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unexplained appearances. It was

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grow from rails. Am.

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Com. The loser our say thank you.

2:04

Everyone is that. I'm looking back to

2:07

rethinking my podcast and the science of

2:09

what makes us tick with its head

2:11

audio collective. I'm an organizational psychology and

2:13

his new inside the minds of fascinating

2:16

people. food for new songs and new

2:18

ways to think. It's. By

2:23

guess today's David Duchovny, you probably know

2:25

invest As an actor, he went Golden

2:27

Globes for his starring roles in the

2:29

X Files in California Cases, and had

2:31

iconic appearances in A Blender and A

2:34

Chance, But he's also the best selling

2:36

author of for novels and a screen

2:38

writer, director, and singer songwriter. and he's

2:40

been the subject of a songs and

2:42

unusually catchy one by Breeze Sharp. Witted

3:17

new film is backing of thing that.

3:20

And. His the host of a new podcast

3:22

fail better there were going to talk about

3:24

failure. David.

3:27

Let me start by asking, you did you

3:29

wake up one morning and think. I

3:31

know what the world needs. Another

3:33

podcast Lox were first hey I'm

3:35

the only person in the world

3:37

without a test so I guess

3:39

I should have one of the

3:41

big Samuel Beckett fan cause big

3:43

fan of failure in a weird

3:45

way. not in a in a

3:47

sudden Friday way. not no way

3:49

of i go you fucker you

3:51

failed but more just like. The

3:54

bittersweet and services you man the of because

3:56

we all go through it brother and sister

3:59

hood of it. And

4:01

I said if I'm going to have

4:03

a partisan talk to people, can I

4:05

talk number failure? Can we release some

4:08

shame around failure? Can we talk about

4:10

resilience? And we looked around and we

4:12

saw there are these by tests which

4:15

I find objectionable. They're all about business

4:17

failure and ah or how I started

4:19

one business and then I'd learned from

4:21

my cellar and now my crypto billionaire

4:24

or cycle. That's not what I'm interested

4:26

in. and all I'm not. I'm not

4:28

interested in making money or talking about

4:30

people making money. So. The

4:33

yeah, I guess we figured we

4:36

sell into a place that hadn't

4:38

quite been tried over so many

4:40

times. And in the world of

4:42

access, there will definitely be people

4:44

wondering what is a successful actor,

4:46

filmmaker, novelist, Princeton Summa Grad possibly

4:49

know about failure? We. Can

4:51

go through the world thinking that words

4:53

correspond reality one sacked it's just an

4:55

illusion. We both decided to believe. And.

4:58

Therefore, anything I feel saying.

5:03

Move inside. Has. To

5:05

be translated into words and is

5:07

already failed. There's already been a

5:09

failure on the way and them

5:11

for me. That's the heart of

5:13

it. You know it's not a psycho that book

5:15

did well. or that book got reviewed well, or

5:17

that performance got reviewed well. or that movie bombed.

5:21

His. Sister this sense of human

5:23

expression for me. whether it's acting

5:25

director in writing by music, Whatever

5:28

that the inspiration has to be

5:30

translated into the human expression. and

5:33

there's a failure that happens immediately,

5:35

and that's how you navigate that

5:37

that makes you a better or

5:40

of a less vile artist. I

5:42

think. That's. Fascinating. When you first

5:44

are describing that, I thought you were going

5:46

to talk about the game of telephone that

5:49

we end up playing were what you've expressed

5:51

is not what I hear, but you're talking

5:53

about have a much earlier failure as what's

5:55

in your header in your experience not being

5:57

translated accurately and a language. Can.

6:00

I mean, language is an approximation. As

6:02

an organizational psychologist, I spent most of

6:04

my career studying professional success and failure.

6:07

I'd love to hear about what you think is your

6:10

biggest professional failure and how you dealt with it. Failure

6:13

has so many different aspects

6:15

to it. You could call it a box office

6:17

failure. You could call it an artistic failure.

6:20

You could call it an editing

6:22

failure, a scoring failure, an audience

6:24

failure, a timing failure. I

6:27

did a movie called House of D

6:29

that I wrote and directed and acted in,

6:31

in like 2000, I don't know,

6:33

three or four. And it was

6:35

not well received. It was

6:38

a very different thing for me to do because

6:40

I was coming off of this

6:42

global hit of

6:45

The X-Files, like a generational television

6:47

show. There really

6:49

is no comparison to the breadth

6:51

of the audience that

6:53

it found globally. And the

6:56

movie I made was very small, very personal,

6:58

and just a

7:00

coming-of-age movie. And

7:03

I just think it

7:05

was confusing. When House of

7:08

D didn't do well, the

7:10

failure was very personal to

7:12

me because I was being authentic with it.

7:15

In retrospect, I can see that I was

7:17

dooming myself, but I

7:19

had no other expressive

7:21

or artistic choice at the time because I

7:23

was coming out of being

7:26

associated with this huge show. And I was

7:28

like, well, here's what I want to do.

7:30

This is my vision. This is

7:33

the kind of stuff that I want to do.

7:36

And people didn't want it. It

7:39

seems that, at least from a commercial

7:41

perspective, you come out of The X-Files

7:43

and nothing you possibly do

7:46

could ever be that successful again. Right.

7:50

It hurt a lot. And it hurt

7:52

a lot for a while. And it

7:54

still hurts to this day, not like

7:56

it did, but it

7:59

lives on. in that way in many

8:01

ways. So how have you dealt

8:03

with that over the last two decades? Well,

8:07

I just kept working for one. I

8:10

didn't give up. I just

8:12

kept moving forward. I tried to

8:14

look at whatever lessons, critical

8:16

lessons I might learn from it as

8:18

a craftsman, as a maker of things.

8:21

Hard to do in the moment when you're smarting

8:23

and leading. I

8:26

tried to look at

8:28

my willfulness in making a

8:31

small movie after coming off such a big show.

8:34

I tried to look at my contrariness. But

8:37

other than that, it's just like, okay, well, I

8:39

know what I was trying to do. And

8:42

I know as a first time filmmaker that

8:44

I was gonna make some missteps

8:46

and I could see those. And I

8:49

learned so much just in the doing of it

8:52

that I had more confidence no matter what

8:54

happened afterwards. And

8:57

if I do things for the right reasons, which

8:59

I don't always do, and I'm aware when I'm

9:01

doing things for the wrong reasons, but if I

9:03

do certain things for the right reasons,

9:05

then whatever happens,

9:07

it's okay. I'm

9:10

reminded of some recent work in psychology suggesting that

9:12

one of the reasons it's so hard for many

9:14

of us to take failure and criticism is we

9:17

immediately focus on feeling better, as

9:20

opposed to asking, how can I do better? And

9:23

when you wanna feel better, what I think most of us

9:26

instinctively do is we say, okay, I'm

9:28

gonna distract myself. I'm

9:30

gonna avoid the pain altogether. And then we

9:32

fail to learn the lessons. It

9:34

sounds like you didn't do that. I

9:36

felt like I'd been punched in the stomach, but

9:40

I also had young kids and they didn't

9:42

give a fuck. Nobody that

9:44

loved me really cared. So

9:46

there were people around me, I'm not talking

9:48

about an illusory bubble of people telling me

9:51

I'm fantastic, but it was just people telling

9:53

me there are other things in life. I

9:56

don't know what the lesson is ever except

9:58

that failure just

10:01

opens up other doors,

10:03

if only because it makes you think

10:05

in different ways. Success is a terrible

10:08

thing to happen to anybody. Easy

10:10

to say as a successful person, isn't it? It

10:14

is, yeah. And it's somewhat

10:16

glib, of course. But

10:18

in terms of what

10:21

you learn as a person about life

10:23

or about your soul or about anything,

10:25

success is not a teacher. Success

10:27

is something else. I think it's

10:29

fair to say that the winner's curse is real, that

10:32

oftentimes success makes people complacent. It

10:35

sounds like one of your lessons from failure is not

10:38

to put all your eggs in one identity basket. That's

10:41

certainly my nature. One

10:43

of the blessings of being a performer

10:46

is you get to do different jobs all the time.

10:48

And then if you add to that other expressive

10:52

aspects like fiction writing or

10:54

music or whatever, then I

10:56

have all these ways in which to

10:58

fail, but also all these places where

11:00

I'm learning something. I'm 50, whatever, and

11:03

I'm learning something, and

11:06

my brain feels like it's 19 or 20. I

11:09

know it's not. And I know I

11:12

can't ever be as good a guitar player as

11:14

if I had started when I was young. But

11:17

to get to do

11:19

something that's in my beginner's mind, that

11:22

phrase, I'm reminded of that all the

11:24

time. The fountain of youth on

11:26

the inside, it's just like, oh my God, I'm

11:28

so excited to do this really

11:30

simple thing. It's new to

11:34

me. I think this

11:36

is for a lot of people part of the

11:38

appeal of a portfolio career, that

11:40

if you have a range of different projects going,

11:43

you don't end up over invested in any

11:45

one of them. That's the

11:47

first time I've ever heard that phrase

11:49

portfolio career. And

11:51

I kind of want to hate it, just to be honest.

11:54

What do you hate about it? I hate

11:56

that it's a strategy, when it's

11:58

something like... I

12:01

feel like I just kind

12:03

of intuited my way through it. I mean,

12:05

I don't know how you can actually strategize

12:07

a portfolio career. You either want to do

12:09

multiple things or you don't. Okay,

12:12

this goes to something else I wanted to ask you

12:14

about, which is I wanted to get a sense of

12:16

how you decide a role or a project is worth

12:18

doing. I think one of my

12:20

favorite moments in your career arc, as I know

12:22

it, was when you landed in Zoolander as a

12:24

hand model. Which might be

12:27

my favorite David Duchovny role of all time, just

12:29

because it was so unexpected. Yeah. And

12:32

so hilariously deadpan. Why

12:34

did you want to be in it? What did you see

12:36

in Zoolander? Because I don't think it was expected to be

12:38

a big hit. It was relatively low budget. It was not

12:41

heralded. What did you notice there? Well,

12:43

it was never a hit. It came out

12:47

a week or two after 9-11. So

12:49

it didn't do great business at

12:51

first. It didn't do much business

12:54

at all. It was just in the afterlife of

12:56

movies that it became a cult

12:58

thing and then the hit that it is

13:01

in people's minds. What did

13:03

I see? I mean, I just really

13:05

liked what Ben was doing. And for

13:07

me, it was very important, again, reacting

13:10

to coming off the X-Files or

13:12

ending the X-Files. I wanted

13:14

to do comedy. And I wanted to exist in

13:16

the comedy world. So I was like, here's

13:19

that world. It wasn't the kind of

13:21

comedy that I would ever write or ever conceive of,

13:25

but I thought I can play in that sandbox.

13:28

There was even like a love of language in my

13:30

character that I really responded to. Zoolander

13:33

says, but you're a model. And I

13:36

say something like, I'm

13:40

a finger jockey. A

13:43

finger jockey. We don't think the

13:45

same way the face and body boys do.

13:47

But like finger jockey to me, I'd go

13:50

anywhere with that writer. Somebody who

13:52

came up and pulled

13:54

a hand model of finger jockey, that's

13:56

a comedic mind that's working in

13:58

language. And I was like, yeah. It

14:01

must have been after watching the chair and

14:04

seeing you play that hysterical caricature of yourself

14:06

that I wondered how much of that is

14:08

real and I looked up

14:10

your backstory, had no idea that you'd been

14:12

a PhD student in English literature at Yale.

14:16

Yeah. Why? Why

14:18

were you there? Why did you walk away without

14:20

finishing your dissertation? That's a question

14:22

my mom asked me until she died. I

14:26

thought not being a gambler by nature, I

14:28

thought, well, if I get a PhD, I'll

14:30

have a job. If

14:33

I can get tenure, I'll really have a job

14:36

and then I'll have three or four months

14:38

off a year. So that's why I

14:40

was in graduate school. I couldn't be

14:42

a pro basketball player. That would have been my first

14:44

choice. I couldn't be a doctor. I

14:47

didn't want to be a lawyer. You

14:49

talk about strategy. That was my strategy was

14:52

find a way to make a

14:55

living that

14:57

affords me the freedom and time

14:59

to pursue a life

15:02

of creative writing. Why

15:05

did you then abandon it? I always

15:07

knew that my heart wasn't in it in a way.

15:09

I always knew that I could do it and I

15:11

think I was a decent teacher, but

15:14

I knew I wasn't going to be a great

15:16

literary critic. There were just people around

15:18

me who were better and

15:20

I knew it wasn't authentic to me.

15:23

Something called me that

15:26

that would be like a death in life in

15:28

a way and that's no criticism of criticism. That's

15:30

no knock on academia at

15:32

all. It's more of a knock on me. Why

15:36

did your mom want you to finish? Because

15:38

my mom grew up in a

15:40

small town of Scotland where nobody went to

15:43

college in a class system,

15:46

Great Britain in the early 20th

15:49

century. The only way

15:51

for a person to advance out of

15:53

those circumstances was education. That's

15:56

the vision that she had for

15:59

her kids even though the world had changed and

16:01

America was a little different than

16:04

the circumstances in which she grew up. For

16:06

her, that's what a poor person could do

16:08

with hard work, was be a

16:12

knowledgeable person. And it was also

16:14

just, you know, finish what you started. That's a

16:16

parental thing. You started that thing. Finish it, you

16:18

know. And I

16:20

think it would take me years. It would take

16:22

me years unless the idea really excited me. I

16:25

don't think it would be a good use of my time. No,

16:27

I think the opportunity cost goes up quite a

16:30

bit over time. You

16:32

found an alternate path to

16:34

get the creative freedom you wanted. So

16:37

why invest in something that six people

16:39

might read? Well, what's

16:41

interesting about the dissertation that never was,

16:43

it was called, the

16:46

thing that doesn't exist, is called

16:48

magic and technology and contemporary American

16:50

fiction and poetry. And

16:53

when I think about my subsequent years

16:55

as an actor, whatever you think

16:57

about, even the X-Files, magic and

16:59

technology kind of fits into

17:01

that area. And I think now that

17:04

everybody's concerned with AI and all that,

17:06

what I thought I was going to

17:09

be writing about in the dissertation was

17:11

how magic was a primitive technology. Magic

17:13

was how people did things that technology

17:15

now does for us. Fly through the

17:17

air, turn water into wine, do

17:19

all these things that magicians and

17:22

prophets used to do with their

17:24

magic. But there

17:26

was always a sense of good magic and

17:28

bad magic. And

17:30

there was a moral to magic. Dr.

17:32

Faustus, you know, he made a deal with the

17:35

devil for that power. But

17:37

with technology, there was never a weapon.

17:39

There's never been a weapon that the

17:42

human race has created that hasn't been

17:44

employed, right? So there's never been a

17:46

sense in which somebody says to technology,

17:49

you know, toasts are bad. And I

17:51

was saying that these creative writers, these

17:53

novel poets that I was going to

17:55

be writing about, were actually looking at

17:57

technology and trying to discuss it in ways.

18:00

that were prophetically morally

18:02

judged, like we're trying

18:05

to do with AI now. So

18:07

your non-dissertation of the 80s

18:09

was anticipating the moral

18:11

technological dilemmas of the 2020s? You

18:15

could say that, but since it was never written, you

18:17

really can't say that. Hey,

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Canva. David,

19:34

let's move to a lightning round. You ready?

19:37

I think so. Okay, first question. What

19:39

is the worst career advice you've ever gotten?

19:42

Take an auditioning class. That

19:44

was bad advice? Yeah. Why?

19:47

Auditioning isn't acting. What is it?

19:49

Is it selling? It is. What

19:52

is your favorite X-Files character? Who

19:56

is your favorite X-Files character? Yeah.

19:58

Or what? Could go

20:00

either way. The fluke man are wonderful.

20:02

Writer Dan Morgan played a six foot

20:05

and test them warm. I

20:08

did not anticipate that as

20:10

a gets what is something

20:12

that you've been rethinking lately.

20:15

The. Magic antagonizing contemporary American

20:17

fiction Poetry. To

20:20

say. What's.

20:23

The question you have for me as a psychologist. Can

20:26

we Really? Find

20:28

solutions to talking. When

20:31

most of our emotional life and

20:34

chemical life has some verbal. Sick.

20:36

For a question. Yes,

20:41

That's a great answer. Selfless. It's leave us

20:43

much as a kid can we get it

20:45

perfectly? based on what I know about. How

20:48

you think? Are you ever going to be

20:50

satisfied? With. The.

20:53

The amount of slippage that exists

20:55

between or of sub conscious experience

20:57

in our conscious expression probably not.

20:59

Can we get closer? I

21:01

think yes. Because.

21:03

I. Have this! Fundamental.

21:07

Intuitive sense of failure between.

21:09

The. Expression and the execution. I'm not

21:12

a perfectionist, and I'm quite happy with

21:14

the stabbed that I make in the

21:16

dark. I. Think that's a

21:18

healthy attitude. There's a buyer of research

21:20

on what's called referential processing, which is

21:22

how fluidly you translate images into words

21:24

and vice versa. So I think a

21:26

master would be an art critics for

21:28

example, and I have noted that ability

21:30

I can go to a museum, stared

21:32

a painting, and I came come up

21:34

with the word, but when we added

21:36

we both know people who are gifted

21:38

of that, and I would say if

21:40

we study how those people do, it

21:43

is probably more of a teachable skill

21:45

than than we realize and image. Maybe

21:47

that is. In some sense

21:49

that the forgotten and soon to be

21:51

rediscovered value of the humanities they're gonna

21:53

help people build that skill and say

21:56

look if you're increasing the artificial intelligence

21:58

is gonna is gonna handle. Lot

22:00

of the the processing of information that

22:02

we used to have to do ourselves

22:05

on what left for humans to do

22:07

uniquely. or one thing that's left is

22:09

for us to be able to access

22:11

experiences that A I can't have left.

22:14

And. Figure out how to articulate them. As

22:17

very sad. if a I don't know,

22:19

I think I think it's kind of

22:22

interesting. I agree with you. but if

22:24

it's sad to think we're pushing ourselves

22:26

out of existence or or utility. but

22:28

I totally agree with you as a.

22:31

Creative. Person. I'm not very much

22:33

afraid of a I don't think I

22:35

will ever. Make a masterpiece.

22:38

And. Even if it did, I just wouldn't

22:40

care that much. And the evidence of

22:43

it not being a masterpiece of in fact that she

22:45

didn't care that much. But. Then again,

22:48

Masterpieces slippery weren't. It

22:50

certainly as as the to about the

22:53

Watson created horror movie trailers to be

22:55

seen as no effort. Caitlyn? maybe twenty

22:57

eighteen or twenty nineteen. So before the

22:59

generative at to a I waved it's

23:02

picked up the last year and. They.

23:04

Work Schilling I can not believe

23:07

that they were created by an

23:09

algorithm. I'm actively but as soon

23:11

as I found out and s.

23:13

At a really want to watch this I want to

23:15

be scared by a person, the nervous. I

23:17

don't want to denigrate. The. Car

23:19

and isn't like that but I guess

23:22

something that makes it is bread and

23:24

butter by scaring the shit out. A

23:26

probably. Is more

23:28

easily attainable by an algorithm

23:30

and something that as a

23:32

more complicated. Yeah,

23:37

I I love division. For

23:39

this film. You. Have a

23:41

character Ted who's trying to reconnect

23:44

with his father has a huge

23:46

Red Sox fan in the nineteen

23:48

seventies. basically in order to salvage

23:50

their relationship and his father's failing

23:52

health. Ted. Sort

23:55

of creates an illusion that the Red Sox

23:57

are winning. Well. As a reason

23:59

that. Does this is because his

24:01

father is dying of cancer, but

24:04

he is convinced. That.

24:06

He can't die until the Red Sox win it

24:08

all. and the Sox are doing very well that

24:10

year. So he thinks he's going to die at

24:13

the end of that year, but he's going to

24:15

live until that happens. And

24:18

his health seems to start

24:20

to suffer as the socks

24:22

begin to choke back there

24:24

leave. And so his son.

24:27

In order to try to keep his house.

24:30

Starts. Faking the outcomes in the

24:32

hopes that the sauce to come back

24:34

eventually and he can bring his father

24:36

back into the real world. But for

24:39

me, the movies about failure the socks

24:41

at least until the two thousands were

24:43

the epitome of a failed franchise. and

24:45

there was even a backstory that they

24:48

had traded away the greatest player to

24:50

ever play Babe Ruth to the aggies

24:52

and they were cursed. And they were

24:55

losers. The movement of the film. Is

24:58

really about. Loving the

25:00

losers because we're all losers. Ultimately, we

25:02

all die. That's the final boss, But

25:04

we all go through heart ache, will

25:07

go through loss. And.

25:09

That's what joins the songs. Very similar

25:11

to the podcast idea and I have

25:13

many ideas but I can spread them

25:15

out over different formats and make it

25:17

look like I got a few. The

25:21

other. Aspect of the film

25:23

that was interesting to me as a

25:25

as a writer was this idea of

25:27

of changing narrative focus. The Father: he's

25:30

trying to write the story of his

25:32

life. He's trying to change the story

25:34

of his life. He's been the victim.

25:37

He's been the villain. He's

25:39

been the scapegoat. And.

25:42

He wants to die a hero. You

25:44

know, and it's the same story. But

25:47

it's a different way of telling it,

25:49

and I think that's something that I've

25:52

come to later in life. As said,

25:54

you know we can all share the

25:56

same facts. about

25:58

ourselves But

26:01

real mental health and spiritual health

26:03

and even physical health comes from the way in

26:05

which we tell the stories of our lives to

26:08

ourselves and to those around us. And I'm not

26:10

talking about lying. I'm

26:12

talking about telling a story in a way

26:14

that benefits the most people. It

26:17

seems to me that there is such a thing as

26:19

objective failure. Your team loses the

26:21

game. A surgeon

26:23

fails to save a patient on the operating

26:26

table. But most

26:28

failures in life are subjective. You

26:30

created a goal, which is a fiction. It's

26:33

an expectation of how things are going to go, which

26:35

has your hopes and dreams built into it. And

26:39

then you fall short of that expectation, which

26:41

was just in your imagination, and you count

26:43

that experience of failure. And

26:46

then to your point, people end up telling themselves

26:48

all kinds of lies to convince themselves that they

26:50

didn't fail. When to me,

26:52

so many of those failures were actually in

26:55

the expectations that were set to begin with. I'll

26:58

give you a quick personal example on this

27:00

one. During COVID, I wrote the most read

27:02

New York Times article of the year. And

27:06

I didn't set out to do it. I was

27:08

trying to name this experience of languishing that people

27:11

were going through of feeling empty and sort

27:13

of stuck. And when the

27:15

article went viral, I immediately knew I

27:18

will never write an article that's successful ever again. I'm

27:21

a psychologist. I don't write op-eds for a

27:23

living. And if I set myself the goal

27:25

of having the most successful article of the

27:27

year, I'm going to feel like a failure

27:29

with every subsequent article I write. So

27:32

I sat down and said, I have to redefine my

27:34

goals. If I get an idea out there that helps

27:36

somebody, that matters much more than the number of people

27:39

it reaches. And

27:41

in doing that, I feel like I'm protecting myself

27:43

from the arbitrary feeling of failure every time I

27:45

release an article that falls short. So

27:48

that's, I guess, my reflection on the fiction

27:50

of failure. How do you react

27:52

to that? And do you play the same game? There's

27:55

a saying that goes expectations are future

27:57

resentments. And I Think that that's... The

28:00

good rule to live by. Hard not to

28:02

have expectations but the tricky and they can

28:04

be dangerous. You. Wrote an

28:06

article that was authentic. It came from.

28:10

A need. He. Set out to

28:12

communicate something authentically and that must

28:14

have been. And it's Dna and

28:16

I would say that helps. It

28:18

gets a widely disseminated because you

28:20

didn't have an angle on it.

28:22

He didn't set out to be

28:24

popular. It just

28:26

it just reminds me a lot of what

28:28

I was time earlier in of there is

28:31

no way to ever have a success like

28:33

the Exiles It it. It doesn't happen. Can't

28:35

happen. Certainly not gonna happen to me. but

28:37

I don't think everybody else either. I mean

28:39

it's us, we're in a different. World

28:41

now in terms of consensus

28:43

and culture And that way

28:45

so. To. Play That game is just

28:48

a losing game. And you gotta

28:50

figure out. My friend Gary sailing said

28:52

i think he made it up but it's a

28:54

really good phrase which is he said people as

28:56

a nice guys finish last don't know where the

28:59

finish line as but it's kind of like you

29:01

gotta know where the finish line is you know?

29:03

and it's not. The day

29:05

after you had the most popular article and

29:08

it's not the day after he had the

29:10

least popular is a continuum. The you have

29:12

to keep your eye on the past and

29:14

the horizon while living in the present, which

29:16

is difficult, but you do it. People.

29:19

Who say nice guys finish last, don't know

29:21

where the finish line is. Yeah.

29:23

He like that as profound as the

29:25

system. That was

29:28

Garry Shandling Man, he was a genius.

29:30

To tell me what that means to

29:32

you is my first reaction to it

29:34

is yeah, yeah, you're focusing too much

29:36

on a short term outcomes. and

29:38

to little on long term character. I've

29:40

never really tried to unpack it. I just

29:42

heard it knows like true. And.

29:44

Like. To. Think about where

29:46

is the finish line? And. One's life.

29:49

It's not death. In. That's

29:51

not what he means. it's. Something. Else.

29:54

To. Me it, it signals. Let's think about

29:56

what really counts as opposed to as easy

29:58

to count. know. Well.

30:00

As as I reflect on a couple

30:02

of the arsonist conversation, it seems to

30:05

me that a mix of success and

30:07

failure however you define it. Is

30:10

more of a life well lived. Than.

30:12

A life of just. Accumulating

30:14

and accelerating successes because as

30:17

much as success gratifies, it

30:19

seems that failures the better

30:21

motivator and a better teacher.

30:24

Will so success alienates. You

30:27

know sets you apart. In

30:29

a failure gives you many brothers

30:32

and sisters, and failure creates empathy

30:34

failure should and gender empathy. I

30:36

think I'm in our country now.

30:39

Failure and genders mockery. And that's

30:41

one of the things that I

30:43

wanted to kind of. Address

30:46

With the podcast and the movie

30:48

and the novel Bucky Fucking that

30:50

you know it's really our inability

30:52

to accept our own failures that

30:54

makes us such as Saddam Friday.

30:57

Kind. Of Culture and you

30:59

look at somebody like and

31:02

a Donald Trump who. Cannot

31:05

accept. An hour is hop.

31:08

Presidential. Run as like not

31:10

accepting his out. And

31:13

there's nearly half the country that's

31:15

going to get behind this. With

31:17

it it it seems like then

31:19

years. Your hypothesis is that. People's

31:22

desire to take others down. Is.

31:25

Because. They're They're so ashamed by their

31:28

own losses. It's a lot of

31:30

what we do we project onto the other.

31:33

The. Fears that we have about ourselves?

31:35

Interesting and this this notion that

31:38

success can make you lonely that

31:40

it alienates would advise you have

31:42

for coping with that. For all

31:44

the poor, struggling, successful people at

31:47

the fact that fuck the have

31:49

a physicist they're fine. They'll

31:51

come back. Bomb failure. They'll come back to

31:54

earth. So get their. Love.

31:56

It would it David This has been really fun

31:58

and fascinating. I think your mind is is a

32:00

really the unusual an interesting place. Ah,

32:03

Well. Thank you. Such

32:09

a powerful sentiment that people who believe nice

32:11

guys finish last don't know where the finish

32:13

line is. Personally, I like the idea that

32:16

there is no finish line, but if I

32:18

had to draw one for me, it's not

32:20

about what you achieve, it's about what you

32:22

contribute and how you treat others along the

32:25

well. Rethinking

32:29

is hosted by me Adam Grand This

32:32

show is part of the Had Audio

32:34

Collective and this episode was produced in

32:36

mixed by Cosmic Standard. A Producers are

32:38

Henna Kingsley mom and Asia Census or

32:41

Editor as I Hunter Salazar or Fact

32:43

Checkers Paul Durban Original music that Hunter

32:45

See and Allison they can friend Athena

32:48

since Eliza Smith sake of winning Smile

32:50

Adams Michelle Quinn Fun been saying see

32:52

as a person and with a Pennington

32:55

Rodgers. So.

33:00

It sounds like she was worried that A B

33:02

D didn't have the same test say as Pst.

33:05

Yeah, don't. I don't know that

33:07

A B D really exists. You know, because

33:09

everything else is in Latin and A B

33:11

D This means of a dissertation. That's how

33:13

bad. That. Moniker of.