Joe Rogan & Derren Brown - The Idea of Happiness

Why did you write a book about happiness? I wrote a book about happiness because the Stoics had really resonated with me. I was, I, like, I, I studied law, right? I was supposed to be a lawyer, and I graduated, and I kind of was living in Bristol, this lovely city in England, and making my living as a magician, because that was the hobby that I'd started. And I was just kind of thinking, well, I need to, at some point, will this just grow into a job? I don't know, but I know that my priorities are just kind of, I want my life, my days, to feel like this is good. Everything's in the right place, and this is kind of an enjoyable and worthwhile pastime, and worthwhile existence, and I never really thought beyond that. So I've never had any kind of ambition, genuinely, of any sort, which is why, you know, I don't really, I'm not on the whole goal-setting thing, particularly. So, but the trouble with thinking like that, as you grow up and become successful with what you do, is you start to feel like a kid, like everyone else is a grown-up, and you're the kid, and you're slightly embarrassed that you don't seem to care enough about the things that everybody else cares about, the businessy things, and the viewing figures, and then this, my interest was genuinely, am I enjoying what I'm doing, and is it worthwhile? And then I read the Stoics, and although that's not like their central message, it's a big part of their, what they write about, you know, not, not trying to control things that are out of your control, not attaching yourself to things that leave you kind of emotionally kind of vulnerable, and, you know, just your relationship to the present moment and so on, and it really resonated. So I read a lot, and it took me off into other directions, and I started writing, and I wrote this book on happiness. After, it took me three years to write it while I was on tour, so three years but blocks of writing, not like three solid years. And also that meant by the end of it, I kind of had grown and changed and felt differently, and I think for anyone that knows about Stoicism, and it's an immensely valuable resource in terms of if what you want is a sense of feeling centered and a kind of emotional robustness in your life, and, you know, if you suffer from anxiety and so on, it's phenomenal. I think that where it, where it slightly doesn't deliver is the importance of anxiety. It's all about avoiding anxiety, that their image of happiness was a sort of tranquility, avoiding disturbance. But actually, of course, disturbance is really important. Anxiety is important in life, because how do you change? How do you grow other than, you know, unless some anxiety triggers that, you know, lets you know that something's wrong? If we just look for security all the time, and I say this because I know I'm like this, like this is my problem, isn't it? I'm too, I'm very good at avoiding stress, very good at avoiding anxiety, but the danger is, am I going to grow or, you know, I'm just going to just be too comfortable? That's not, you know, that's not necessarily a good thing. So, by the end of the book, I was, I kind of could feel the edges of Stoicism in terms of the importance of anxiety and, you know, not just living too comfortably, but it is, it is a, and that's not, you know, they were movers and shakers, like there are people that changed the world. Marcus Aurelius, you know, the greatest philosopher, king, really, was the emperor, most powerful man, and ever probably ruled the earth and was a, was a, one of the great Stoics. So they're not like, it's not a recipe for complacency, which you can often sound like when you talk about this kind of tranquility and non-attachment, but it is, it's a, it's just, it's a very robust kind of language. They talk about being like a rock where the waves are lashing against you. And I, I prefer the image of a sort of, I don't know if you know Martha Nussbaum, who's an American philosopher, who writes a lot about these things, but she, she talks about being more porous, like a rock that the, the waves, the water can move through. And I think that's a more helpful image. I think that's a, that's a good way, I think, of stepping out into life, is if you can have a sort of a robustness, but at the same time, a kind of an easy, porous relationship with what's going on. That gives you that easier relationship to fate and fortune and all those things that they used to honor and recognize so much more than we do now, because we don't read tragedy. So we don't think in terms of those things, it's all just, you know, pride and hubris now that they had lessons about back then, you know. But I think that's a really, I think that's a, that's a good, that's a good starting point for life. So I wrote, I wrote this book Happy. It is, it's actually just become available in the, in the US on Amazon. I don't think you find it in any bookshops, but because of the, like I'm hopefully doing a Broadway show next year and these Netflix specials and things that are, you know, so it is now available. And, and ironically, the moment I finished writing it, I was out giving talks on happiness, feeling oddly sad, and I couldn't work out why. And it was because this amazing three-year writing project had ended and I realized, yeah, I, the importance of some kind of creative pursuit or something that brings you out of yourself is so important. That's fascinating that in the embracing of the anxiety of the difficulty of the task and finding upon its completion that you feel sad. Oddly, oddly sad. Well, it's kind of proof of concept that, right? I mean, what you're saying is like in this theme that you keep saying over and over again, that putting yourself into something bigger than you, something, something that you're, you're attempting to work through and that through this difficulty and all the struggle and trying to put this, you, you gain some sort of intangible benefit from this. You feel like you seem like you're someone that seeks out those things. You seem like you've always like immersed yourself fully in things that would do that. Yes. I'm a firm believer in the importance of difficult tasks. I think, I think seeking comfort is one of the worst things a person can do in terms of achieving overall happiness. I think overall happiness, a lot of it comes through this amazing sense of wonder and the unknown and possibilities and working towards things with this embracing of, you know, having no idea how the, what the result is going to be. No idea where this is going to go and being genuinely nervous about it every step of the way. And do you find that because normally being having the language for something means that it doesn't come naturally because if it, if that came entirely naturally or the things I'm saying, if they completely just, I'd always been like that, you wouldn't have the language because they'd just be entirely unconscious. So you found this is stuff that you've found and then learned to articulate, but because that's not, it's not an easy thing. It's not an intuitive thing that maybe life is, is essentially difficult. And these lovely happy moments we have are wonderful, but they're not the kind of, they're not the central force of life, which is that it is, it is difficult. And if you want a philosophy of life, it has to work in those, has to work at the different moments, doesn't it? Otherwise it's not really, it's not really going to support you. I think it's also the attitude in which you embrace those difficult moments and how you approach them. You know, if you, if you relish them and understand that there's going to be some genuine benefit from getting through these and whether it's a physical thing or a mental thing, whether it's a creative thing, whatever it is, it's difficult. Like just embrace this massive struggle and enjoy this, like just the puzzle of it all, the majesty of the unknown. And then when you get through it on the other end, you get a different level of happiness. You get this powerful earned happiness. Because you've grown, yeah. Because you've grown and you've moved forward and you don't, you don't cross the road on your own without having to let go of your mother's hand at some point. Something, well, this is, this is the death and resurrection, isn't it? That's why these myths do have some resonance. Something has to die before something new, before something new can grow. You have to, something has to be let go of in order to step forward. So if you're going to grow, you have to, there has to be anxiety and disturbance and some kind of, some sort of death in the metaphorical sense. Yeah, I think. But it's tough. It doesn't come easily. No, it doesn't come easily, but that's also what's beautiful about it. If it just came easily, I don't think it would be appreciated. Exactly. And you wouldn't be doing it. And there's all this resistance to even engage in it in the first place. It's hard to write the first word of a book, right? The first word, sometimes you just sit in there or anything you're trying to do, get it the first step of a 10 mile run. All those things are the most difficult thing. Once you, once you're going, it's not nearly as hard. It's getting going. There's something about overcoming all this anticipation and all the weirdness of it all. And then once you do it and you realize you can do it, it enriches you in all your future attempts.