 Hey everybody, Charles Eisenstein here with my honored guest, Phillip Eisenstein, who you might, as you might suspect, is related to me. He's my third of four sons and 18 years old. And we thought we'd have a little conversation that kind of on an intergenerational theme, obviously. And just kind of see what comes out of it. Phillip said he had some things in mind to talk about, but he hasn't divulged them to me yet. So this is going to be happening in real time. And hey Phillip, thanks for coming up with this idea, unless it was mom's idea. Yeah, it was mom's idea. I did encourage her though. Cool. So yeah, puts on your mind. Yeah, well, so I'm 18 years old now. I just graduated high school. And I'm starting to enter the wider world. And I've come to feel an anxiety about my future, both my personal future and relating to what I want to pursue and the kind of life I want to live. But also the material future around me of the world of the country, climate, you know, politics, conflict, inequality. And I guess I was curious if you like went through a similar if you had similar anxieties and worries when you were younger. And if you could say something to yourself in that kind of crisis or questioning moment, what would you say now knowing what you know? Yeah, I definitely had those anxieties. I remember when when. So this was, you know, I grew up after the Cold War really was was over, but it was still kind of lingering, you know, and like I was pretty worried about nuclear armageddon. To the point where if there was like a, like a thunderstorm sometimes I, you know, like a flash of light. I was going, oh, I wonder if that's the flash of a nuclear bomb. And and climate change wasn't really quite a thing yet until when I was a teenager, I started to become aware of it. But also like from the influence of my father, there was like this general like kind of dystopian tent on everything that was happening. Like, I did not believe that the world was getting better and better. I was really aware of horrible things happening on earth. And I became more aware of those as I got to about your age, you know, and started reading radical literature. And it hadn't really coalesced though the way it has for your generation. Because up until my generation, each generation was materially better off than the previous one. And, and, you know, life expectancy was higher than it had been in the previous generation. And there was less infant mortality. And, you know, by a lot of objective standards, things were getting better and better. And so we expected that to continue. The future was going to be this amazing place. And I don't think that that that basic assumption is still present. And so like it's like the anxiety. Like I sensed something wrong. Like, like this foreboding. The sense that things are not going to be okay. And it was, it was, I guess, a little harder to put persuasive words to that feeling at the time. Because we were still very much in the mindset of technology is going to solve a lot of problems. You know, science is going to fix it. And the future is going to be great. And now that isn't there. So, and there's, and the problems are so much more obvious. And, and to ignore them requires a greater and greater effort of willful blindness. So anyway, that's a long, long way of saying, yeah, I felt it, but it wasn't so obvious. What I was all upset about. And I think it's more obvious now, I don't know about like your peers, you know, I mean, do you think Phil, do you think this is a generalized feeling? I haven't even gotten to answer your question. What would I say to myself, but, but do you think it's a generalized feeling? Yeah, definitely. And I mean, different ways. So like, I'm aware of the things that I'm aware of. And yeah, like my friends attitudes towards things like science. They're very aware of like the monetary and industrial aspect of a lot of science and medicine. Nowadays, and they kind of take it for granted that yeah, sometimes pharmaceutical companies will, you know, do something completely unrelated to public health that makes them billions of dollars. And the price to do that is to pay a fine. Like all of the stuff to a certain extent, all my friends are aware of. And they just accept it as a fact of the world, right? Because they can't change any of it. It's something that's happening, happening to them happening to the world. And I know some people who have deeper concerns too. I've had some conversations with my friends about kind of the dissolution of religion and the kind of hole that left in the human psyche that was then filled with various things. There's a huge, you know, boom of ideologies and philosophies in the past couple hundred years. And in our day or maybe just before our day, it was really dominated by capital and science. But even that they're not fully held in anymore. And a lot of people my age are kind of embracing a more nihilistic worldview, you know. No metaphysics they feel is strongly cultural, culturally held. And so what are they supposed to see as real anymore bouncing between everything? Yeah, nihilism has always been most popular among teenagers. Like, you know, going back to the beginnings of it, you know. And I think part of that is a transition process where the childhood meanings break down and kind of like this naive sense that the universe will provide the universe in the form of your parents, you know. However imperfectly and a certain kind of order to the world and the meanings that you inherited from your parents, they may not be satisfying. And also there's even like a, I think a process of brain development where the rational mind is fully developed by age 13, 14. And you know, you kind of got it all figured out. You think you've got it all figured out and you extend those cognitive forms of reason and logic to their limits. And what do you end up with? You cannot break through their confines on their own terms. You cannot find, especially when you're immersed in a, you know, maybe I'm speaking more of our culture, but when you're immersed in a scientific worldview that says that reality is nothing but atoms and void bouncing around according to mathematical forces, where's the meaning, you know. In the end, if that's what your metaphysics fundamentally is, which is what we've inherited from science, then it sure seems like any meaning or purpose is a projection onto nothing. And that's nihilism, right? I mean, I used to be a nihilist too, but then I, you know, thought there wasn't any point in it. So it stopped. But that's right, it's kind of a joke, but so it is like the despair phase of reaching the limits of the search for meaning and not finding it. And that surrender and that despair process that which has, you know, it's not just intellectual. Apparently, someone told me that the Vikings even had this, like in ancient Norse times, young people would go through a time of the ashes, where they would just like basically, you know, cover themselves in ashes in the longhouse or whatever, and just like not even get out of bed grappling with this existential despair. But there's something on the other side of it. That's what I wanted to say that is not irrational, but it cannot be found through reason. Other cultures had initiation experiences that would put you in touch with the transcended dimension of life, which also corresponds to, according to an author I used to read years and years ago, Joseph Chilton Piracy said it was corresponded to a phase of brain development that is not well recognized, at least it wasn't in the 80s. But that corresponds to the graduation into transcendent thinking, which is transpersonal as well. It understands being as more than separation, more than an individual. And therefore it corresponds to the discovery and embodiment of your purpose. Which, see, because part of the feeling, the nihilistic feeling of meaninglessness, it's like, what am I doing here? What's my purpose? Why am I here? What is a human being for? What am I for? And if there's no answer to that, and if the culture's only answer is to pretend that it's meaningful and to maximize your self-interest, that doesn't do it. That doesn't satisfy the quest, the question, the quest for the knowledge that you need to embody. So maybe if I could answer your first question, if I could speak to myself at 18, I would affirm, I'd say, your secret suspicion that you are here for something magnificent is true. That you are here to contribute to the unfolding of the magnificence of creation, to contribute to more life and more beauty in the world. And what I mean when I say magnificent, it doesn't mean, you know, famous or successful in the outward sense necessarily. But something like magnificent to you, something that makes you say, yeah, this is what I'm here to do. And so, you know, I had that suspicion. I think most young people have like this spark of knowledge that something tremendous is supposed to happen in my life. And there's something that's supposed to happen beyond, oh, I'm, you know, a fully capable adult now. There's another stage that's supposed to happen besides mastery of your material and social skills, and now I can make a living. No, you're not here to make a living. You know, you're here to live, not to make a living. You're not here to survive until your death. You're here to change the world. That's why you were born. And it doesn't need to be a huge big thing, but you're here to make an imprint. And the world is different than if you had not been here and different in a good way. And then that, yeah, that's what I would communicate to myself because it took me a long time and fighting a lot of fighting a lot of doubt, you know, and to come to that realization and maybe religions used to have that, you know, but the religions of our time have been gutted and replaced with kind of an anti-religion as you were saying of capital and science. Yeah, I can, that yearning that knowledge that there is meaning and the recognition that that meaning isn't found in a lot of what's been presented to us. Something I can see peeking through in a lot of places. I'm reminded when I was at the Green School for a few months, I remember a lot of the students were asking, like, why do our grades matter? Like, why should we care about this so much? You know, we're spending so many hours a day here doing what? And the teachers were basically like, well, your grades matter because it'll go into your transcript, which will go into your college application. And then that'll determine whether or not, you know, you can get a good job in the future. So you should really care about this. But they didn't really care. Almost nobody in my class, small class, 40 or 50 people, almost nobody cared, really. It was a performance and they knew that and they were looking for something to care about, something that really devote themselves to. But what we had there, yeah, it didn't fit. Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, that's kind of my cynical view of what school is for, it's to practice you in caring about things for, you know, external rewards. But I think, you know, this refusal to care, it's a healthy sign, you know, of your classmates in that school, that they maybe didn't even bother to enact the performance. We believed it a lot more when I was in high school. And maybe that was because I was in the, you know, gifted programs and stuff. But people really cared about the grades and they really believed that it was going to be their ticket to success. And this whole story of your transcript, a good school, you know, like that whole story of a life. But it just seems really bleak, doesn't it? And it violates this sense that we have, that we are here for something else. There's something else what you said though. Yeah. Dang it, sorry. My tongue. The performance, pretending to care. I'm going to have to put it down and it'll probably come back. Yeah, maybe, maybe it's that, oh yeah. Gosh, I have this thing where it's like just swimming in and out of your head. It drives you crazy to have like a valid intuition that is not affirmed or reinforced by the environment that you're in. Especially, you know, school, which these are supposed to be your mentors and your guides, you know, and wise adults who you put yourself in their hands for hours a day. And they are supposed to be teaching you how to be human. And if they deny like this absolutely core part of the human being, then it's really hard to. It's really confusing. And to be offered success of the individual as a substitute for what we really want also launches in some people an addictive pattern. Where you think that this thing that you're searching for, which is meaning to contribute meaningfully can be satisfied by, you know, outward measures of success. And it doesn't satisfy it. So then you need more of it and more of it and more of it. And this is what happens to, you know, a lot of highly quote successful people. They've made a billion dollars. And like they've done it, they've made it. Well, why aren't they happy now? Why aren't they fulfilled? Maybe another billion would do it. But often at some point they realize that no more billions are going to do it. And then they actually do start looking, you know, for what they really want, you know, some kind of authentic occupation. Oh, I know what I was going to say. Yeah, it's going back to your earlier point about the state of the world. You know, and there are a lot of despair narratives right now about the inevitability of catastrophic climate change, for example, or economic collapse or totalitarian takeover. Like all of these, you know, for whatever political identity you have, there is a despair narrative that will present itself to you. And these are poisonous. They are telling you that your desire to contribute to life and beauty on earth won't work. It'll be washed away in the flood of catastrophe that is inevitably facing us. So those narratives rob you of, they attempt to rob you of life, you know, and their invitation as well. If it's hopeless, then that and nothing you do is going to mean anything because it's going to be wiped away. So, so then you might as well conform, you might as well, you know, live hedonically, you know, conform to the program of individual fulfillment. And it's just like so bleak, you know, because they deny the possibility of what you're seeking. You know, I often just talk about the false assumptions that underlie those despair narratives, which basically require that we are helpless, separate individuals and what the and the changes you make don't matter. They that our only power to change lies in our ability to exercise a force on the world, which is a kind of scientific thinking, Newtonian thinking, you know, something moves when you exert a force. So the more force you can exert, the more you can move things, but you're just one person. And what can you do in the face of these enormous forces that that we face today, not much. So you're helpless, you're powerless. So you might as well just go home, you know, that whole line of thinking is very deeply ingrained in in scientific metaphysics, you know, in the metaphysics that underlie science. And again, it contradicts an intuitive knowing that that that the choices you make, especially those that are that are coming from love and from care for the people around you are significant. Like they feel significant, they feel important. They feel like the world will be better for those decisions or worse if you don't care for those who need your care around you. Right. It feels important in that moment. And so you have to override that feeling in order to. Well, you're asked to override that feeling man. In the logic of, you know, what difference is it going to make in the big picture? You're just one person and sea levels are going to wipe us all out, you know, rise 50 feet and destroy everything anyway. Right. I mean, like, what does it matter? Like, so it's contradicting that valid authentic recognition of what's important and how to live. And it's always about the source of meaning is always service to something beyond yourself always. That's not the only thing you should do in life because you have to receive an equal measure to what you give. But receiving does not give you does not fill the need for meaning. It fills other needs and it's important to absorb beauty to absorb pleasure to enjoy life, you know, to avail yourself of the wonders of creation. It's super important, but it won't fill the need for meaning. For that you have to give. Sorry, I went on a really long time there. Yeah, it's very true. What you said about, you know, like people when faced with these despair narratives, you know, some of them, they might feel like, well, you know, in the face of this huge coming calamity. Yeah, might as well just go home and keep, you know, conform whatever. I think a lot of people in my generation, maybe a bit older than me are kind of kind of resigning themselves to the world, you know, they explore a lot of radical ideologies. But then they enter the real world and they're like, well, that was fun. But now I have to worry about my taxes, you know, and maybe they do eventually, you know, pursue. Maybe American dream stream of someday having a house in the family. But they do that, having seen what that brings, you know, they do that maybe having been in a broken home, you know, family with an aggressive angry father with an emotionally repressed mother. They continue performing that they do it knowing that there's something better and they don't fully immerse themselves into it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like they don't fully believe in the dream. They don't believe in the promise. But there's not much of an alternative presented to them. Yeah, I'm just kind of putting, putting what you're saying in slightly different words. So they resign themselves to it, but without hope. And, and again, there's some see, but another thing is, like, people are trying different experiments, you know, different ways of, of making family of relationship of living together, which is hard in this country. I mean, even for such practical reasons as zoning regulations, you know, and, and just the physical infrastructure. But there are people who are at least creating temporary experiences and sometimes long term experiences of a different way. Like you, like you guys went to that conference at Twin Oaks, you know, and that would be an example. And, you know, we can't idealize those places. I mean, they tend to import all of the maladies of the surrounding society that are expressed in maybe some different form. But sometimes you can have an experience that affirms your belief, not only that the way that most Americans are living is. A recipe for misery, for addiction, for broken families, you know, for, for chronic disease, for poverty, for all that stuff. But also that there is another possibility that there's that, that, you know, it's a more beautiful world is possible. And we don't know how to get there, but it exists. And, yeah, like, you know, for many years, I, I said, here's maybe something that might be useful. I kind of hung back from fully participating in society, because I'm like, well, this is wrong. This isn't the kind of society I want to live in. I want to live in an ecovillage, you know, where, where it's normal for people to make long eye contact with each other and, and, and, you know, all and who are communicating in a masterful way and where we are beautifying and, and livening the land that we live on in right relationship and, and all of these things, you know, ecological, social. That's what I want. And this is nothing like that. So I'm not going to step in, you know, and I found myself hanging back from life for a long time. And, but unable really to stay back from life. I mean, you know, I didn't really have the skills or the means or the fortune to even try to, you know, start an ecovillage at age 25 or whatever. And even those end up being disappointing, often, if you really want perfection, you know. So eventually what I learned is that, yeah, like, I do have to step in maybe 90% in order to maybe pull the world 10% in the direction I want it to go. And that's like the point of that little movie I made, you know, the fall, that two minute film, you know, where they're standing on the brink of the pit of hell and seeing the suffering down there and they're like, okay, we're going to take the plunge, we're going to go down there to help. And, but when you do that, you become a person of that realm, subject to all of its limitations and, and, and immersed in its belief systems. And all you carry with you as you take that plunge is this like cellular memory of a possibility of a better world. And, and a deeply coded instruction set on how you can help move this world toward that more beautiful future. But, but it's a very deep, it's a, it's a, it's an unconscious code, you know, and here you are thrust into this world of wrongness where everything from birth to death is wrong in our society. You know, literally from birth, you know, the, the hospital birth setting and the medicalization of birth and the, the, I mean, the whole thing to the way that, you know, old people are, you know, put into nursing homes and cut off from community and, I mean, the whole thing, you know, in the, in the political campaign I'm involved in, I just like people are, you know, coming, sharing their knowledge, you know, about, I just got one today about Haiti, you know, and the horrible things that have been done in the name of philanthropy and Haiti and, and the US government's complicity in it, you know, and just the suffering of the people there and, and it's just so dark, you know, the whole thing. And at the same time, so much beauty springs up everywhere, even in the worst places. So much joy is still available. And anyway, yeah, so, so this is actually similar to, this is another piece of that, that intuitive knowledge that we stepped into. I jokingly call it the, you know, sixth or seventh circle of hell with a mission with a code to participate in its evolution. Yeah. Yeah, what you said about stepping in 90% and maybe you can pull it 10%. What I said earlier about people who resigned themselves, you know, to conforming. I think maybe while a lot of them do resign themselves to the material aspect of it, the material situation of nuclear home or capitalism or whatever, because they don't necessarily resign, resign themselves mentally. There are different ways of acting and thinking that are available from within those, those conditions. You know, maybe they live in a box with their family, but maybe they don't send their kid to public school, right. Right. Maybe they become a manager and, you know, the shop never got unionized, but maybe they don't believe in crushing a union with the, you know, same fierceness that their predecessors did. Or maybe they plant a garden, you know, and share the food with their neighbors, or maybe they do like one little piece that is of a more beautiful world. And, you know, spread that idea and normalize that and sow that seed in the collective. Yeah. And I'm just thinking about like when that kind of, you know, like my generation is, I think full of that, you know, full of like that yearning to make beauty. Even when it's in the midst of all this ugliness, and even when maybe materially it doesn't look like they can do a lot. And I don't know, I guess I'm excited to see us enter the world with, you know, with with that yearning and CS enter politics with that yearning and maybe see the details start to shift slowly. Yeah. You know, young people have always had that yearning. And but, you know, and they try to accomplish what their ideals ask of them, and they inevitably fail or seem to fail or accomplish just one half of 1% of it. But, you know, we've had hundreds of generations now. And they've built a platform of consciousness that you're standing on now. And you'll add your piece to like every, you know, this is like, this is a paradox here. I would like to say, as a partial truth, in a way, everything is getting better and better. Like that that ideology of science and technology, there is a kind of a truth in it that that because of the dedicated idealistic efforts of of invisible heroes generation after generation, embodying life to try to live and to try to make more life, we have actually evolved our consciousness. And none of that, none of that work has been in vain. You know, I think of my parents generation, you know, grandma, who, you know, from my perspective seemed, you know, like, like a beautiful, beautiful person, but not at the, you know, her ideas were not really revolutionary, you know, they were pretty run of the mill. But actually when she was 18, you know, and, and the guidance counselor said, well, you're very smart, you could become an executive secretary. You know, she was like, no, I'm going to be an attorney. You know, I'm going to like she went to Yale Law School and where there was like one of the first women ever to go. And it was like incredibly audacious. What was a breakthrough in consciousness at the time seems to us like, well, you know, half the people in law school or more now or medical school or their women, you know, what's the big deal like that wasn't. But no, that was radical, like the breakthrough that she made that is normalized now. And, you know, there's probably, you know, things about me that seem like pretty, you know, unexceptional and like, you know, yeah, dad, we get it dad, you know, but that in my time we're like really audacious, you know. And so in that sense, I think we are evolving at the same time as we are devolving. And losing a lot of our of our capacities are even our cognitive capacities and our strength of character, losing it to technology into a really dysfunctional sick system. Where just, you know, basic skills of being human are are eroding. So it's a paradox for me, like this, this some evolution and devolution at the same time. And I feel like it could kind of go either way, you know, we could be at the moment of a turnaround, or we could like one of the things is not guaranteed this evolution. It involves choices that we make, you know, the future in a sense does depend on your choices. You are powerful. It's not, you know, neither, neither catastrophe, you know, dystopia nor transcendence utopia are inevitable. There's there's an element of choice that presents itself to each generation. And if you believe and and trust that that is true, then you'll take the choice seriously. I can ask you a question, Philip. Sure. Yeah, so you asked me like, what would I say to the 18 year old version of myself? But I could turn the question around. Because, you know, the 18 year old version of myself, maybe new things that I've forgotten, you know. And so, you know, you've seen plenty of adults and how they live and how they think. What would you tell the 56 year old version of yourself? Like if you could speak into the future, what kind of things do you feel like that adults forget? That, you know, not that they become wiser and transcendent, but that they forget that they should keep in mind. You can you don't have to answer. Yeah, I would tell the 56 year old version of me not to forget what it's like to know nothing. About the world, about myself, or not to know nothing, but not to forget how rich and full of meaning and wonder everything is. Not to forget that it's all available to me to constantly drink in and feel an experience. Yeah. You know, I often notice that about babies, they're just like drinking it in, you know. And preconceived ideas about the world do not get in the way. Yeah. Yeah, I was, I'm writing now, just earlier today, an essay for my college application. There are kind of two ideas I'm working on, I think I'm going to write two and then and then decide which one I want to include. But one of them is on just the idea of deserving, you know, the idea that people embody some kind of moral value that determines how you should treat them. And kind of how that's used as a rationalization or justification for things in the world. And how does that come to exist? Because that's totally a human construction. You can't look at somebody's molecules or atoms or whatever and figure out whether or not they deserve to starve. Or if they have eaten while others have starved or if they have been generous, you know. It's just such an interesting and pervasive assumption. Yes, it's one of the habits of authoritarianism, you know, where what you get depends on, and not just authoritarianism, but also it's partly of humans as a social animal, you know, like where your needs are not just met by your own efforts, but by the society around you or the authorities who you have to please. You have to at least conform to social expectations. And a lot of, you know, ideas of morality are actually rituals of inclusion. You know, here's what you have to do to be accepted and included and then you deserve. And then we spiritualize that and imagine a God up there who meets out awards and punishments. And but in nature, you don't see that, you know, like, like the seagulls, you know, like if one of them could just like take from another one, you know, it'll just do it. You know, it doesn't care about deserving. Like in nature, I mean, it is those coyotes out here, you know, like, like they take what they can get. And if you if you're like, well, one of them is like, well, that would be really mean. So I'm not going to do that because I know that God will provide for me, you know, even if I don't go and take that, you know, other coyotes, that other coyotes food. This is by a really bad example. Pack animals and probably share a lot. But you know what I mean? Like there's no like extra material, like non-material arbiter of your behavior that says, well, you deserve and you do not deserve. And yeah, this is like woven into religion. And it can be, I think, really helpful to shed that idea. The only part of it that I think is that I wouldn't shed too quickly is this connection. I mean, also, you know, with with being a good member of society, but there's another way to look at that, which is through the lens of gift and generosity and gratitude. And, you know, those those who in a healthy society, those who are generous and give to others will receive from others because they'll be grateful to you. And you could translate that into the language of deserving, but that's not really what's going on. You know, yeah. Yeah, I was going to say that like deserving has some use, you know, when it's good and positive and it is an alignment with, you know, what your soul wants. But that's only an aspect of deserving, right? As long as you have the idea of people who are deserving of whatever, then you also leave the door open for people to be undeserving of whatever just because, you know. And then I think, you know, you start getting away from the kind of the situations in which deserving can really speak to your soul. For me, it gets really pathological sometimes where I'm like, I'm like, OK, like one of my greatest pleasures right now is I do a cold plunge my cold plunge tub. I get really cold. And then I get in a hot bath and just bliss out, you know, put headphones on, you know, and listen to music. And I'll just bliss out, you know, and just I'm just feeling so good, you know, and but like if I have not been productive that day, I'll be like, well, I don't really deserve to do that. I feel like like and and and how much do I have to do to actually deserve it? There's like almost no limit. Because, you know, how can I, you know, relax in the bathtub right now when there are, you know, Palestinian children whimpering in a basement and I might be able to do something. Like how could I how could I meet their gaze and say, well, while you are whimpering in a basement hiding from bombs as your family got blown up. You know, like I get this this like, you know, and it's not like I those are not the words in my head, but it's like this. That would be like an exact like an exaggeration of like this deep feeling of I've never done enough. And and I think that maybe comes from a an abuse of deservingness by, you know, my upbringing by society. I'm not blaming my parents here, you know, they were just, you know, they just channeled social attitudes and resisted them to some extent that this is everywhere, you know, in school. Even the idea of a dessert. So, but it kind of got into me where, like, I've never done enough to for what to deserve the good things. Yeah. Yeah, that I feel like everybody deserves everything and nothing. No, nobody. Everybody, you know, has eaten while another is starved. But also everybody has been denied the treasure of kings, right. And so, because you can, you can say that anybody deserves, you know, the highest praise or reward and also the worst punishment. And so if your only reason for doing something or feeling some way is that you deserve that or somebody deserves that, I think that's an indication that you should maybe examine it from a couple more perspectives. Yeah. Yeah. And this gets into new age, new age ideology too, where when when good things happen to you, it's like, well, that's because I've been thinking positive thoughts, you know, and it's good karma, you know, I have generated good karma, you know, and I deserve my good fortune. No. You know, there are some of the world's worst psychopaths and assholes who are at the pinnacle of society, and they have a yacht, you know, and a second home, you know, on the beach in Hawaii and so forth. There's the thing in the Bible, the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. And I do think that this, you know, and then on the other side, bad things happen to you, you have misfortune, and it's like, okay, what's wrong with me? You know, what am I being punished for? And you might have done something that generates the misfortune, like it could be that, you know, you got lung cancer because you were smoking two packs a day of cigarettes, you know, but that doesn't mean you're being punished for a moral transgression by getting cancer, you know. Yeah. Yeah. We don't understand why things happen, and we try to make meaning out of it, try to make sense of it. And those meanings can carry us for a while, but at some point, you know, everyone will, will, will hit a life initiation moment where you just cannot make sense of what is, what is, what is happening. And maybe that puts you back into that place you just talked about, Phillip, of not knowing, you know, it's like this return to the youthful place that you want to, that you are asking us to remember. Do you think you've, do you think you've inherited any of my hang up around, you know, not allowing myself good things because I don't deserve it? I tried not to pass it on to you, but, you know, these things come out consciously. Yeah, I think, I think I did when I was younger, you know, sometimes I would want to have candy. But then I was like, Oh, I shouldn't have candy, you know, like I should do something first so that I can have the candy, you know, like I should put away some dishes or whatever. And, you know, it always feel like I have to ask if it's okay for me to have a sweet, you know, I have to make sure that it's okay and that I'm not, I'm not being bad for it. And I think I kept that attitude a little bit. But then I began to shut it. And then I read the Ursula K. Le Guin book The Dispossessed. And that really turned my idea of deserving and participating in society and like ethics and morality on its head. And then I began to question things a lot more. Yeah, yeah, I think it's actually, I do my best not to manipulate children with rewards, because it tends to replace intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation and, and, you know, cuts them off from a sense of what they actually want. But, you know, it's, it's even in our language, you know, like, again, the word desserts, it's what you deserve to have because you had a good dinner. And yeah, like, I think if like there were definitely times where I'm like, no, we're not having ice cream, you didn't even eat your, you didn't even eat your dinner, you know. Yeah, I'm reminded now of school again. When I was in first and second grade, I had a teacher, I think her name was Marilyn. And I didn't know this really at the time, but she would kind of grade my homework and stuff. Maybe not too accurately, I'd get some questions wrong, but she'd give me an A, you know. And boy, I had so much fun learning in her class, and I had such a great attitude towards learning. But then I went into third grade, and I had a different teacher. And then I started really caring and stressing about my homework, you know, because my grade, I was looking for the approval of my teacher, who would only give it to me in the form of a grade if I had gotten certain questions right. Whereas before I got approval just because I was such a wonderful, happy little boy. Even though my grades did not reflect my work, I was so much more motivated to learn. Right. And this is, you know, returning to the topic of what is school for. That's, you know, I mean, that's the example. That's a perfect example of replacing intrinsic with extrinsic motivation and making kids hate learning, you know, because the underlying assumption is you don't really want to be doing this. You're only doing this because of a grade, because if you don't get a good grade, your life is going to suck. So, and you're not going to get my approval, you know, the approval of these adult authority figures. So you lose yourself then. And I mean, what a ringing indictment of our society that kids hate school. Like, they don't want to go to school. They hate learning. And the only thing they like about school is recess, you know, I mean, they still want to go because that's where the other kids are. But like to hate learning, I mean, that, I mean, that's what kids are supposed to do is learn, you know. Yeah. And so what's going on there. I think part of it is that this conditioning to do things you don't really care about because you're bribed or threatened by approval, which is a ticket to for a child, the approval of adults is the acceptance that keeps you safe and keeps you fed. Like baby mammals are terrified of parental rejection. That's the worst thing that can happen to you. So this mammalian instinct is leveraged to control kids, but it cuts them off for themselves. And then they grow up and they are already accustomed to denying that impulse that we were talking about the whole time of, of doing something meaningful that serves society, that serves the world, that contributes to life and beauty. Because they're, they're so conditioned to doing things for the rewards and avoidance of punishment that's, that is meted out by manipulative authorities. And so a lot of what we're about here, and maybe, maybe one of the missions of your generation is to reclaim, reclaim your authentic purpose and desire. And it's interesting that you, that, that you were, you were, you know, in that, if that's true, then our starting point about nihilism, which is the denial of purpose, which also flattens desire, is significant. You know, if that is, if, if, if, if maybe part of the mission of your generation is to reclaim purpose and desire, then it would make sense that the condition from which that reclamation comes would be the denial of purpose and desire. Kind of all fits together. And that actually is a pretty good completion of the circle here. Do you want to, do you want to put the dot in the center of the circle, Phillip, in the next couple of minutes? I'm not sure I understand what that means. I was, I'm just saying like, like we kind of came full circle and we've been on it for an hour. But if there's something else you want to, is there like one more piece I'm just saying? Oh, yeah. I was actually just thinking that, yeah, a minute or two ago too. And I think I, I covered, I mean, I didn't come in fully knowing what I wanted to talk about, but I think we hit upon most, most of the things, yeah, that I was itching to express and to hear your thoughts on. We can do it again sometime too. Yeah, I hope I wasn't being too like, I don't know, I feel like I kind of dominated the conversation a lot. If you're satisfied with it, then I feel, I feel good about it. Yeah, I'm definitely satisfied with it. I'm definitely, you know, like I mentioned, I, what I don't want to lose when I'm 56. It's something that I really value. In most conversations, you'll find me, if I'm not like talking about some hobby or interest or TV show or whatever. In conversations that I think are really rich, you'll find me listening more than speaking. Kind of for that reason, there's just so much in the world. And I love listening to it all. Yeah, I've noticed that about you, of course. All right, Phillip, do you want to, yeah, anything else you want to tell our listeners and watchers? By yourself, or where can we find your website? You don't have a website, nothing like that. No. No. I guess maybe I'll shout out Sudbury schools. They allowed me the freedom to explore a lot of the ideas and find a lot of the information that has brought me to where I am right now, that I maybe would not have otherwise been able to devote so much time and resource to if I were in a public school. Yeah. Yes. Great. Yep, you and Matthew and Jimmy all spent significant time at Sudbury model schools. Yeah, and I'm grateful for those two. All right. Yeah, thanks, Phillip. This was a great idea. I'd love to thank mom. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure she'll be psyched to watch it too. Yeah.