Life expectancy's been declining in the

last few years.

How do we reverse that trend?

These are the five safest things to do.

Dr. Dacher Keltner.

A renowned expert in the science of

human emotion.

Discovering ways on how we can improve

our happiness.

He's also the author of several books

including The Power Paradox.

I read just someone touching you can

make you live longer and be less

stressed. Is that true?

Yeah. There are all kinds of findings

that speak to this. You have premature

babies, they used to just put them in

these little units that warm them and

they would die. And then they figured

out they needed skin-to-skin contact

like you need food and they live. They

gain 47% weight gain. You know, the

deepest craving we have is to be

appreciated by other people.

If you want to be happy, practice

compassion. And if you want others to be

happy, practice compassion. If I am kind

to you, my act of kindness makes you

more kind downstream. And then that

person you've helped actually is kinder

to another person.

And they've proven that before?

Yeah. So like karma is a very real

thing.

It's very real. That'll save 8-10 years

of life. You've got to find a few

moments just to be kind.

Are we worse people the richer and more

powerful we become?

Yeah. So we've actually done

experiments, right? You know, it's a

movie about a child with cancer and

poorer people show activation of vagus

nerve which is part of compassion.

Well-to-do people, less activation. The

wealthier you are, the more you navigate

it for

serious economic policies that hurt the

poor.

Jesus.

And this is where it gets really

worrisome.

I just want to start this episode with a

message of thanks. A thank you to

everybody that tunes in to listen to

this podcast. By doing so, you've

enabled me to live out my dream but also

for many members of our team to live out

their dreams too. It's one of the

greatest privileges I could never have

dreamed of or imagined in my life to get

to do this, to get to learn from these

people, to get to have these

conversations, to get to interrogate

them from a very selfish perspective

trying to solve problems I have in my

life. So I feel like I owe you a huge

thank you for being here and for

listening to these episodes and for

making this platform what it is. Can I

ask you a favor?

I can't tell you how much um you can

change the course of this podcast, the

the course of the guests we're able to

invite to the show, and to the course of

everything that we do here just by doing

one simple thing. And that simple thing

is hitting that subscribe button. Helps

this channel more than I could ever

explain. The guests on this platform are

incredible because so many of you have

hit that button. And I know when we

think about what we want to do together

over the next year on this show, a lot

of it is going to be fueled by the

amount of you that are subscribed and

that tune into this show every week. So,

thank you. Let's keep doing this, and I

can't wait to see what this year brings

for this show, for us as a community,

and for this platform.

Dacher,

could you start by giving me your

professional

academic resume?

Uh

well, well, that it begins early with my

parents who were, you know, very

important in my education and my

formation. So, my dad is a visual artist

and my mom taught literature and poetry

and romanticism and got me interested

in,

you know, all ki- all kinds of things

about the human mind. Um

and then I was at UC Santa Barbara as an

undergraduate. Uh and then went to

Stanford for PhD.

Subsequent to that, worked with Paul

Ekman as a postdoc, who's

kind of a pioneer in the study of facial

expression. Uh

and inspiration for the show Lie to Me.

Uh and then became a professor.

Uh Wisconsin,

uh and then UC Berkeley for

27 years and

helped run the Greater Good Science

Center, which is about disseminating

kind of the new knowledge of meditation

and compassion and stress to

uh

a broad audience. And um have taught at

Berkeley,

which I love, for 27 years.

You referenced there the Greater Good

Science Center.

Yeah.

What's the What's the mission of the

Greater Good Science Center?

Yeah, thanks for asking. You know, um 20

years ago

uh post 9/11, um you know, we were in a

world much like post-Trump and uh Boris

Johnson and others, you know, like are

we are we fragmented? What happened to

humanity?

Um what happened to community?

Um why are um life expectancies in the

United States dropping the last 2 years?

What's going on, right?

that.

Yeah, striking, right? Really

disturbing. Um

and we had the conviction and there was

this new science of things like

if you have strong social ties, it adds

10 years of life expectancy to your

life, right? If you practice kindness,

um it quiets down the threat regions of

the brain.

And so we at Berkeley

in partnership with the journalism

school kind of had the sense early like

if we can get this knowledge out, right?

In actionable

prose where you read it and you say,

"Oh, I could teach breathing to my

my medical team or I could teach an awe

walk to my neighborhood friends. Uh that

would be good for the world, you know?

Um

I'm I'm super compelled by that.

Thank you.

The Greater Good Science Center. Can you

Let's talk about some of the things that

you've you've given away in terms of

knowledge.

Yeah.

And some of the sort of discoveries that

I think would surprise most people. You

mentioned some of them in passing there.

Yeah.

About breathing and awe walks and um how

you can add 10 years to your life.

Yeah.

What Give me some of the top-line um

more detail on some of those top-line

findings.

This really comes into focus for me,

Stephen, when I speak to medical

audiences. I do a lot of work with

health care providers. Um you know,

teaching medical doctors, residents,

uh helping programmatically with

kind of the spirit of hospitals and the

like. Um I talk about uh awe, that the

feeling of awe

um reduces activation in the

inflammation system in your immune

system. Your immune system is all these

cells distributed throughout your body

that helps you

protect against

dangerous elements on the outside,

viruses and bacteria. And the feeling of

awe

sort of reduces the activation of the

cytokine system, which heats up your

body. And if your body is always hot,

that is bad news for your heart. It's

bad news for your diabetes. And awe

helps moderate that.

I

you know, I teach the work on compassion

that, you know, 65-year-olds

who practice altruism and compassion

have greater life expectancy. Um, you

know, and and you can go on. Each of

these

what used to be thought of as kind of

new age soft things like awe or

compassion or breathing um benefit us.

You know, just simple breathing, if you

breathe in and out counting to four as

you breathe in, counting out to four,

actually increases neural density in the

this part of your brain, the prefrontal

cortex, which helps you handle stress.

What is awe for someone

Yeah, awe is just feeling an emotion you

have when you encounter something big or

vast that's outside of your frame of

reference right, of reality, that you

don't understand. That I I think I like

the word mystery.

Uh you know, wow, who I can't figure

this out. And and then that emotion of

awe stimulates wonder, right? Like, how

do I

why do peop- why do

rainbows exist? What you know, how are

they produced when water when light

bends through water molecules? So, it's

it's an emotion that drives wonder and

creativity.

What is the

um positive net impact on humans of

experiencing awe? Other than cuz when I

think of war I think of going to like

Machu Picchu and seeing those big

mountains and going what the hell is

this? This is insane. And I think of

that as being like a memory. Oh, that's

fun. That was amazing. I take the

picture, yeah, put it on my Instagram,

get the likes, go home.

Yeah.

But there's something deeper going on,

right? In one's physiology.

Yeah, thank you.

You know,

one of the fascinating things, Steven,

when you're, you know, is when you study

this complicated realm of emotion, is we

have these words that we all use to talk

about an emotion and they're much as we

have words about, you know, ethnic

categories or class categories. Oh, he's

lower class or he's

he's African-American. Those are just

words and concepts that may not capture

reality at all.

And awe

suffers from this, which is when people

talk about awe or they share it on

Instagram, they show they share the big

moments of like, I was at the Grand

Canyon or I was in the Lake District or

by this cathedral.

Um, but in point of fact, you know,

there are a lot of ways in which we feel

awe

all the time, right?

Uh, encountering somebody who's really

kind in the streets. You're like, "Wow,

that was really generous."

So, yesterday on the train, the team

were coming up to Manchester where I was

speaking

and an an elderly lady overheard them

saying that they were going to climb a

mountain for charity. The elderly lady

got up, walked over, gave them £5 and

said, "I climbed that once. Here's £5.

Put it towards the the charity."

Mhm.

And for all of us, it went into our like

company chat that that had happened. It

was a real moment of like an affirmation

of what it is to be a human and

kindness, I guess.

Yeah. And what's stunning to me, and

this is a a digression, is your story

just gave me the chills. And that's

amazing.

It's incredible, isn't it?

It is incredible that I wasn't there.

I've just got the chills myself. Just

Just you saying you had the chills has

just given me the chills.

It's amazing. And that we don't

understand scientifically the contagious

power of chills and awe. but you know,

awe

it it it's not the stereotype that we

are led to understand or think about

with words, it's around us all the time,

right? The generosity in the train, the

beautiful clouds, a piece of music, a

visual design, you know, driving here to

your studio, all the incredible design

of London, it's around us.

Um and so it's there every day and you

know, Stephen, I

I'm not a

I don't know why this happened to me,

but I've taught happiness to hundreds of

thousands of people online and in

classes and the like. I was a grouchy

kid, stressed out most of my life,

terrible meditator, but I was forced

into this job, and you know, serving the

science of happiness we've been talking

about, man, 2 minutes of awe

every other day

is about as good for you as anything you

can do, you know, it calms stress, calms

stress regions of your brain,

talked about inflammation, it reduces

inflammation, activates the vagus nerve,

which is this bundle of nerves that

wanders all throughout your body and

calms your heart rate, it's good for

digestion, so

you know, it's good news for the human

psyche. And when we talk about

giving a little stressed out

12-year-old, young 12-year-old some awe

each moment in a classroom,

we know that's really good for health

and creativity. So,

it it's good news in terms of what it

can bring to us.

Talk to me about some some science then

and that supports that um assertion

where

Yeah.

the science shows that everyday awe, so

like accessible awe.

Yeah.

The awe that I could go get out in the

street or that I could actively go

practice after listening to this

conversation has proven to have a

positive physiological impact on humans

or their emotions or their behavior.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, this was one of the most

exciting developments of the science of

awe.

Um

when we started to get this picture of

the health benefits of awe, less stress,

a sense of time, reduce loneliness,

right? Loneliness,

40% of people in globalized cultures

feel lonely, right? That is hard on the

body.

We started to think about awe

interventions. Um and, you know, one of

my favorites uh

that has compelling health data, if you

will, is

um

a lot of people go for regular walks.

The UK is famous for its its walking

traditions, you know, it's one of the

great cultural strengths, you know, just

paths and, you know, and walks and, you

know, and etc. and and uh so, we just

added one element to

people's regular walk

uh and we called it the awe walk, which

is when you go out,

pause, take some breathing, deep

breathing, get synced up with your

footsteps. This is a classic kind of

walking meditation approach. And then

look for awe, right? Look Take a moment

to look at small things, look at the

reflection on this cool mug, then pan

out and look at, you know, the vastness

of where you are, city or nature, up at

the sky. That was it, right? And that

gets you into this awe mindset and our

participants were 75 years old or older.

Um at that age, a lot of data suggests

you start getting more anxious and

depressed, right? Your people you love

are dying. Your body's falling apart.

You are facing your mortality. And the

awe walk over eight weeks, once a week,

compared to a really rigorous control

condition,

led our 75-years-old participants to

feel less distress,

less pain, and more awe and joy in their

lives. So, it's just this simple

addition to a daily walk, right? Um

listening to some music, do it more

intentionally.

And and a lot of the studies of awe

are really simple, you know, just watch

an awe video, share an awe story, which

you shared to me that just gave me the

goosebumps, you know? That goosebumps

is a register, it's these little muscles

around hair follicles that are part of

what are called what are called your

parasympathetic autonomic nervous

system, which calm you down. So, share

stories of awe. So, so there's a ton of

ways in which you can build more

everyday awe into your life.

What's the evolutionary basis for this?

Um

the

you know, in 1978, I think, Richard

Dawkins published Selfish Gene.

Mhm.

Massive book, right?

You know, if you read that, it's it the

argument which is true, is that we we

are the we have these genes that are

replicating themselves through us. We

are these machines that replicate genes,

right? Uh and all of our characteristics

are ways to do that. And and it's all

the language is very aggressive and

adversarial. These genes are competing

with these genes. I'm competing with

other people in the game of evolution.

And there's been this massive shift in

evolutionary thinking in the past 40

years, where

you know, we're just starting to

discover, you know, around the world,

people share 40 to 50% of a resource

with a stranger if asked, just like as a

default. That's our intuition. Um we

have neurophysiological systems like

oxytocin parts of the brain and the

vagus nerve, which help us sacrifice and

give. Um we readily

are contagious in our feelings. Your

story gave me the chills.

And then my chills bounced back to you

and you got the chills. So, we're united

and connected. And now, you know, it it

the thinking is we're very cooperative

alongside violent and rapacious and the

like and and collective. We're

hyper-collective.

Um we synchronize with each other

physiologically. We mimic each other. We

collaborate unlike any other primate.

We're We're That's just who we are. It's

probably our big strength.

Um I think because in part um

hyper-vulnerable offspring needed a lot

of care, right? To live.

Food scarcity, warming in the face of

cold. And we need emotions

and social practices that make us feel

like we're collective. And awe

is it. When You know, it's It's so

striking, Stephen. I don't know if

you've had an awe experience in nature

recently.

Just being outdoors.

Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. So, I went to I

went to Bali in Indonesia to write my

book in Ubud. And that's one of the the

places where I mean, you're in a

a vast jungle. But also, when you

whenever you get to the top of a

mountain, you look out across the

jungle. And I remember one particular

moment looking out across the jungle,

stood on this platform that was

awe-inspiring.

Yeah.

Um but also, I It's quite weird that I

My My awe-inspiring experiences in that

country are always just being on the

moped and going through the countryside.

Yeah.

Because there's because it's this It

feels like the essence of nature.

There's something about I don't know

what it is. There's There's just

realness to it that makes me

feel like I'm at home.

Mhm.

It's hard to explain, but

And that's

feel like you're at home, right? And

it's striking. Think about it

conceptually like here I am on a a moped

in nature with you know, the

the ecosystem's kind of moving into my

body and my brain. And out of that comes

the concept I'm home.

And that's what awe does is it says I'm

part of this people, right?

The other time was actually last week. I

was at Soho Farmhouse, which is a sort

of like a

uh like a hotel village they've

constructed where you can go on the

weekends to be in nature. And it was

actually walking back to my cabin. I

looked up up for the first time. And

obviously, when you're in the

countryside, you get to see the stars.

In London, you don't have that luxury.

And I looked up and I saw the stars and

I started talk like having a mental

conversation about what that is, like

what I'm looking at. That is a I mean,

that one over there is a bigger than

planet Earth and it's I'm basically this

tiny little into seemingly insignificant

piece of irrelevant dust. And that made

me feel a sense of awe.

The feeling is really

because I am so small,

I am part of this bigger thing. Like

you know, when you don't look up and

when you're looking down, let's say,

figuratively,

there's a sort of an individualism,

whereas like it's it's me. I am I'm the

center of the universe. When you look

up, you realize that you are irrelevant,

but therefore also part of this greater

thing, I guess.

Yeah, thank you for bringing that up,

you know. And one of the simple

actionable things that were we've been

teaching at Greater Good, we we have a

practice on this is look at the sky.

Just like look up, take a minute. If you

ask the average citizen in a city like

London,

when's the last time you looked at the

sky? They're like

Yeah, I don't see it.

Yeah, and it's powerful. Yeah, the you

know, one of the paradoxical qualities

of awe and and is this

shift, this transformation in sense of

self that you're talking about and it's

profound, which is, you know, in the

in one of the early writing traditions

around awe, which is spiritual

journaling,

a lot of people, early accounts of awe

in the Bhagavad Gita and Julian of

Norwich and you know, the great

Christian writings, almost every

spiritual tradition, the Buddha, uh it's

this like, "God, I'm having this

ecstatic awe mystical experience. What's

it like?" And they write about the the

self just like vanishing, you know.

Um psychedelics has a rich tradition of

ego death in it. Carl Sagan, you know,

has this great statement about space

like yours, like "Man, when I think

about the universe

look at me, I'm just this

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm a little speck of dust, you know?

But the self is huge in our minds.

Yeah.

And awe

quiets it. It puts it into perspective.

And what's striking, Stephen, which I

you know, it took us a long time to

figure this out scientifically, is

it actually feels liberating, you know?

Oh, it's the Do you know what? When I'm

stressed, I I remind myself of how

insignificant I am. Because stress is

often the like the um the like the fatal

decision to overestimate the

significance of your your your problems.

Like relative to you know, to whatever.

But the other day I was I was a little

bit um I was overthinking something a

lot, and I could feel myself getting a

little bit stressed. And

I rem- I reminded myself of looking down

on a plane

Yeah.

over a country, and just how irrelevant

I am in the grand scheme of things.

Because of Well, you know, I became a

dragon on the on Dragon's Den, and

the podcast became bigger. You know,

it's it's easy sometimes to fall into

the trap of when there's a lot of people

talking about you or writing about you

to to to think that this is the center

of the universe in some respect.

I'm leading a a movement of 2 million

people.

but whenever I go up in on a in a plane,

and I look down, I go nothing that I do

is really mat- matters in a good way.

Yeah.

It's funny cuz it's a paradox. It's like

I want to be empowered, and I want to

think that I matter.

Yeah.

But at the same time, I I I I like to

realize that I absolutely don't matter

in any respect. And I love saying this

to people because it you can see ego

square.

Yeah.

When you go When you put in context that

we are as an an individual

we absolutely don't matter. You know, in

the in the millions of whatever billions

of years that the universe has existed,

we are just this blink. And I'm just

this irrelevant speck of dust.

And once I'm gone, you know, give it

another million years, no one's even

going to remember.

Yeah.

Or whatever. Probably couple the couple

of years, but

But that's what's great about art and

the human mind, right? Is we we need the

ego and the self, and we need to

maximize our interests and desires and

reproductive possibilities etc. status,

you know, all that

obsessive stuff. But man, we have this

great realm of transcendence that awe is

part of that, you know, and in our

studies, you know, we we literally we

took students up to this tower on the UC

Berkeley campus. They got to look out at

the and they no longer felt stressed

about things. We had students look up

into trees and just admire these We have

a lot of tall trees on campus in I hope

you visit it sometime that are beautiful

and tall and make you feel like you

know, there we have redwood trees that

are a thousand years old, you know, that

oh,

this little moment of consciousness that

is so self-critical or

or stressed or or

ego maniacal is just a moment in time of

seven nine billion people.

It's you know, for me

personally it was liberating to find

this in awe like like you're saying like

this is all this is just one human's

effort. So.

Why did you write this book?

Of all the things you could have written

about, you're a very smart individual.

You've studied so many things relating

to sort of social sciences and how

humans behave and why we why we do what

we do, but to commit your life to

writing a book about this subject matter

Yeah.

is writing books is not easy.

Yeah.

Takes a long time, a lot of effort. You

have to promote them etc. Why this book?

And why now?

Yeah.

Thank you for asking that. Um

Yeah, you know,

um

it is hard to write books and we had

done a lot of research on awe and

you know, one of the reasons I wrote the

book was

um

you know, I'm now at an age where I've

been following how we're doing as

cultures and

and a lot of the things that have

surfaced here, Stephen, are true. Like,

you know,

people feel lonely, they feel

um um

adrift. They're searching They're

searching for something more meaningful

than

elevating a paycheck. And And I felt

that awe was part of that story.

That awe gets us to what is meaningful

to us as individuals at a moment in

history.

Um and then

uh my younger brother died. And he

um

he was He was born

uh I'm 1 year older.

We had this wild childhood, you know, of

like born in Mexico and

raised in the late '60s in Laurel

Canyon, a very experimental place,

wandering the foothills of the Sierras,

and

and uh

he was

my source of meaning in many ways in

life. Um

and he got colon cancer and died.

And it was brutal and horrifying. And at

the moment of his dying

uh the last night he uh sitting by his

bed

and um and he he was my moral compass in

life. You know, he really He was very

courageous.

Super kind. Uh really only cared about

like devoted his career to the least

uh resource kids in the country, these

poor poor kids. And um

when I was watching him die

uh I had an awe experience. I was like

you know, what is going on? He seems

really calm.

He's heading into a space I don't

understand. I saw like pulsating light,

you know, that was uniting everyone

around him in this sense of reverence

and

the sacredness of of his life. And uh

afterward um

I was uh knocked into a really profound

state of grief where um this is about 5

years ago.

Uh I couldn't make sense of the world.

You know, I could do my work. Um,

but I just didn't I was lost cuz he was

a very important voice to me.

You know, and I was waking up, wasn't

sleeping, panicky, and and I like a lot

of people in grief, I was like,

you know,

hallucinating. Like I would see him,

follow a guy in the streets, like, and

it wasn't him.

I'd wake up thinking he was there. I

felt his hand on my back a couple times.

And uh,

it was weird. I was I I had this

epiphany in this really bad state of

mind.

The worst I've ever felt, like,

um, I got to find awe again, you know, I

have to my brother,

you know, he and I went dancing and did

wild things and backpacking and, you

know, just live this life of awe. He was

my source and he was gone.

Um, and so I wrote the book, you know,

and I I dug in and

just started writing about him.

Uh, and he features prominently in the

book, you know, what he meant to me and

how I grieved his loss and then worked

up the science too.

So, in many ways, you know, what we're

observing in our our globalized culture

is is this

the problems of capitalism, the search

for meaning, the you know, rising the

reduced life expectancy US, rising

anxiety, depression.

And I was kind of in that state. You

know, suddenly like, "Wow, my career's

good, but

uh, you know." And so,

um, knowing a little bit about the

science, I was like, "I've got to do

this myself and go get it."

Did you find that awe again?

I did. It it it

it it took

a lot of work, you know, I was in a

really tough place and uh,

you know, I

um, I just was I just started anew,

like,

"Where do I find meaning? And I find

meaning working with prisoners.

I don't know why, you know, um but just,

you know, being in prisons,

volunteering, helping with a formerly

incarcerated.

I challenged myself to

find awe in places I wouldn't ordinarily

find it. Like just to open my mind,

like, "Woah, I'm at a symphony, you

know, I love African music and Sona

Jobarteh and, you know, and here I was

in the symphony not understanding it but

starting to feel it. Um you know,

nature's easy for me. I've always

backpacked and gone into the mountains.

I had a lot of spiritual conversations,

you know, of like, "I'm not a religious

person."

And I was like, "What is this? You know,

why why mystical awe?" So

and what it gave me, I think,

with respect to my brother's death, is

an openness, like

we don't know what life is. We don't

know where it goes. We don't, you know?

Uh and it opened my mind to a lot of new

sources of awe.

There's almost an injustice I heard in

that story because of the way you

characterized your your brother and his

behavior.

Yeah.

For him then to have

passed early from cancer

Yeah.

feels in many respects to me like the

opposite of awe or

you know, the universe being

uh

compassionate or fair or whatever. And

that

Yeah. Yeah. It hit me hard, you know, it

was uh

and that's well put. Like for the first

year,

you know, you you ask these questions,

like, "Why would a guy

who teaches speech therapy to the

poorest kids in the United States go and

is it with a teenage daughter and a

young family? Come on, you know, come

on." And Donald Trump is, you know,

indestructible and you're like, "The

world is [ __ ] you know." And and I

grappled with that

uh

very hard.

And then I was, as you well put, I was

in this antithesis

state of awe, I was like nothing meant

anything.

You know, it was all pointless.

I could sense nothing bigger about life

that mattered.

And that's why

you know, that's why I said, "All right.

I have this career that allows me to

do these investigations." And we're all

investigating. We're all

searching for these things in music or

moral beauty or being in collectives or

sports. And I just threw myself into it.

And And uh

And you know, frankly, um

it, you know, the idea of everyday awe,

which is very important in the book. We

can find it anywhere.

You know, on the train with the act of

generosity. That is now it just feels

alive all the time.

What What's kind of the three lines of

gratitude? Because when you were talking

about the old walk

Picked up the the this

um mug, the silver mug we have in front

of us.

Yeah. And you started admiring it. It

almost sounded a bit more like gratitude

to me.

Yeah.

And even the the the study where you had

the elderly um participants do the walk

and then sort of self-report I'm

guessing on how they felt.

Yeah.

It sounded like nature also gives us a

sense of sort of gratitude for our

lives, for the world we're living.

Yeah.

What's the distinction or difference if

there is one?

Yeah, what a terrific question. And

there's a

deep philosophical tradition um of David

David Hume, Scottish philosopher,

um Charles Darwin, uh Martha Nussbaum

more recently, a Chicago philosopher

that

we and it really animates a lot of this

conversation, the work I've done is like

we have these amazing emotions that are

like deep intuitions about the world

that are good for us and good for the

world. You know, compassion, take care

of people who are vulnerable. Awe, you

know, connect to others to face vast

mysteries. And gratitude, uh Adam Smith,

the great economist, felt like this is

the emotion that holds societies

together, gratitude. The feeling of

reverence

for things or like, "Wow, this is really

important and sacred."

of things that are given to you.

And that is key. Like, "Oh, my friend

helped me with my work. Um my work

colleague brought me lunch.

Um you know, my my child did the dishes

tonight." You know, "Whoa.

Um I feel grateful."

Gratitude, really close to awe as as you

intuit, but it tends to be different in

that awe tends to be about vaster

things. Like, you know,

uh you almost get into a car crash or

you get into a car crash, you almost

die, and you're like, "Ah, I'm just I

feel awestruck that I'm alive, you

know."

And then awe has more mystery

to it. You can't understand it.

Like music or

Right. Like music Yeah, exactly. You

know, music rushes into you

and you start crying, right? And you're

like, "Oh my god."

So, what's a recent experience of that

for you?

Of music?

Yeah.

Um it would be

Where you just start sobbing and, you

know, or not sobbing.

Oh, sobbing.

Or chills.

It would be We do this live show for

It's called the Driver Seat of Life, and

we toured the country last year. We did

three nights at the Palladium, then we

took it to all these theaters. And I'm

stood and there's a house gospel choir

of about 40 people behind me for the

whole 2 hours while I'm speaking.

Yeah.

And I mean, Jesus.

Yeah.

They sing a lot of like religious songs

as part of the the message that I'm

conveying. And I mean, every night I'm

you know, I'm crying. It's funny cuz I

rehearsed it. I rehearsed it. I

practiced I practiced it. But then with

the people there, the audience of 2,500

people and the choir there, I would cry

every night.

Yeah.

Which is bizarre which is strange,

right?

Isn't it striking?

It's a it's sense of connectedness,

maybe. I wonder why in the live show,

when there's thousands of people there,

then I feel the most intense emotions

Yeah.

versus when we're in rehearsals.

Yeah.

That's a complicated question. But your

examples tell us, you know, that you the

vastness of that experience of like,

"Wow, there are sound waves that I'm

producing

and that are moving bodies. I see this

pattern of movement, and I am part of

that." And as the poet Ross Gay says,

these boundaries between self and other

become very porous. You're like, "Whoa,

we're all one organism." That's awe,

vast, and and I don't understand why.

Gratitude is more, you know, you're at

the show and

you know, somebody looks you in the eye

and smiles and and you feel like they're

grateful for you. It has this more

readily understood economy to it almost

or um

and why, you know, in writing about awe,

um

the you know, there are some things that

are intuitive like, "Oh, nature makes us

feel awe." And people's moral beauty and

kindness, your story on the train.

But how in the world music

sound waves hits our ear, produces a a

neurochemistry in the brain, and the

next thing you know, you're crying, you

know, and feeling one.

That's amazing to me. And we still I

don't know if science will ever answer

it, you know, it's it's just the

transcendent power of music, and you're

lucky to share it.

Do you have any insight into the

positive impact that gratitude has on us

based on any sort of studies that have

been done?

It's huge. And you know, Stephen, like

when I following and teaching the

science of happiness literature for

25 years, you know, at UC Berkeley, I

started teaching a happiness course. I

think it was Harvard and us were the

first 25 years ago in tracking like,

"What are the What are the things you

can count on?" You know, and when I go

out and teach happiness, um it's very

humbling.

Like you asked me in some sense um a

related question to have a parent come

up to me

and say, "You know, my son is massively

depressed and suicidal. What do I do?"

You know, and obviously you go see a

therapist and you've considered

medication, but

the happiness literature can point to

like

these are the five

safest things to do. Social connection,

uh develop some way to

use your body to calm down, breathing,

yoga, sports, whatever. Uh and gratitude

is a winner. And I think awe is up there

now, too, but you know, gratitude, um

practicing gratitude

uh benefits the cardiovascular system.

It helps people who have heart heart

vulnerabilities.

Patients, they do better.

Uh it is uh very good for your place in

social networks. Like, I join a group.

I'm I'm worried. I'm socially anxious.

What do I do? Practice some gratitude,

you know, say thank you and uh show a

little appreciation to people. You will

have stronger social ties. Uh we did

research showing it's good for romantic

bonds, you know, the

if partners simply say on occasion,

like, "Hey, thanks for doing the

dishes." or "I appreciate how you the

jokes you tell." or "I love your music

selection." it helps, right? So, it's

it's

a safe bet for a happier life.

You know, this I've come to learn that

there's so many forces in our day-to-day

lives that act against gratitude and um

stifle its presence. But in the context

you've given there, whether it's in a

social group or at work or in a

relationship or even with yourself, I've

come to learn how important it is to not

rely on gratitude just showing up, but

to try and create a system for frequent

gratitude. Now, one of the things that's

been a real unlock for me, my companies

over the last couple of years, is in

every company that I run,

we have a gratitude chat. Yeah. So, it's

just a channel Yeah. And it's open.

There's really no instruction, but it's

funny that we we we created the channel

first at Social Chain and then in my

current companies

and when you just create the channel,

what happens is gratitude pours in.

Yeah. So, today there'll be I I can

guarantee at some point today there'll

be a message in there that says, "Thank

you so much, Ross, for going and getting

me that cup of coffee um that I didn't

ask for, but you knew that I needed it

or whatever." Or, "Thank you, Jack, for

helping me lift that box upstairs." And

it pours in and and it's such a simple

thing to do, yeah, but it creates this

insane um

um

hard to understand amount of like

connectiveness

and appreciation. And I imagine for the

individual on the receiving end of the

gratitude

um

a sense of like worthiness or or

respect

respect or

Come on, yeah.

And it's such a small thing to do

It is.

that I think every company should

consider, which is having a a system to

move gratitude friction free across your

organization.

Yeah.

To back bind it together. But in your

personal in your relationship, the same

thing.

Yeah.

Like you can rely on it being a you

know, your partner helping you with the

bags or helping you with your packing or

whatever. But it would it's great to

also in a relationship have a a system

for

Yeah.

gratitude.

And what I love about your system,

Steven, you know, I've taught gratitude

in a lot of organizational contexts and

sometimes people force it like, you

know, "Okay, let's see what we're

grateful to

for each person in the in this you know,

this meeting." And it's like, "Oh god,

you know, that's tricky." But to allow

it to be spontaneous and intuitive like

you did, right? And let it flow. That's

that's the strong

source and and manifestation of

gratitude. And it reminds us, you know,

in Western European thinking, probably

largely Western European male thinking

has been so hostile to emotion.

Uh this is what I was saying when I said

there's so many forces acting against

it.

Yeah, and it's just like

why would you ever say thank you? It

makes you weak. It makes you vulnerable

and the like, etc. Um but

there are a lot of great thinkers from

David Hume, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin,

you know, early a lot of the East Asian,

you know, contemplative philosophies

like

our best human tendencies come out of

emotions of gratitude and express them.

Um, and and I think that your example

speaks to sort of a a big shift

culturally and

what do we do with these emotions at

work? They're really vital to our sense

of connectivity and community.

Makes me think a lot about

relationships. And I know this is

something you've written about

extensively. The the role that romantic

relationship plays in health outcomes,

etc., etc. But then I also was I was

pondering this idea of monogamy broadly.

Yeah. Whether So, my kind of question is

kind of two-fold is are we meant to be

monogamous? Yeah.

And also

this I'm thinking a lot about how the

relationship dynamics in monogamy is

changing in some in some ways eroding.

Yeah.

I was reading some stats around marriage

and how people are getting married less

and

you know, having less kids and all these

kinds of things. So, what's your

thoughts on all of that? Are we meant to

be monogamous? You've done a lot of

research on apes and you've talked a lot

about them in your in your work. But are

we meant to be monogamous?

And if so

how does that relate to the fact that

being in a relationship extends our

life?

What a terrific question. Well, you

know, anytime that you pose these

questions, right, you have to remember

um, you know, and I always approach

things from an evolutionary framework.

You know, which is humans are many

different kinds of individuals, right?

There's massive individual variation.

And when I, um, you know, and there's

cultural variation. So, some cultures

will be less monogamous, others more.

Um, yeah, I think that I think that, um,

the the safest answer we can offer and

it and it's dispiriting and I teach it

to my young students at Berkeley is, you

know, I hate to tell you this, but

you're in love right now, but odds are

very good that that's not going to be

the last relationship you're in. And so

we tend to move from one semi-committed

relationship to another. Mhm. Um so

serial monogamy or uh is is is what many

believe to be kind of our default

orientation. There's variation around

that. Some

are more polyamorous, others are really

fiercely monogamous given genetic makeup

and cultural makeup. Um

my belief is

um and and your generation is really

bringing this to the fore, which is that

the old model of single monogamous

relationship for 60 years

uh probably is not working. When you

look at divorce rates, 50%.

Those people who stay together, half of

those marriages are really pretty

unhappy. So it's it's not working. You

look at certain cultures, I I was

struck, Stephen, recently I was

you know, the Scandinavians always do

really well in happiness measures,

right? And I was like and I just Google

like

you know, what is the um

is sort of living configuration,

romantic relationship configuration in

Sweden. Sweden has really high rates of

people

co-parenting but not living with the

parent, right? And that may be a model

to be moved not not living with the

partner, sorry.

Mhm.

Um and so I think that we have

many kinds of love.

Uh one of them being a monogamous love.

Um it it puts a lot of pressure to uh

with this old kind of romantic,

chivalrous, Victorian ideal of like

that's the only person. I don't think

that works, right? And so we're we're

moving towards more flexible

arrangements

where we express many kinds of love and

and it comes with a lot of

complexity. So I when I teach

love

I say there are all these kinds of love,

right? Walt Whitman

loved friendship, You know, I I mean,

friendship love and in a lot of the

data, friends

give you more happiness than any kind of

relationship, right?

Oh, I shouldn't say. I shouldn't say I

agree. My girlfriend is somewhere

upstairs.

You're young, man. You got You got time.

I'm You know, I understand. I

understand.

So, the I think this this model of like,

you know, singular devoted all-consuming

romantic love has misled us. And we need

varieties of romantic love, which your

generation is creating, which is

exciting. And then we need to remember

the other forms to to have the rich

life. And then you get at that, you

know, I got the right social

configuration to give me those 10 years

of life expectancy.

I've always been going back and forth

about marriage because I understand that

some people say marriage is a

a system that allows for the rearing of

kids. Um,

it's a it's a form of commitment, which

changes things in the relationship. But

the

But I have always wondered if there's

another way.

Yeah.

That's more, you know, where which kind

of

I don't know. It's a controversial

topic. Is there another way? Like, I'm

not even sure me and my partner would

get married, but I'm sure we'd make some

kind of commitment to each other, but

you know, I'm not sure involving the law

and church and all these things in the

in the process is necessarily

conducive with a productive outcome.

I know. And not only that, but just

think about like, you know, I'm going to

be Wait, I'm going to do everything from

physical exercise to streaming movies to

cooking food with one person, right? Um,

you know, it's interesting, Stephen.

Um

the there's this really striking

literature. You know, one of the raw

facts of our evolution is our offspring

are very vulnerable. They're the most

vulnerable offspring of any mammal on

the face of the earth. They take 7 to 8

to 20 years just to I even say like 55

years to, you know, to even be

semi-functioning as an individual. But

what that meant is love

in our our hominid evolution was

distributed in communities, right? And

there's this concept called

allo-parenting, which is

we all kind of take care of young ones,

even if they're not our own. We're all

affectionately related to each other in

that work.

We're all There's much more sexual

fluidity in that dynamic that probably

reflects the truth of today that we

don't face with this Victorian ideal of

singular romantic love.

And and maybe your generation is moving

us toward

that that

sort of more communal approach to love

uh of And it's complicated, right? It

involves different ideas about sexuality

and different ideas of caregiving,

um but probably healthier. And I hope it

happens.

Why why won't it work?

And why doesn't it work? Cuz I you know,

when we think about polygamy or um pop

being polyamorous. I don't know the

difference, I've got to be honest.

Yeah.

They sound similar.

Polygamy, multiple wives. Polyamorous,

multiple people you love.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, when we think about those polys

Yeah.

um it it seems impossible in the modern

world to

to execute a poly situation

without jealousy and all the other

[ __ ]

Yeah. And you know, I grew up raised

around hippies. You know, my parents

were counterculture. I grew up in Laurel

Canyon in the late '60s, very wild

place. And I saw a lot of this as a

young kid, and it was comical. You know,

it's like, who You're fighting over the

dishes and I don't get to sleep with my

wife tonight? That's

He gets my my roommate does? Ah, you

know. It's hard, you know. Um yeah, uh

you know, and a lot of things get in the

way. I think that, you know, I I forgive

me, but you know, I think of the US and

how much

of United States culture is designed

around, you know, the nuclear monogamous

family

Mhm.

of, you know, single homes,

suburbs, driving in a car, um you know,

really structured around that and and

maybe that's

poor design. It doesn't seem to fit our

evolutionary past of being

in these, you know, these collectives

that are sharing in the raising of

offspring and um and sharing in

to a certain extent in romantic

partnership, so

Are you married?

Yes.

You've been married for a long time?

Yeah, through

uh

90 I think it's

33 years, something like

Wow, dude.

Yeah.

Important context.

Yeah.

So, you know, cuz some people might, you

know,

think that um you were like

anti-marriage or anything like that, but

you're clearly I can see from the ring

on your finger.

No, but yeah, but I grew up around a mom

who, you know, she

taught women's literature and feminism

in the '70s and, you know, that early

feminist critique of marriage is right.

Mhm.

You know, early on it women did a lot of

the work.

It constrained them. It cost them in

terms of job uh mobility, and so

I've always questioned it. And then I

think the evolutionary literature we

talked about is like, "Wait a minute.

Maybe love is more distributed. It comes

in many varieties.

Mhm.

And that's how we get this love work

done, so

I'm glad you guys are questioning it,

seriously.

Yeah.

luck.

Yeah, we we The good thing is we're

really like we're really open to new

things as in we're open to like

building new systems for our

relationship in the modern world based

on how we feel. We're We're very good at

being um resistant to like social

pressure to to follow a a conventional

path.

Yeah.

So, even with Valentine's Days and

things like that, we have a conversation

about like does this make sense? Like

why would we do this? And what's more

important?

Yeah.

Which a lot of people don't. I've been

in relationships before where

you you you don't hit the perfect like

social cue to show up or give flowers or

whatever, and you get like a [ __ ]

an essay and you're, you know,

a bad guy for that day, but um

Going back to one of the points you

said, you were talking about how men in

particular struggle to show

express those emotions.

Yeah.

Um and you know, stereotypically we're

not as uh affectionate and kind as as

our female counterparts. One of the

things that you talk about is

the difference in social class.

Yeah. Yeah.

And how things change.

Oh, man.

Are

are we

worst people the richer and more

powerful we become?

Because your research seems to show that

Yeah.

I would say yes. Um and I'm sorry to say

that, you know, it's it's uh

you know, we um

uh

I got interested in social class um

actually living in England. You know, I

lived in England in 1978.

Um and you the United States is very

blind to social class. We're now more

aware of it, Bernie Sanders, etc.

Rightfully so, 1% critique.

You know, '80s, '90s were just blind to

it. It was a more egalitarian time, and

I lived in Nottingham, England, very

working-class town in a very tough time

in England's history of, you know, coal

strikes and the like, and it was tough.

And and the English

had this

um

just much more sophisticated

understanding of class and

differentiations between

on the dole and working class and posh

and, you know, all these categories. I

was like, "Wow, class is everywhere. It

affects how people speak and dress and

eat and so forth."

And so, we started to apply social class

to what we've been talking about, like

the compassion, awe, gratitude, and

empathy, kindness, sharing, altruism,

and just, you know, across um

studies and and, you You largely in the

United States, so I think you could

question whether this applies to Holland

or UK or Japan where there there's less

inequality, I might add. Um, you know,

as you rise in wealth and privilege, you

share less, you feel less compassion to

images of suffering.

You know, you see an image. This was a

striking study to me of, you know, it's

a movie about a child who has cancer.

And poorer people show activation the

vagus nerve, which is part of

compassion.

You know, causes you to like want to

help. Well-to-do people, less

activation. Uh, they feel less awe. As

you rise in the social class hierarchy

in the United States, um,

uh, are more impolite. And so, that was

part of my power power paradox book was

that story about class. I, you know, I I

hesitate, I worry about like am I worse

person?

And I you I'd rather use your earlier

language of like, what are the

structural conditions that get in the

way of this?

And you think about, you know,

rising in in wealth and privilege and

class as introduced you you create a

life

that makes it harder to be kind. You

know, that you're people are assisting

you with things and

um, you don't come into contact with

suffering.

You know, you're living in a

neighborhood in the United States or

probably UK where it's like,

you don't see it, you know? And so, you

it doesn't train those tendencies.

And you know, frankly, um, Stephen, I,

you know,

I think this is increasingly true in the

UK,

but in the United States, uh, you know,

with one in six people impoverished,

uh, life expectancy is dropping,

you know, 6 700,000 unhoused people in

the United States. Where I live,

Berkeley, California, everywhere you go,

you're

bumping into somebody who doesn't have a

home.

I I think it's our central failure it in

the US is

how

privilege

has short-circuited our our better

human tendencies.

How do we know that

it's the increase in wealth and social

class

that is causing us to become

less kind, um, less empathetic, less

compassionate, or it's just

[ __ ] go further.

Yeah. Yeah.

There's a distinction there. Like maybe

these people were always [ __ ] and

that's why they became successful or

rich or wealthy or whatever or or in a

higher social class.

Yeah. I I mean, there are two And that's

a critical question, right? And And

people have long championed this idea

that, well,

maybe all of this, what it really tells

us is you if you practice our

compassion, you don't rise in the ranks,

and you don't gain wealth and the like.

And there are two rebuttals to that

idea. The first, which I chart in the

Power Paradox, which people still don't

believe too much, but uh, on balance

today,

um,

people who practice empathy, who listen

and and share resources, practice

gratitude, rise in the ranks. They they

do better in social hierarchies. Um, and

that replicates in a lot of contexts.

And And really what happens is, this is

why I call it the Power Paradox, is

once I have everybody's

respect and,

you know, wealth and the like, then it I

tend to misbehave, right? In the ways

we've talked about through a lot of

different, uh,

uh, forms of unethical behavior. The

other rebuttal is we've actually done

experiments, right? And you can take a

middle-class individual,

and you can get them into the mindset

like, "Hey, you're actually

have a lot of advantage vis-à-vis most

of society" through simple

manipulations, right? Just think about

how you compare to a lot of poor people,

and they're like, "Oh, I'm doing really

well."

And that simple shift in mindset leads

to

reduced compassion, reduced empathy. So,

you can you can actually move people

around where you give them the sense

that they're privileged and it tends to

undermine these these tendencies.

Jesus.

I know.

That's [ __ ] horrible.

It is. And you know,

um I worry about it. I worry about it a

lot. What um you know, the the kind of

poor distribution of

privilege in the United States and

increasingly UK and other countries is

doing to the social fabric. It's it's a

problematic.

It's interesting cuz there is there's

kind of a long um prevailing stereotype

that rich people are

like bad. Like they're like less

compassionate, um less empathetic. And I

and I always wondered whether that was

just I don't know. Was it true? Was it

um was it Was it people being jealous?

Was it um just too much of a broad

generalization? Was it, you know, based

on the the acts of maybe a few?

Yeah.

But you're telling me that the science

supports the fact that generally the

more the richer you are and that the

higher you are in terms of social class,

um the less compassionate less less

empathetic you are as a human.

Yeah, and you know, and it is that I

mean, that's the broad argument. I've

given you a couple of findings here.

There are all kinds of other findings

that speak to this.

Jesus.

Um you know, one This is one of my

favorites is, you know, in these um

these epidemiologists who are studying

broad trends in social behavior

discovered this accidentally. They're

interested in who shoplifts as a a

teenager in the United States.

You know, a basic unethical tendency,

really costly for businesses in the

United States. Is it the rich or the

poor?

Well, you know what who I who I would

assume it would be,

but I feel like I'm wrong.

It's the rich. Rich high school kids in

the United States are more likely to

shoplift, right? Um

and that's striking. They've got their

parents' credit card. They can buy

whatever they want and they violate that

social rule. This is where it gets

really worrisome.

Uh my former student Michael Kraus did

really nice work

on US senators and US policy makers.

You know, American politicians are rich.

They increasingly so.

And he was simply interested in does

your degree of

privilege or wealth predict

regressive policy preferences like let's

not give resources to schools for the

poor.

Let's not fund, you know, Medicare.

Let's really move wealth through

taxation policies to the well-to-do.

And the wealthier you are, the more you

you preferred and advocated for,

you know, serious economic policies that

hurt the poor and benefit the well-to-do

who already have, you know, in the US

the 1% they have enough. They have more

than enough, right? Why not share a

little? So, it's deep. And I think And

then you look across history,

European aristocracies and you know, the

Popes and so forth and it's it's I think

it's one of the you know, frankly,

Steven, and I hate to say it, you know,

Lord Acton,

uh

you know, power leads to abuse and

absolute power absolute corruption. Our

power is corrupting. Um it's a pretty

safe law in human behavior.

I hate to say it.

Mhm.

It's because you're rising in prominence

and facing a new life and you better

watch out.

I was thinking most of the time you're

talking, which is like, how do you avoid

that? How do you avoid

Yeah.

How do you avoid the uh that

scientifically supported tendency to

become an [ __ ] with with the more

wealth and power you accrue?

Um I guess my my assumption was just

being conscious of the fact. Yeah. The

first thing. But also just like there's

probably act things you could do

actively to remain

uh

aware of your own

insignificance to maybe not the word,

but like the fact that everybody is

exactly the same.

Yeah. That's like the the way I describe

it.

Yeah, I mean, I think that there's an

awareness dimension to this that you've

suggested.

There's an ethical practice of like, how

do I create more gratitude in an

organization if that's what we care

about, etc.

Um

How do I counteract my own biases then

as well? So, how do I put you people

around me who represent and we're

thinking here I'm thinking here about

governments that represent the entirety

of the population, not just the rich

private school right colleagues that I

might surround myself with, which has

often been the case in government.

And that is hard to work against, right?

That is a deep sociological process that

like, you appoint the cabinet member

from Oxford or whatever and and you're

in trouble. Yeah, you know, it's it's

uh

It is

uh you know, a lot of economists, a lot

of the work coming out of

uh you know, spirit level UK, this is a

central challenge of of the structure of

our societies today is this this

increasingly unequal distribution of

privilege and wealth and all that goes

with it.

Do people that are wealthy and in a

higher social class live longer? Because

I say that because the the attributes of

becoming less empathetic and rude or all

these things seem to be the antithesis

of social connectedness and all of these

things. And you even said earlier that,

you know, wealthier people experience

less awe. Yeah. And all of those things

are

um

uh

are associated with living longer. Yeah.

So, one would assume that if you become

rich and powerful, you're then there's

also then also a risk to your life

expectancy.

Yeah, that's terrific. That's a really

striking question and we don't know.

Um and I think your reasoning is right

on the point, which is wow, you

have less friends, you have

Right, privilege knocks out these these

these important tendencies that help

with inflammation and vagal tone and the

like. Um

rich people do live longer.

That's robust. Yeah, yeah, and food you

eat and so forth.

You know, opportunity for health, you

know, yoga, all the things that benefit

us.

Rich people, this is interesting,

surprised me, rich people are less

likely to experience anxiety and

depression in the United States. Yeah,

interesting, isn't it? We think so

lonely and anxiety producing to be at

the top. No,

mental health issues are really

concentrated in the poor for obvious

reasons. Working two jobs, riding the

bus, you know, schools are

under-resourced, etc.

But to your point, and it's interesting,

the effect of wealth on happiness is

much smaller than people think. People

think, you know, in particular in a

country like the United Kingdom or you

know, Great Britain or US, like

oh, once I make a lot of money,

it'll be bliss and happiness and

contentment. That turns out not to be

true. It's a weak relationship. And I

think part of the reason is,

you know, when you you gain in

resources, you don't have these raw

feelings of compassion as often or God,

I'm grateful for that gift, right, that

you gave me or this is awesome, this

person's courage or how they overcome

overcame obstacles. And so that

diminishes

how wealth could make you happier. So I

think it's at play in some of these

phenomena and maybe in others.

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Let me know what you think. Back to the

podcast.

You talked about how life expectancy has

been declining in the last few years.

Why?

Yeah, you know, in the United States um

and I don't know the data in the UK.

Um

and and it's um it's it's really related

to inequality

and opportunity and the poor

distribution or

uh of of opportunity and resources is um

there have been these amazing findings

uh related to what's called death by

despair.

And

certain populations in the United

States, um very poor white people, large

group of the um

large subculture in the United States,

are often forgotten in the cultural

discourse. They're poor. I grew up

around these people.

Very poor, don't eat good food, schools

are not that good, you know, uh work is

uncertain.

And they and they feel disrespected in

some sense. And those that subculture in

the US

has been killing themselves, you know,

with opiates and you know, drinking and

drug addiction and suicides and the

like. And it's a serious problem. And

it's part of that statistic.

And then I think that, you know, if you

think about

the problems of contemporary culture

concentrated in the United States of

lack of civility, rage, self-focus, a

lot of things

that undermine our physical health

through the mind,

um that probably is part of this story,

too. Too much stress, too much

loneliness,

um not enough music and joy and shared

communal experience, um

we

are struggling. Um and and that's part

of probably that statistic, too.

And so that's why, you know, as I

mentioned, like the Surgeon General

Vivek Murthy, a very smart team, looking

at these kind of processes and saying,

"How do we build community?" You know,

and they're they've got a big program