This is Smart People Podcast. A podcast for smart people, where we talk to smart people, but not necessarily done by smart people.
Hello, welcome to Smart People Podcast Reflections. This is the second episode called Reflections, which if you're unaware, it's basically me reflecting on the guests that we just had in the previous episode. And I appreciate those of you who reached out and told us what you thought, gave us some potential changes and edits. Please keep doing that. So if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I like it.
I want them to do exactly this or do something different. Smart people podcast at gmail.com. Let us know what you think about these reflection episodes. And so as of now, the structure of these episodes is first, I will tell you my quick general reaction to the episode, the guest, why I wanted to discuss it and really where I felt the episode landed. So again, I think this is cool. It's like a behind the scenes reaction.
I've been doing this for 15 years, talking to close to 500 brilliant people. This is my take on this one. That'll be short, maybe three to five minutes going forward, unless you all tell me otherwise. And then spend the majority of the time, 10 minutes or so with the three to five big takeaways that I had, the things that I found useful, assuming I found some. I'm not going to lie to you guys. I'm not going to make things up where it doesn't exist. Okay.
So in this episode, I was talking with Simon Critchley, who is a philosopher, professor of philosophy, author many times over. And we were talking about his book called Mysticism. And right there, I want to start, which is after so many years of doing this podcast, you would not believe the amount of pitches and emails and guest requests we get. And I'm telling you that because, man, they really start to sound the same.
So one of the things I try to do is figure out what is new to me, what has a new spin, who has maybe a unique voice. And this was definitely one of them. In fact, the word mysticism, I genuinely don't know if I've ever used it or mystical, but
And so when I see something like that and somebody like Simon, who is clearly in it just to think and be the philosopher as opposed to sell something or, you know, be famous, I'm always interested. And so that was that was really my reasoning.
I will tell you the episode was hard for me because I'm always really thinking about your time, your energy, your investment. And I want to make sure you as the listener take something away. And maybe that's a fault. Maybe we're all just here to like learn and listen and enjoy and, you know, do with it what we please. So if I should do that, let me know.
But so with something like mysticism running in the back of my mind is like, would I take an hour out of my day to listen to this if I didn't know better? And I'll tell you where I think we got to and the things that were worth it for me. But I will say that this episode, it was not as abundantly clear as I started going. What do I do with this information?
Now, in terms of Simon, first, obviously, really nice guy, smart, you know, writes a ton. He is a purist. And what I mean by that is what I said earlier, like he just wants to discuss these things. He wants you to think about these things. And I really appreciate people like that because I have a pretty good radar when it comes to this. I don't think he has any ulterior motives.
I mean, in the middle of the interview, he pulled out a book and read this really long, detailed, beautiful poem of sorts. And like, that is a purist. And so that's what I thought about Simon. I also thought that as a philosopher, it was noticeable that his pace and his line of explaining doesn't need to be that concise. And so there was some
for me, some difficulty trying to move things along, especially in a subject that took a while to wrap my mind around. So that's kind of the lead up and my general takeaway. Now let's get into specific themes and the formal takeaways as I reflect. Number one,
It is to think about mysticism as the following experiences most intense form. That is how Simon defines it. And to put it a better way, it is the most intense form of experience. It is those moments that take your breath away, that make your hair stand up, that make you almost question how is this real? And that I didn't have a name for really up until this episode.
And so just talking about these incredible experiences that we all have, we all can feel. And then what do we learn from them? So, again, my first takeaway was just like, oh, we can define these incredible experience as mystical.
then we can be intentional about those mystical experiences and then leverage them to be more present in our lives, which goes to the second takeaway. It's kind of one B, if you will, is in these mystical experiences. Simon says the experience is having you. And what he's saying is instead of us controlling everything,
We are being held by this experience. We don't have to try. It takes us. And we talk about how most of our lives we control, we over control and mystical experiences or the mystical is the anti-control. It helps us cultivate areas of surrender moments and experiences where we can simply enjoy the fact that we have the ability to experience them.
In this episode, there's a quote where Simon says, our purpose is to live. It is a nearness of things. And so what we can do is formulate a discipline to give ourselves over to mystical experiences. In fact, he often calls them divine. And I'll talk about how the idea of religion came up for me.
And so to bring this point home, this 1B of the takeaways of living and giving up control is this. For me, so much of my life, I have tried to minimize pain. I've tried to minimize discomfort. And I think I have been taught, honestly, that uncomfortable emotions are not just unnecessary, but are to be eradicated.
And so this was this nice reminder that you can't have intense experiences without negative emotions. So remembering our purpose is to live. We can give ourselves over less in control and that will allow time and space for the mystical and the divine.
OK, another big one for me was this realization. And I talk about at the beginning of the episode where he kept linking mystical and mystics to religion. And it just wasn't it wasn't adding up for me. I could not understand until I realized this. And I wrote it down. The formality of religion deprives me of the beauty of existence.
What I mean is you heard in the episode, I talk about this experience I had standing over a cliff while playing golf and it was mystical. And Simon asks like, and the long and short of it is I say, but I don't experience that as religious or God. And Simon goes on to say, well, some people say that that's God in nature. That is the divine at work. And it really came together for me.
which is that quote of the formality of religion deprives me of the beauty of existence. And what I mean by that is when we put such quote unquote narrow parameters on religion, God, Jesus, the Bible, again, for Christianity, the religion most commonly practiced where I live, I do think it misses a lot of the perhaps goal of religion or how we might define it.
Which is this all at our existence and the things that we get to experience and we don't know why we don't know how we simply do not know where it all comes from. But we feel it. We feel it so intensely. It is like part of us. What if that happens?
is really, that's God. That's the divine. And in Simon's mind, that is the mystical. They are somewhat synonymous. And so to finish this takeaway, I would like to spend less time having to think through experience or understand experience or compartmentalize it and rather just bask in it. And perhaps it's divinity. It's
God-like nature. And that brings me to, I don't know, we're at three or four here, which is, I mentioned I like to control. Part of that is thinking. I mean, look, I host this podcast because I like to think. You listen to this podcast because you like to think. But for what purpose and to what end? There's nothing wrong with it. But there is a quote in this episode that struck me particularly hard, which is, we become prisoners of introspection.
Simon also says we valorize intelligence in the formal way. I then respond with, we place more value on the ability to understand things than the ability to experience things. And again, I'm speaking to myself in this one, which is why, like why not?
spend so much time trying to understand, make sense of, control, keep things at arm's length, instead of just realize the fact that we get to feel it, we get to see it, we get to experience it. The good, the bad, the comfortable, the uncomfortable, or another way put, we get to take part in experiences most intense form.
Again, just a reminder that perhaps formal intelligence, perhaps knowing, perhaps, dare I say, learning is not the most important thing if and specifically if it reduces our ability to experience while we're here in the first place.
I will close out with probably the part that I will take away most from this episode. Those goosebump moments that do stick with me, no matter how many of these I do. And this is when Simon mentions this movie where essentially angels in the interview, I kind of say aliens, but some other life form, we find them.
And what would we want to tell them? What would we want to show them? What would we want them to know? And what Simon says is we wouldn't want to wax poetically about religion or universal design because they'll know that or they might be unimpressed or it might be confusing. It is not something you can tangibly feel. It doesn't shock the senses to really explain what it means to be alive on this planet.
He says, but instead you would give them a cup of coffee and man, you really want to blow their mind? A cigarette, cup of coffee and a cigarette and say, just experience this. Now, listen, I don't smoke. I grew up in the generation where we kind of knew smoking was not a good thing, but coffee, I've always appreciated it. But ever since this interview, that first sip or when I smell it,
I just remind myself of how amazing it is. The small things experience is most intense form. Those are my thoughts. Those are my reflections. Let us know what you think. Truly smart people podcast at gmail.com. Even if you hate these, that is helpful to know. And if you love them, just as helpful. Smart people podcast at gmail.com. Thanks for listening. Happy holidays.