Derren Brown -- Philosophy and Happiness

talk about your book a little bit I again I was stunned I've seen your other books on magic and mentalism and so forth and so I'd be curious to know and when I saw this I went oh boy yet another book on happiness I've read them all you know this guy just gonna distill all the research I've already read know you you know you bring a fresh perspective to it and I love the the angle on the Stoics because again so much of modern psychology is you know just reiterating what people have been talking about for thousands of years and and I almost want to use that you mentioned toward the end of the book about you're concerned about the cover I like the cover but but I got to thinking it's really not a book about happiness it's more of a book about leading a meaningful purposeful life of which happiness is a part so I'm curious to how you branched from doing what you do you know for your professional life into this which is you know quite deep and thoughtful and meaningful and and and what led you to do that week answer is that I was reading Montaigne and as one does as one does legendary yes essayist and and he was referring a lot back to the senator and the Stoics I didn't know the senator was but he was quoting these great ideas so I stopped this huge wardrobe essays and started reading Seneca and Seneca was one of the leading Stoics he was a playwright a statesman and closely tied to Nero Nero's tutor and maybe I don't know what sort of character he was but is his writings are extraordinary so I discovered this whole world of stoicism and what's great about them I think is that the ideas not only sort of stand the test of time in terms of a well in that you know chronological time but they also seem to UM have a kind of no spatial aspect of them that they covers out of East and West the very first Stoics were from the east and their ideas time with sort of eastern ideas but there are much more very fitful western taste very kind of all about the rational mind rather than any kind of spiritual journey it was stoicism dominant philosophy for 500 years before Christianity took over and Christianity had sort of had to take the stoic ideas and adopt them into itself in order to win people over so you also you see it you see the same ideas being picked up in in Christianity and ideas of stoic duty and so on and Christian duty and then and now there's sort of with us you know kind of a very watered down sense but when you go back to these original sources they're really very very rich ideas so so I I didn't really resonated with me I think like all those things that when you find something articulated that just resonates with something you've kind of felt that you've never really found the language for and I it had always sat well with with me so I so I I loved that and I spent a few years just reading everything I could on it and then started I thought I want to get this into some sort of you know form to put it back out again because I think my my world of people that might buy a book from me wouldn't really know about this I think it's really valuable it ties in with the stories that we tell ourselves I mean one of the big the big building blocks of Stoicism is this familiar idea now of you know it's not things in the world that cause our problems but it's those stories we tell ourselves about those things and again that's quite a familiar idea in the site you kind of rain water down sort of way now but actually it's a very very liberating huge and quite difficult thought to bury take on board and you know ties in with magic and everything we're saying because the magician is all about selling you a story and I suppose over the years that's the bit that I found most most interesting so although a book with a I guess quite an academic sort of flavor I don't know it's maybe a someone described it as sort of a highbrow self-help book and maybe that's no I think it's very I mean there's there's plenty of actionable messages particularly toward the end of you know what you could do about this stuff I mean a lot of it I found useful the chap chapters particularly on anger anger and hurt and fame I mean the chapter on anger and hurt is three hours I know because I listen to the audio version of UFOs yes the unabridged audio reading and yeah there's a lot there I mean so much of time is wasted just stewing over things that people said or implied or if something years ago or on Twitter this morning and you know this kind of thing that that if I'm getting the message of the Stoics right is you can't do anything about the past the future hasn't happened yet now and in you and how you respond to these things is the only thing that matters now I have this dog she amazes me every day before I came out to pull them a big toy box on top on top of it and it made big loud wires and stuff everywhere she got hit by and she had a moment of that and then she was straight on to the trailer next thing you know they not that we necessarily want to be like puppies but you know animals don't go well I have a dog and I take him to the beach every day with his ball and it's like every day is like this is the first time and the best time we've ever done this and it's like you know sometimes that would not be a bad place to be in yes absolutely no and I think I think the sort of modern ideas of mindfulness have had the interesting ideas in their lessons about the pros and cons I think the we can fetishize the idea of being in the here and now because we you know we're not dogs we're not animals and and we have this sort of contingent future as well that we are always placing and is always ahead of us and you know what what you may do if you know you've got one day left to live isn't necessarily how you should be living your life every day when you assume you've got you know it's all you have any um you're more I do your mortgages still do at the end of the month exactly I think but I think the we are certainly from a very young age on this ladder which is is it's a religious idea the idea of the ladder when christianity gave us really for the first time this notion of oh no no you you delay your happiness now you suffer now but your reward is off here in the future and then that thing if Perrineau was supposed to be something that would happen in people's time some sort of revolutions an actual Kingdom then becomes a kingdom and further off though it's after you're dead that must have been an interesting conversation it's after you're dead um so and it was it's a new idea I think you know before then we really were concerned with what is the good life what is it to be happy here and now and although in the last couple of hundred years we've dispensed you know with so much of the religious thinking that that structure is still with us so we now have this corporate ladder rather than the sort of you know biblical ladder but as Joseph Conrad says you know you can spend the whole you spend your life climbing a ladder and then realize you had it against the wrong wall there is there is a bit of a balance I think what is missing from the Stoics I think and I was just I just sort of started to sort of get this at the the end of the book really I am as I was writing it I think this was start to form whatever the new book would be is it's not it's not so much missing but a thought that I think they don't really dwell on and maybe towards in the latest Oh some kind of had its two phases sort of earlier Greek phrase and then it's later Roman phase which was getting more into this sort of world but the Stoics and again their other big defining thought is you can only control things you can only control your thoughts and actions everything else what other people do and what they think and anything else really is out of your control and any disturbance or anxiety is going to come from trying to control things that you can't control you can just decide all those things are funny and fine if you do nothing nothing bad happens again is a huge huge and very liberating thought the the thing about stoicism is that it it's very much about building up this very robust sense of self and I think that's a phenomenally important thing and I think there's then this other thing that's very important which is that you then you go great okay got that but now it's you then need to connect you know you then need to it's not all about you and that's just as much an important thing in life it isn't all about you and all the all the best things happen when it's not about you the best teachers the kids it's not about them being great teachers or being liked by the kids or getting whatever that you you're a performer your your best before money isn't about you your best the actors that are all about themselves are unbearable to watch same with performers when you your audience is a different thing or about the character or the text it's a different thing any I mean any profession I can think of only improves and you're not about you relationships you know your partner comes back and is angry and stress the first thing you do is make it about you and you get defensive and you turn it into he's having a go at me because bubbly and you know I think there's this other there's just another realm to it that I think they don't quite really do justice to which is this this this other other thought what they're what's wonderful about this this idea of not trying to control everything and just going you know going with the flow a bit having making your peace with fortune and fate and all those things that we don't really pay attention now is we think we can control everything if we believe in ourselves and often set our goals and and the stories are sort of saying though that you have your goals and then there's other accesses stuff that life throws back at you and actually we live this sort of x equals y line and this XY line resonates through history Freud when he created psychoanalysis wasn't trying to make anyone happy that was never his aim that was never the aim of therapy when it started it was to restore natural unhappiness wipes a bit it's always gonna be always gonna have what you want to do and there's always going to be these frustrations to that and it's how you make your peace with that that line and it also resonates with that lovely thing of in flow Michael just csikszentmihalyi's idea of yours and your challenges meeting each other and and when you sort of get in the middle of that zone whatever it is whether you're painting or surfing or playing chess that you're sort of in your happy state so it's really I think a very very potent idea and I think the important thing is just to make sure that you're then you're then open and connected and not just that it's about you know you can realtor the poet has this idea about you can you know some people live their lives in a big room even if you're in a big room you just you can just be stuck in a corner I know the window so I think it's and also that anxiety I think is important sometimes I think the Stoics are all about avoiding anxiety but no anxieties right you don't you don't know what would motivating a little bit as good yeah I wonder if happiness is the right word if that you know this because people I think picture this idea of of like I'm going for this blissful state where I'm just in this condition of you know maximum endorphins and dopamine and you know my brain is saturated with all the feel-good hormones and oxytocin and if I could just like like an Aldous Huxley brave new world just hook up to these drugs and sit there in a vegetative state and bliss know that isn't what people want that doesn't make you happy or fulfilled or purposeful at all in fact you know and then I was thinking about this reading your book you know much of what I was reading much of it when I was out riding my bike I'm a really into cycling and and and much of when we're out riding it's not fun I wouldn't describe it as like I'm having a good time a lot of it is kind of suffering you know just we were pounding up a hill a bunch of guys and we're going at it and you know when we're done it feels kind of good but when you're doing it you're not in a state of happiness at all or riding a book you know it's a lot of work it's hard and you know I can't say I'm happy doing it maybe you know I'm happy later when it's out I see that you know here's the cover and here it is in the book yeah now I'm happy about that but the doing that isn't something that makes me happy so much is fulfilled or meaningful and when I was working on my next book heavens on earth which touches on some of the your last section on immortality and and you know that I came across this paper by Roy Baumeister the social psychologist where he makes a distinction between being happy and and well here I'll give you the title of the paper is some key differences between a happy life and a meaningful life so he makes a distinction between wants and needs like certain things you do may make you feel happy but but they don't give you any purpose or meaning like for example with my own example is is you know flying business class like Friday I'm going my wife and I are going to Europe she's from Germany and you know now I'm in a position in my life and my 60s where I can afford to if I have to you know to be a little more comfortable now it's not that this makes me feel it gives me a meaningful purposeful life but it sure is easier at the other end you know to get off a plane after being in business class than coach and so it's not that the money makes you happier but it makes life just a little more comfortable and therefore you can do other things later that give you more meaning or purpose and you know I think if we distinguish between those kinds of things you know it's not like Bill Gates needs more money but but the money he has allows him to do things like end poverty and polio that really bring meaning not just to his life of course but to you know millions of others and I got to wonder you know is that a stoic position you know is that the kind of thing I stow that the Stoics would have distinguished between doing something that's hard gives you purpose and meaning versus just looking for pleasure and happiness there was a general presumption back then that you couldn't really judge if anyone was happy until the end of their life right and that it is about a story because that's the difference isn't it between a pleasurable thing in the moment you know if you have the choice between going on a roller coaster I think Daniel Kahneman is this example between going on a roller coaster with your friends versus looking after a sick relative you probably have more pleasure on a roller coaster but afterwards when you think about what you've done with your day you might be happy with the fact that you chose to look after the sick relative because the story that you're telling yourself who you are and you know the choice that you make and so on are more conducive to happiness I think that's the difference I mean joy joy and pleasure or pleasure Nietzsche talks about joy being your feeling of your power increasing sort of you know when you take a horrible you can sometimes sound it's quite interesting but pleasure is very much a thing in the moment isn't it and that's different happiness seems to be a richer thing that I think is a by-product as you said of meaning I think that's that's that's the key and it's you know the rainbow I think is a lovely image for happiness because like a rainbow as you get closer to it disappears from a distance you can kind of see what it is you can recognize what it is from a distance did you get close up to it it just it disappears and I think it's some it's it's a byproduct and it's by product of things like meaning and it's to do with the story that you tell yourself which of course is probably to do with hindsight sometimes or or stepping back it's not necessarily what you're feeling in the moment so yes I need anyone that's selling an idea of happiness as perpetual pleasure is you know obviously talking nonsense in the same way you your first stage of love in a relationship isn't it changes it becomes something richer and more sort of kind of comfortable becomes more of an active will rather than just about feeling in all those parts you know that's a very important component of your capacity to love so so yes I I think I think they really really were onto something back then and I certainly found it made me a lot happier in my in myself although ironically when I finished the book having spent three years writing and then maybe unlike you I think a huge line approached from writing I felt less pleasure when it exists as a as a product on the shelves but from the initial thing seeing and filming when I was giving talks on happiness but because I finished writing the book this big source of meaning in my life it should have been taken away from them all right what so happiness feeling a mom I didn't really know why thirty like what's the next project you me probably immediately go to that well you did you make a reference to like what am I gonna write next yeah absolutely well that something on this but then there reminds me a little of the story you told about your friend the violin player who always thought boy if I just get one more break just one more TV show if I get you know I'm gonna really be happy and then he gets there and it's like okay now I really need to be on the super TV show or that you know I need to get that you know and he's just never again the hedonic treadmill you're never gonna get there yeah it's funny that isn't it again that idea of success sake the same as happiness it never it doesn't suddenly arrive whatever your image of success is it's not there's no thing there's no day when you've been there suddenly they're all you're doing is gradually moving in the direction and a desire for success is is coming from you know whatever whatever motivation there is with that so that's that's that means with you so that your image of what success is just keeps moving further ahead which is why people drive themselves mad if that sure if that's your motivation as opposed to success money and happiness and things being byproducts of doing something that's you know that is meaningful and gives you a robust sense of who you are and all of those things that they're there the important things developing your talent and your energy is the bit that you could again that's the bit you're in control and the rest of the rest of it you are did you notice that in yourself between the time when you were doing dinner dinner showmagic before you were on TV you get the TV break and what was that mm and then within a couple years you're you're getting stopped on the street for autographs and all that did you notice that shift in yourself no I never really I didn't really have that shift and in those things I I I think I was frustrating the kind of TV producer people that I worked with for not having any particular ambition or any need to do it I was very happy doing what I was doing a lift in Bristol I'd spend my days walking around countryside dreaming up magic tricks and then in the evening I go out and do them to people at restaurants and parties and that was lovely I loved it I was living with a little parrot and a lot of books and I'm sure that I'm sure I'm missing out the bitter I was just really bored and depressed and lonely but most the time that was a happy thing so and I felt even then I had no ambition I just wanted to look at my life take a cross-section of it and go is everything that have in the right place and it was so that I got off at this TV thing and of course that was seemed a fun lovely thing to do but it was not a thing I ever tried to get we did one show and then that sort of took off it was repeat the repeated world and is another one it sort of built on from there but you know and I'm doing a Broadway show off we'll both show now not because I have any desire to conquer America which is a lot of English performance but just because it would seem to be fun to live out in New York for a bit and as I'm doing now that's it's great so that's never really changed but again it doesn't make you any happier all those things you know you get you might have you might have more you know business class flight so you might it might be easier to get a restaurant table or whatever but you also have stalkers and you have your life could be you know scratched out over the tabloids and you write you have more money but you have to pay lots more people to you know the press guy knows everything it just you're happy we're still you looking out right you looking at it's still the same this same person inside and if you if you weren't happy then you won't be any happier now so I don't I don't think anything like that is your your your account of the people lining up to get their selfies taken and they can't they can't figure out how to work their phone cuz they're nervous and and then the next person sees who it is and then they get their phone ready and and then somebody else wants to come in and get all three of you and it just goes on and on it's just really funny I don't get anything like that on the street but if I'm at a skeptics conference a humanist conference or something a little bit of that but when I walking around with Bill Nye the Science Guy here in America he's a superstar you know or Neil deGrasse Tyson you know I mean they get stopped every five minutes and you know I I'm pretty sure I would not like that Dawkins makes a reference in his memoir about you know he says something like I don't get stopped on the street thank God you know and you know I guess there's a trade-off there to the TV thing put you you know you can be an author and people don't really know authors like they know TV people and yeah that's a for sure a trade off and it's nice plenty people I'm sure can't stand me but then they're not going to come up and say hello anyway yeah that's right so it's generally and but the actual with that comes yeah sometimes those things that you just don't really you know I've had terrible news or just in a bad mood or hungover and anyone stopping and want to say hello is lovely that's sometimes is that they want pictures and then some next person sees and they want pictures and then they turn into a whole thing and you just you got your bag from the chemist and you but there's a small price to pay I think I think what it has taught me is to be I remember meeting Stephen Fry when I was a student it was my hero and he couldn't any nicer but even it being Stephen Fry who couldn't be any nicer and him being especially nice when I met I realized he was still going away and having no idea I was I was never gonna sit never drink with them and I was disappointed and I just I and then years later when I got well known I just thought it's that that moment of meeting somebody known who you like is it's actually a really big you know it's quite an important thing to get right so I really I really do try to and again it's the story you tell yourself and you're perfectly capable most of the time if you're even if you're trying to enjoy me and someone's coming up and shoving a camera in your face not even not even looking at you just it's fine one day no one will want your picture baby desperate yeah and Steve Steve Martin's autobiography you know the comedian and he's also a magician he was a you know sort of amateur magician in his youth and he still does pretty good close-up magic but he tells the story of the first time he's on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson you know it's like 30 million viewers it was huge back in the 70s and he thought well that's it I'm in you know and then it's like no it's on a second time a third time and finally somebody at the supermarket you're that guy that guy I saw what's your name I was like oh my god you know some people on the outside have this image if I just get this one thing that I'm in you know and that's the wrong pursuit you just it's not

Channel: Syed Hasan Two

Views: 43,337

Rating: 4.8687258 out of 5

Keywords: Derren Brown, Philosophy, Happiness

Id: jTkcAwy0PW0

Length: 23min 45sec (1425 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 21 2017