has led us to living out these simulacra of what we think that our lives should be like as opposed to what our lives actually like. So this can be described in many ways. So you think that people are living, always living the best versions of their lives. For example, this like, I don't know, maybe Drake, you see a couple on Facebook or Instagram and they always look always so well put together and that their relationship is so harmonious. When behind the scenes, you don't know about like all their arguments or maybe it's just like, you don't know that they took a hundred different pictures and they chose the best one to put online, especially like, so this is something that's especially true for a woman. I think you don't like, it's like you see like all these perfectly curated pictures and a lot of them are usually like, oh, you don't know like, okay, maybe it's just like good lighting and makeup and even like digital retouching. That's like really, I think that yeah, that's especially like getting more and more common with like Snapchat filters. I think and I feel like it's also like much more prevalent into East than it is in the West too. Excuse me. So you feel like you're obligated to look a certain way when in reality and you feel obligated that you should be living a certain life, but like this is just a collective illusion. It's not like, it's not the reality. What's real is actually just like these mundane, boring, sometimes ugly parts of our lives. Along with the good parts of the lives. And interestingly enough, a simulacrum could potentially be any sort of a representation of you. You could pick whatever, but it's that we pick the 1% that is the absolute cream of the crop. Exactly. We could pick the most mundane. We could pick the most entertaining. We could pick the most humorous or most artistic. We could pick any of those or a combination of them. That's a good point. Yep. I like that takeaway. Winnie, this has been a pleasure. Yeah, thanks for inviting me. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for talking to us. It's been a pleasure. There's a lot to take away from what it's like to actually go through the process of being someone like you. This is good to talk to you. Yeah. I'm like really honored to appear on the show. Thanks everyone. Thanks Whitney. Thanks for tuning in. We greatly appreciate it. We'd love to hear some of your thoughts in the comments below. Let us know. Also do build, go create, manifest your destiny into the world everyone. Much love. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you soon. And live sincerely. Bye everyone. Bye.