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We could all use the occasional nudge, a little wake up from the autopilot we fall into in our day to day routine. That's why we send brief text reminders to listeners of the show for free. The texts help you stay on track with what you're learning from the podcast episodes we release on Tuesdays and Fridays. They periodically prompt you to pause for a second and become more present and mindful, and encourage you to engage with the week's podcast topics in a bite sized, short and simple manner. We've heard from listeners that these texts help them take a moment to reconnect with what's important amidst the busyness of daily life. Someone said it feels like a little bit of wisdom is being whispered into my psyche, which I thought was cool. So if you'd like to hear from us a few times a week via text, go to one ufeed dot net slash text and sign up for free.

It is a balance. You want people to do their best and to insist that they try as hard as they can, but not to punish them if when they try as hard as they can, they don't seed.

It is a balance. You want people to do their best and to insist that they try as hard as they can, but not to punish them if when they try as hard as they can, they don't seed.

Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Andrew Solomon, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University Medical Center and a past president of pen American Center. He's a writer and lecturer on philosophy, politics, and the arts, and an activist in the LGBTQ rights, mental health, and the arts. Andrew writes regularly for The New Yorker and The New York Times. His twenty twelve book Far from the Tree, Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity won the national Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and was chosen as one of the New York Times ten Best Books of twenty twelve. He's the author of other notable books, and most recently, he made an award winning film Far from the Tree, available on Hulu, and an audio book called New Family Values.

Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Andrew Solomon, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University Medical Center and a past president of pen American Center. He's a writer and lecturer on philosophy, politics, and the arts, and an activist in the LGBTQ rights, mental health, and the arts. Andrew writes regularly for The New Yorker and The New York Times. His twenty twelve book Far from the Tree, Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity won the national Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and was chosen as one of the New York Times ten Best Books of twenty twelve. He's the author of other notable books, and most recently, he made an award winning film Far from the Tree, available on Hulu, and an audio book called New Family Values.

Hi, Andrew, Welcome to the show.

Hi, Andrew, Welcome to the show.

What a pleasure to be here, What a pleasure to be here again.

What a pleasure to be here, What a pleasure to be here again.

Yes, we are sitting in New York and have the pleasure of being in person. I've been so excited to meet you, and as I said to you beforehand, you were a very very early guest of ours, and I've just always been thankful for that. It was, as I said, sort of a wind in my sales that someone I respected as much as you came on early. So thank you.

Yes, we are sitting in New York and have the pleasure of being in person. I've been so excited to meet you, and as I said to you beforehand, you were a very very early guest of ours, and I've just always been thankful for that. It was, as I said, sort of a wind in my sales that someone I respected as much as you came on early. So thank you.

Well. I was glad to be on early, and you are such a good interview. With that, I'm excited to be on again.

Well. I was glad to be on early, and you are such a good interview. With that, I'm excited to be on again.

Great. We're going to be discussing all of your work in a broad sense, The Noonday Demon, Far from the Tree, your recent audible audiobook on families, some of the work you're doing now on childhood suicide. But before we get into all that, let's start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always a battle. What is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops, and they think about it for a second, and they look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparents says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you.

Great. We're going to be discussing all of your work in a broad sense, The Noonday Demon, Far from the Tree, your recent audible audiobook on families, some of the work you're doing now on childhood suicide. But before we get into all that, let's start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always a battle. What is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops, and they think about it for a second, and they look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparents says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you.

I think that in an era in which genetic determinism has become a fashionable part of our language, that the extent to which people make these decisions has been very much under sold. That in fact, you can choose to be a kind person. Some people who have had a very difficult childhood or difficult early experiences, or perhaps to some extent, who have a natural predisposition away from kindness, have to struggle more to do it. But I'm a great believer in the idea that there isn't really predestination, and that we do make this decision, and that we do choose which wolf to feed. I mean all of us, of course, have moments of greater kindness and moments of being the bad wolf. So it's hard not to feed both of them a bit, right. The more that I've done the work that I've done, and the more that I've interviewed people and talked to people and looked at people often in experiences of extreme difficulty and suffering and trouble and whoa, the more I've come to feel that people make a choice, and that there is a level of quiet heroism that's available to almost everyone.

I think that in an era in which genetic determinism has become a fashionable part of our language, that the extent to which people make these decisions has been very much under sold. That in fact, you can choose to be a kind person. Some people who have had a very difficult childhood or difficult early experiences, or perhaps to some extent, who have a natural predisposition away from kindness, have to struggle more to do it. But I'm a great believer in the idea that there isn't really predestination, and that we do make this decision, and that we do choose which wolf to feed. I mean all of us, of course, have moments of greater kindness and moments of being the bad wolf. So it's hard not to feed both of them a bit, right. The more that I've done the work that I've done, and the more that I've interviewed people and talked to people and looked at people often in experiences of extreme difficulty and suffering and trouble and whoa, the more I've come to feel that people make a choice, and that there is a level of quiet heroism that's available to almost everyone.

I love that quiet heroism. Yeah, I'm often intrigued by the idea of choice because it does seem that there can be differing levels of choice available to us. The example I often use is, you know, when I was twenty four and a heroin addict, the amount of choice I felt like I had about using or not using felt like just a sliver of choice. It was really narrow. Now it's just not a problem. I've been walking around New York City. I used to love marijuana. I mean, you cannot walk three steps in this city anymore without smelling it right, it's just everywhere. Once upon a time that was kind of triggery to me, but now I just kind of all right, there it is again. Right, So that choice sort of grows, I think, And as you mentioned, there's things like our difficult childhoods or trauma, the support that's available to us that we can find that I think influence maybe the amount of choice. But I think what you're speaking to is that there always is some.

I love that quiet heroism. Yeah, I'm often intrigued by the idea of choice because it does seem that there can be differing levels of choice available to us. The example I often use is, you know, when I was twenty four and a heroin addict, the amount of choice I felt like I had about using or not using felt like just a sliver of choice. It was really narrow. Now it's just not a problem. I've been walking around New York City. I used to love marijuana. I mean, you cannot walk three steps in this city anymore without smelling it right, it's just everywhere. Once upon a time that was kind of triggery to me, but now I just kind of all right, there it is again. Right, So that choice sort of grows, I think, And as you mentioned, there's things like our difficult childhoods or trauma, the support that's available to us that we can find that I think influence maybe the amount of choice. But I think what you're speaking to is that there always is some.

And I'm talking about the choice to live as moral a life as is available. Yes, there are some people for whom it's possible, you know, to be Zelenski and try to save the notion of democracy in a society annihilating it. And there are some people for whom it's possible to be as good a mother as they can under very adverse circumstances. And all of it, it seems to me, has some heroism in it. But the larger question of whether one has a choice about everything, I mean, no, one doesn't have a choice about everything. One doesn't have a choice about having a mental illness. One doesn't have a choice. Often, you know, people will say, oh, I can't believe that person and died by suicide, that was so selfish, and I think, no, that person was at a stage at which there was no choice. I don't think I had a choice about being gay. And a lot of the rhetoric, the kind of homophobic rhetoric that's in circulation now, has to do with a smugway in which people said of said, I'm not gay, and I don't see why you should be, and I feel like, okay, but you're a different person that i'm. So it's not that I think there's choice everywhere, right, It's that I think that in the sitative confines of the choices one has, one can feed the good wold.

And I'm talking about the choice to live as moral a life as is available. Yes, there are some people for whom it's possible, you know, to be Zelenski and try to save the notion of democracy in a society annihilating it. And there are some people for whom it's possible to be as good a mother as they can under very adverse circumstances. And all of it, it seems to me, has some heroism in it. But the larger question of whether one has a choice about everything, I mean, no, one doesn't have a choice about everything. One doesn't have a choice about having a mental illness. One doesn't have a choice. Often, you know, people will say, oh, I can't believe that person and died by suicide, that was so selfish, and I think, no, that person was at a stage at which there was no choice. I don't think I had a choice about being gay. And a lot of the rhetoric, the kind of homophobic rhetoric that's in circulation now, has to do with a smugway in which people said of said, I'm not gay, and I don't see why you should be, and I feel like, okay, but you're a different person that i'm. So it's not that I think there's choice everywhere, right, It's that I think that in the sitative confines of the choices one has, one can feed the good wold.

Yeah, that's beautifully said. A few years ago in the Metropolitan Museum of Art magazine, they asked some people for their twenty twenty one wishes. But you wrote this lovely little piece, and there were a couple of lines in it that I felt that I wanted to pull out and talk about. And the first one, I think, certainly for me, is a big part of why I do what I do and what I hope for, and I think it is in your work too. And you said, the ability for me and everyone to learn from human suffering. Say a little bit more about that.

Yeah, that's beautifully said. A few years ago in the Metropolitan Museum of Art magazine, they asked some people for their twenty twenty one wishes. But you wrote this lovely little piece, and there were a couple of lines in it that I felt that I wanted to pull out and talk about. And the first one, I think, certainly for me, is a big part of why I do what I do and what I hope for, and I think it is in your work too. And you said, the ability for me and everyone to learn from human suffering. Say a little bit more about that.

Well, people ask me a lot why I've written about such difficult and dark subjects when I'm mostly a reasonably cheerful person. I mean, with some very difficult moments and some very difficult experiences. I think growing up as a gay kid was very hard, and yet I was aware that I had a very lucky life. I had a loving family. I had a school that was a good school. I wasn't so happy there, but it was a good school. I had a certain amount of ability and talent on my side. We lived comfortably, and the sort of guilt that I felt about the struggles that I experienced and the ways in which I felt they weren't fair given how much people were struggling, who were in desperate situations in other more problematical circumstances. I was very interested, i think, always in the question of suffering in what you do with it, And I thought, well, I need to try to do something positive with this suffering, because in a way I felt unentitled to it. And then I found myself increasingly drawn to stories of human pain because they seemed to me to be more vivid and more real. I think it was Nietzsche who said that only that which is painful is truly memorable. And that was a principle that I remember learning in a literature class when I was in my freshman year and thinking, oh, oh, yes, that really makes sense. And then eventually I came out. And when I came out, I had a sense of enormous anxiety around doing it and also enormous relief around doing it. But I decided, when I finally managed to be fully out, that the secrets I had tried to keep had been the basis of my own agony, and that I wanted to be a person who didn't keep secrets anymore. I mean, I can be quite private in my way, and there are plenty of things that I have experienced that I may not mention on today's interview, but that I didn't want to have a sort of major secret like that again. And I saw that there were so many people around me who were suffering because of the secrets they held. And then I happened to fall into my original first book, which was about a group of Soviet artists and the way their lives changed during glassnost And what was astonishing to me was that these were people who had suffered so enormously and so profoundly and had been inspired by their experience of difficulty to make art, which was some of it really good art, but all of it morally extraordinary. And at the same time my mind other developed cancer and was dying younger than I am now, and she initially was very angry about being sick, and then in the final year of her life, which happened to coincide with the year when I was finishing that book, she took the occasion of her death and turned it into a moment of extraordinary dignity and even nobility and great generosity. And somehow it was the confluence in my early twenties of coming out of ending up in Moscow and what was then Leningrad, and of watching what was happening with my mother, and I thought, this is where meaning lies. And when I went back and tried to interpret my own life, I felt like there was, you know, kind of a double narrative. I had this really lovely childhood and I had this unbelievably difficult childhood, and I thought, well, how do you reconcile those things? And that reconciliation has been my topic.

Well, people ask me a lot why I've written about such difficult and dark subjects when I'm mostly a reasonably cheerful person. I mean, with some very difficult moments and some very difficult experiences. I think growing up as a gay kid was very hard, and yet I was aware that I had a very lucky life. I had a loving family. I had a school that was a good school. I wasn't so happy there, but it was a good school. I had a certain amount of ability and talent on my side. We lived comfortably, and the sort of guilt that I felt about the struggles that I experienced and the ways in which I felt they weren't fair given how much people were struggling, who were in desperate situations in other more problematical circumstances. I was very interested, i think, always in the question of suffering in what you do with it, And I thought, well, I need to try to do something positive with this suffering, because in a way I felt unentitled to it. And then I found myself increasingly drawn to stories of human pain because they seemed to me to be more vivid and more real. I think it was Nietzsche who said that only that which is painful is truly memorable. And that was a principle that I remember learning in a literature class when I was in my freshman year and thinking, oh, oh, yes, that really makes sense. And then eventually I came out. And when I came out, I had a sense of enormous anxiety around doing it and also enormous relief around doing it. But I decided, when I finally managed to be fully out, that the secrets I had tried to keep had been the basis of my own agony, and that I wanted to be a person who didn't keep secrets anymore. I mean, I can be quite private in my way, and there are plenty of things that I have experienced that I may not mention on today's interview, but that I didn't want to have a sort of major secret like that again. And I saw that there were so many people around me who were suffering because of the secrets they held. And then I happened to fall into my original first book, which was about a group of Soviet artists and the way their lives changed during glassnost And what was astonishing to me was that these were people who had suffered so enormously and so profoundly and had been inspired by their experience of difficulty to make art, which was some of it really good art, but all of it morally extraordinary. And at the same time my mind other developed cancer and was dying younger than I am now, and she initially was very angry about being sick, and then in the final year of her life, which happened to coincide with the year when I was finishing that book, she took the occasion of her death and turned it into a moment of extraordinary dignity and even nobility and great generosity. And somehow it was the confluence in my early twenties of coming out of ending up in Moscow and what was then Leningrad, and of watching what was happening with my mother, and I thought, this is where meaning lies. And when I went back and tried to interpret my own life, I felt like there was, you know, kind of a double narrative. I had this really lovely childhood and I had this unbelievably difficult childhood, and I thought, well, how do you reconcile those things? And that reconciliation has been my topic.

Yeah, recently I heard you talk about you know, being gay, and you were talking about the extraordinary lengths you went to try not to be gay. I think you called it. Was it sexual surrogacy?

Yeah, recently I heard you talk about you know, being gay, and you were talking about the extraordinary lengths you went to try not to be gay. I think you called it. Was it sexual surrogacy?

Yes, treatment, Yes, I did go to extraordinary lengths. I had the idea, which was then a relatively current idea, that this was, you know, an illness that could be cured and that could be addressed, and so I tried to cure and address it. I pursued an ad in the back of New York magazine and went and had what was euphemistically called therapy with women who were somewhat euphemistically called surrogates, and they were really essentially exercises, which did allow me to get over a lot of anxiety that I'd had about the idea of having sex with women, and led in fact to my having some relationships with women that were very wonderful and very rewarding, but they were not very honest and they were not very authentic to who I really was. Part of it was that I desperately wanted to have a family and to have children, and at the time it seemed like gay people couldn't do that. That's obviously no longer the case, but partly I think it was also just a sort of perfectionism in me, and a perfectionism in my parents too, And I felt as though I had all kinds of accomplishments and achievements, but being gay I was going to be a terrible disappointment to everyone, and I was going to live at the margins of society. And I had a very narrow vision of what life was supposed to be like when I was growing up. I mean, I grew up in New York. My parents' friends were almost all doctors or lawyers or business people. They were mostly Jewish. I mean, they were wonderful, wonderful people, many of them, but they were all kind of the same. And I didn't know that there were other routes to having a meaningfuler rewarding life. And I thought, if I couldn't reproduce my parents' life, I was going to end up with something terribly inferior to what I had run up with.

Yes, treatment, Yes, I did go to extraordinary lengths. I had the idea, which was then a relatively current idea, that this was, you know, an illness that could be cured and that could be addressed, and so I tried to cure and address it. I pursued an ad in the back of New York magazine and went and had what was euphemistically called therapy with women who were somewhat euphemistically called surrogates, and they were really essentially exercises, which did allow me to get over a lot of anxiety that I'd had about the idea of having sex with women, and led in fact to my having some relationships with women that were very wonderful and very rewarding, but they were not very honest and they were not very authentic to who I really was. Part of it was that I desperately wanted to have a family and to have children, and at the time it seemed like gay people couldn't do that. That's obviously no longer the case, but partly I think it was also just a sort of perfectionism in me, and a perfectionism in my parents too, And I felt as though I had all kinds of accomplishments and achievements, but being gay I was going to be a terrible disappointment to everyone, and I was going to live at the margins of society. And I had a very narrow vision of what life was supposed to be like when I was growing up. I mean, I grew up in New York. My parents' friends were almost all doctors or lawyers or business people. They were mostly Jewish. I mean, they were wonderful, wonderful people, many of them, but they were all kind of the same. And I didn't know that there were other routes to having a meaningfuler rewarding life. And I thought, if I couldn't reproduce my parents' life, I was going to end up with something terribly inferior to what I had run up with.

That sort of leads into a central concept and a lot of your work between illness and identity, Right, so we could talk about you being gay in that way. Originally you might have thought of it as an illness. Many people might have thought of it as an illness, but now it's more of an identity for you. In the book Far from the Tree, you show people who are different than the rest of us, many of whom claim that difference as an identity, not an illness. So if we think of Dwarfism, right, there's some beautiful scenes in the documentary right and in the book, but the documentary is more recently in my mind of these people really claiming like this is who I am, and this is who I want to be. I don't want to be fixed. And I wanted to see if in any way that has been able to apply or what ways it does apply to you when it comes to your own mental health, because there's an idea of depression as an illness, and it certainly is something not good when it gets to the stage that you had it or that I've had it, right, And then there's also the idea of a thoughtful, melancholy temperament, and I, as I get older, am finding it harder to tweeze those two apart and go, oh, well, I thought this was this really bad thing, and it had some bad points in my life. But in some ways some of this seems perhaps to be temperamental perhaps to be an identity as to the way I orient to the world in a thoughtful, compassionate, slightly melancholy way. I'm curious what you think about that.

That sort of leads into a central concept and a lot of your work between illness and identity, Right, so we could talk about you being gay in that way. Originally you might have thought of it as an illness. Many people might have thought of it as an illness, but now it's more of an identity for you. In the book Far from the Tree, you show people who are different than the rest of us, many of whom claim that difference as an identity, not an illness. So if we think of Dwarfism, right, there's some beautiful scenes in the documentary right and in the book, but the documentary is more recently in my mind of these people really claiming like this is who I am, and this is who I want to be. I don't want to be fixed. And I wanted to see if in any way that has been able to apply or what ways it does apply to you when it comes to your own mental health, because there's an idea of depression as an illness, and it certainly is something not good when it gets to the stage that you had it or that I've had it, right, And then there's also the idea of a thoughtful, melancholy temperament, and I, as I get older, am finding it harder to tweeze those two apart and go, oh, well, I thought this was this really bad thing, and it had some bad points in my life. But in some ways some of this seems perhaps to be temperamental perhaps to be an identity as to the way I orient to the world in a thoughtful, compassionate, slightly melancholy way. I'm curious what you think about that.

Well, it rings very true that that's the way that one experiences it. And I think when I was working on Far from the Tree, both the book and the documentary, the narrative that I primarily had was how do you get from an illness model to an identity model? And that remains. I mean, it's become much more of a general conversation in the years since then. There was a piece in The Times a few days ago by Ed Hirsch, Who's going Blind, That was all about how he had come to love his blindness and now he's thrilled to be going blind and all the things he's learning from going blind, and it was quite an inspiring and exciting piece. But the reality is that it is an illness and an identity. And trying to say, oh, I used to think it was an illness and now I think it's an identity is very reductive. So who would I be if I weren't melancholic by nature? I would be somebody else. I mean, I don't know who would I be If I were a Norwegian fisherman, I would be a different.

Well, it rings very true that that's the way that one experiences it. And I think when I was working on Far from the Tree, both the book and the documentary, the narrative that I primarily had was how do you get from an illness model to an identity model? And that remains. I mean, it's become much more of a general conversation in the years since then. There was a piece in The Times a few days ago by Ed Hirsch, Who's going Blind, That was all about how he had come to love his blindness and now he's thrilled to be going blind and all the things he's learning from going blind, and it was quite an inspiring and exciting piece. But the reality is that it is an illness and an identity. And trying to say, oh, I used to think it was an illness and now I think it's an identity is very reductive. So who would I be if I weren't melancholic by nature? I would be somebody else. I mean, I don't know who would I be If I were a Norwegian fisherman, I would be a different.

Person, probably be a great one, though I think I.

Person, probably be a great one, though I think I.

Think it would not be a grand success. But anyway, you know, just the sort of sense of it being set of somebody very different. So there are aspects of my experience with mental illness that I could have done without, and there are experiences I had that I would be thrilled to be able to erased. A lot of them I learned from, and a lot of them I grew from, and a lot of them I made something out of, and I still would love for them not to have happened. But there is a great deal that is proximate to those particular moments of extreme anguish. That's been really the basis for whatever I've learned or whatever perspective I've had, and I've become particularly aware of it. And I don't mean this is sound precious, but since becoming a parent, I think I look at the suffering of my own children and of the people around them, and I have a gentler relationship to it than perhaps my parents had to some of my initial problems, though they were very supportive, or then some other people have. I think I'm a nicer person because of it. You know, would I have been so inspired by those artists in Russia, or even by my mother's death, or by any the other things that have inspired me by the work I'm doing now on youth suicide, Would any of it have spoken to me if I hadn't had those struggles and if I didn't have that perspective. So I wouldn't want to give it up. But the fact that I wouldn't want to give it up and the fact that it's become my identity doesn't mean that it's all been dandio and that it's all worth it. I mean, how can you say worth it? You know, I don't have the option of giving it up, So there's a level at which I can't imagine what it would be like to give it up, because it's unfeasible and unimaginable.

Think it would not be a grand success. But anyway, you know, just the sort of sense of it being set of somebody very different. So there are aspects of my experience with mental illness that I could have done without, and there are experiences I had that I would be thrilled to be able to erased. A lot of them I learned from, and a lot of them I grew from, and a lot of them I made something out of, and I still would love for them not to have happened. But there is a great deal that is proximate to those particular moments of extreme anguish. That's been really the basis for whatever I've learned or whatever perspective I've had, and I've become particularly aware of it. And I don't mean this is sound precious, but since becoming a parent, I think I look at the suffering of my own children and of the people around them, and I have a gentler relationship to it than perhaps my parents had to some of my initial problems, though they were very supportive, or then some other people have. I think I'm a nicer person because of it. You know, would I have been so inspired by those artists in Russia, or even by my mother's death, or by any the other things that have inspired me by the work I'm doing now on youth suicide, Would any of it have spoken to me if I hadn't had those struggles and if I didn't have that perspective. So I wouldn't want to give it up. But the fact that I wouldn't want to give it up and the fact that it's become my identity doesn't mean that it's all been dandio and that it's all worth it. I mean, how can you say worth it? You know, I don't have the option of giving it up, So there's a level at which I can't imagine what it would be like to give it up, because it's unfeasible and unimaginable.

Yeah, I think there's an interesting narrative around human suffering that has emerged, which is that it can always be beneficial, like, oh, it's a chance to grow. And I feel like that is also reductive, right, that idea of you know, people say, well, you know, everything happens for a reason, or things happen for the best you know, which is not a thing I believe, right. I tend to be more in the well. I think I can make the best out of the things that happen, yes, right, But to your point, not that I wish they would happen, right.

Yeah, I think there's an interesting narrative around human suffering that has emerged, which is that it can always be beneficial, like, oh, it's a chance to grow. And I feel like that is also reductive, right, that idea of you know, people say, well, you know, everything happens for a reason, or things happen for the best you know, which is not a thing I believe, right. I tend to be more in the well. I think I can make the best out of the things that happen, yes, right, But to your point, not that I wish they would happen, right.

You know.

You know.

You hear people who've lost children, and we'll talk about that with you suicide. Who will say, have I grown as a result of this?

You hear people who've lost children, and we'll talk about that with you suicide. Who will say, have I grown as a result of this?

Sure?

Sure?

Would I trade it all in a heartbeat to have my child back? Yes, you know. And so I think that's holding both of those things.

Would I trade it all in a heartbeat to have my child back? Yes, you know. And so I think that's holding both of those things.

And it's also I think holding the things that are tragic because of the society constructed around them and the attitudes they attract, and the things that are inherently tragic. So I grew up feeling it was tragic to be gay, but I didn't think it was tragic to be gay for reasons that were really endemic to the idea of two men being in a romantic or sexual interaction. It was tragic because people didn't like you, because you were laughing stock, because it was stigmatiz I mean, they were a million different because you could get murdered for it. Because aides was lossoming at the time in affecting the community because there were so many people who had been rejected by their own families and were full of self hatred. I mean, there were a million different things that were problematical, but they weren't central to it. If you're looking at mental illness, you know, being depressed is not a pleasant experience, and you could erase all the stigma in the world, and that would not make it into a pleasant experience. It is inherently an unpleasant experience. Now, some level of melancholy may be sufficiently rewarding, so that even though it's unpleasant, there's something else that counterbalances the unpleasantness. But part of the reason that I've been interested actually in trying to write about this problem of youth suicide is that, you know, some people have said have said it was transformative and it helped me to grow. But there's nobody who ends up saying, oh, I'm really glad my child died by suicide, right, And I'm interested in trying to look at something where they're just there isn't an upside. I mean, even you know, I think that's a problematical argument that there are people who would say, well, dropping the bomb in Hiroshima saved so many other lives, and you say, well, I don't know, nuclear bombs are not so terrific, but losing your childhood suit said, there is no upset, I know, and I want to look at the fact that that's a reality and get away from this slightly mawkish idea that well, you know, whatever has happened, you know, sort of you'll grow from it. I mean something you don't grow from. Some things you just regret.

And it's also I think holding the things that are tragic because of the society constructed around them and the attitudes they attract, and the things that are inherently tragic. So I grew up feeling it was tragic to be gay, but I didn't think it was tragic to be gay for reasons that were really endemic to the idea of two men being in a romantic or sexual interaction. It was tragic because people didn't like you, because you were laughing stock, because it was stigmatiz I mean, they were a million different because you could get murdered for it. Because aides was lossoming at the time in affecting the community because there were so many people who had been rejected by their own families and were full of self hatred. I mean, there were a million different things that were problematical, but they weren't central to it. If you're looking at mental illness, you know, being depressed is not a pleasant experience, and you could erase all the stigma in the world, and that would not make it into a pleasant experience. It is inherently an unpleasant experience. Now, some level of melancholy may be sufficiently rewarding, so that even though it's unpleasant, there's something else that counterbalances the unpleasantness. But part of the reason that I've been interested actually in trying to write about this problem of youth suicide is that, you know, some people have said have said it was transformative and it helped me to grow. But there's nobody who ends up saying, oh, I'm really glad my child died by suicide, right, And I'm interested in trying to look at something where they're just there isn't an upside. I mean, even you know, I think that's a problematical argument that there are people who would say, well, dropping the bomb in Hiroshima saved so many other lives, and you say, well, I don't know, nuclear bombs are not so terrific, but losing your childhood suit said, there is no upset, I know, and I want to look at the fact that that's a reality and get away from this slightly mawkish idea that well, you know, whatever has happened, you know, sort of you'll grow from it. I mean something you don't grow from. Some things you just regret.

Yeah, yeah, and some things crush you. You know. I've been very interested over the years in that question of why do some people come through difficulty and emerge as having grown in some way again, even if the difficulty is still lamentable and tragic. They carry on, and they carry on in a way that eventually starts to look a little bit like thriving to the best of the ability under the circumstances. And then other people are utterly crushed by it, become bitter defeated, And what is the secret sauce in that? And it's the same thing I've often been like, well, why do some of us get sober and others don't? Right? There's not an answer, There's not a single answer anyway, and there's answers that might apply to this person in this circumstance, and we might be able to see some patterns here and a few things here, but there's no ultimate answer.

Yeah, yeah, and some things crush you. You know. I've been very interested over the years in that question of why do some people come through difficulty and emerge as having grown in some way again, even if the difficulty is still lamentable and tragic. They carry on, and they carry on in a way that eventually starts to look a little bit like thriving to the best of the ability under the circumstances. And then other people are utterly crushed by it, become bitter defeated, And what is the secret sauce in that? And it's the same thing I've often been like, well, why do some of us get sober and others don't? Right? There's not an answer, There's not a single answer anyway, and there's answers that might apply to this person in this circumstance, and we might be able to see some patterns here and a few things here, but there's no ultimate answer.

But I get letters all the time, and I think you said that, you get parallel ones from people who write to me and say, you appear to have gone through a depression that was catastrophic, that warranted hospitalization, in which you were utterly paralyzed, and now your life seems to be essentially okay, which you know, it has some really tough moments, but it's essentially okay at least for now. And they say, why is it you were able to do that? And I wasn't. And when people write to me and say that there are some factors that are obvious, you know, I had access to excellent therapy and psychopharmaceutical care. I had very supportive people around me. I had grown up in a loving household. I had all of these advantages. But a lot of that I think it's actually just the nature of one's personality. And my concern about the model of resilience is that you want to encourage people to pursue resilience, but you don't want the people who really can't do that to feel as though they've failed, so that, in addition to being depressed, they feel like they've somehow flunked the test of how they were supposed to recover and get patter. I just think different people have different capacity. You know, I can't play tennis. I'm just I took a lot of lessons. I'm really bad at it. And I mean I took a lot of lessons when I was a kid. Not in a long time, because I gave up completely. But I have bad hand eye coordination, and bad depth perception and all kinds of other things. I think resilience also is the thing one is fortunate to have, and that leads into a sat larger question of which it is a part, which is the notion that a meritocracy is somehow more fair than an aristocracy. And I spent some time once in a diamond mine in South Africa, and I thought, oh, this idea I have a sort of if you're only willing to work hard enough, you can have a terrific life. Those people were working harder than anyone I know has ever worked, and their lives were living hell. And the idea that somehow, if they only really devoted themselves and if they only really persist. Some people have skills and advantages and are able to thrive in a meripocricy and other people don't. And it's a question of what you're born with, and if you're born with the resilience, you're going to do better. That doesn't mean it can't be cultivated. That doesn't mean that you don't have to make an effort to achieve it. But we aren't all dealt in even hand in any regard including that one.

But I get letters all the time, and I think you said that, you get parallel ones from people who write to me and say, you appear to have gone through a depression that was catastrophic, that warranted hospitalization, in which you were utterly paralyzed, and now your life seems to be essentially okay, which you know, it has some really tough moments, but it's essentially okay at least for now. And they say, why is it you were able to do that? And I wasn't. And when people write to me and say that there are some factors that are obvious, you know, I had access to excellent therapy and psychopharmaceutical care. I had very supportive people around me. I had grown up in a loving household. I had all of these advantages. But a lot of that I think it's actually just the nature of one's personality. And my concern about the model of resilience is that you want to encourage people to pursue resilience, but you don't want the people who really can't do that to feel as though they've failed, so that, in addition to being depressed, they feel like they've somehow flunked the test of how they were supposed to recover and get patter. I just think different people have different capacity. You know, I can't play tennis. I'm just I took a lot of lessons. I'm really bad at it. And I mean I took a lot of lessons when I was a kid. Not in a long time, because I gave up completely. But I have bad hand eye coordination, and bad depth perception and all kinds of other things. I think resilience also is the thing one is fortunate to have, and that leads into a sat larger question of which it is a part, which is the notion that a meritocracy is somehow more fair than an aristocracy. And I spent some time once in a diamond mine in South Africa, and I thought, oh, this idea I have a sort of if you're only willing to work hard enough, you can have a terrific life. Those people were working harder than anyone I know has ever worked, and their lives were living hell. And the idea that somehow, if they only really devoted themselves and if they only really persist. Some people have skills and advantages and are able to thrive in a meripocricy and other people don't. And it's a question of what you're born with, and if you're born with the resilience, you're going to do better. That doesn't mean it can't be cultivated. That doesn't mean that you don't have to make an effort to achieve it. But we aren't all dealt in even hand in any regard including that one.

No, absolutely not. And I think what's interesting about that idea, and I actually agree with it to be true, is this balance of it's not good to embrace fatalism either. And you said somewhere that you wish for a new generation dead catered to equality but also respectful of merit. And there's a balance there, right, And this is the balance we're talking about, which is like, not everybody has it in them to recover. You say elsewhere about depression that the best treatment for depression is belief, which is far more essential than what you actually believe in. And I think part of it is the belief maybe somehow I can find my way through. And so when we say some people don't have it. I sometimes worry that the people who believe they don't have it then take that and go, I don't have it. But to your point, we also don't want to make people feel bad for not having it. It's this really delicate thing.

No, absolutely not. And I think what's interesting about that idea, and I actually agree with it to be true, is this balance of it's not good to embrace fatalism either. And you said somewhere that you wish for a new generation dead catered to equality but also respectful of merit. And there's a balance there, right, And this is the balance we're talking about, which is like, not everybody has it in them to recover. You say elsewhere about depression that the best treatment for depression is belief, which is far more essential than what you actually believe in. And I think part of it is the belief maybe somehow I can find my way through. And so when we say some people don't have it. I sometimes worry that the people who believe they don't have it then take that and go, I don't have it. But to your point, we also don't want to make people feel bad for not having it. It's this really delicate thing.

I mean, a topic that you've addressed. But I've known people who are addicts and who have recovered or who are in recovery, or whichever phrasing one wants to use, but who have managed to emerge. But I've also known people who didn't. And I sometimes think, gee, if you just really worked to that program and if you really threw yourself in. But I also think people have different capacities, So it is a balance. You want people to do their best and to insist that they try as hard as they can, but not to punish them if when they try as hard as they can they don't succeed.

I mean, a topic that you've addressed. But I've known people who are addicts and who have recovered or who are in recovery, or whichever phrasing one wants to use, but who have managed to emerge. But I've also known people who didn't. And I sometimes think, gee, if you just really worked to that program and if you really threw yourself in. But I also think people have different capacities, So it is a balance. You want people to do their best and to insist that they try as hard as they can, but not to punish them if when they try as hard as they can they don't succeed.

I think to do their best is more their belief in their ability. But I agree. It's why I've often said, if I get a chance to sit down with God, after some pretty foundational questions, I'm going to move on to this very question, why do some people recover and others don't? Because I went through treatment with people, and there are some patterns I can pull out, Like you, I was relatively fortunate, right Like, I got arrested for a bunch felonies and was given a diversion program instead of going to jail. Why because I was a suburban white kid, right Like, It's just obvious I had that advantage when I, after driving my life into the ground, climbed back out of that a little bit. I had a reasonable high school education that I was given in a decent school to fall back upon. I mean, I had resources that a lot of people around me didn't have. So there are some factors I can certainly look at and me like, well, I had that advantage, and I had that advantage, and I had that advantage. And then there are people who had all those advantages I did who are dead today, you know, And it looked at one point like they were trying as hard as I was. We were in the same treatment centers, we were going to the same meetings. And then you see people who've had nothing the worst hand in the world dealt to them that end up winning the tournament, and you just look at it and there's a certain amount of just like, well, I guess we can name some things that we know are more prediction give in one direction or the other. And then there's just to me a certain mystery, you know, which is sort of what you're talking about. Something in eight.

I think to do their best is more their belief in their ability. But I agree. It's why I've often said, if I get a chance to sit down with God, after some pretty foundational questions, I'm going to move on to this very question, why do some people recover and others don't? Because I went through treatment with people, and there are some patterns I can pull out, Like you, I was relatively fortunate, right Like, I got arrested for a bunch felonies and was given a diversion program instead of going to jail. Why because I was a suburban white kid, right Like, It's just obvious I had that advantage when I, after driving my life into the ground, climbed back out of that a little bit. I had a reasonable high school education that I was given in a decent school to fall back upon. I mean, I had resources that a lot of people around me didn't have. So there are some factors I can certainly look at and me like, well, I had that advantage, and I had that advantage, and I had that advantage. And then there are people who had all those advantages I did who are dead today, you know, And it looked at one point like they were trying as hard as I was. We were in the same treatment centers, we were going to the same meetings. And then you see people who've had nothing the worst hand in the world dealt to them that end up winning the tournament, and you just look at it and there's a certain amount of just like, well, I guess we can name some things that we know are more prediction give in one direction or the other. And then there's just to me a certain mystery, you know, which is sort of what you're talking about. Something in eight.

Yes, and it's not measurable, and it is mysterious, and I think it's often not predictable. Though to people with a lot of experience, it's more predictable than it is to people with less experience. I mean, when I worked in a prison in Minnesota for a while, I really it was juvenile felons, and I formed pretty close relationships with a number of them. And I remember one of the people who worked at the prison. There was one guy who was particularly He was charming and he was brilliant, and I thought he could have gone to an Ivy League school and he could have run a major corporation. And the guy who worked at the prison said, he's a psychopath and he's going to spend the rest of his life in jail. And I thought that's a horrible defeating thing to say, but it turned out to be true. He is a psychopath, and he is in a maximum security prison now and it's his sort of third imprisonment since then, and he's in for a long time this go around. But others of the people I met, some of whom I didn't automatically warm to as much, have actually made really good lives for themselves and have not gone back to jail. And so the program that I was working in was focused on rehabilitation rather than simply unpunishment. And what I realized was that I started off thinking, well, we have to rehabilitate everyone, and I ended up thinking, Okay, if twenty percent of the people who are here, who might otherwise have gone on to a hollow, empty life of criminality and destruction, instead go on to positive, productive lives in which they're able to do terrific things, that's a triumph. You don't have to have it work out for everyone, and it won't ever work out for everyone. You can't rehabilitate all the criminals, or all the addicts, or all the people with mental illness, or all the whatever other category you want to propose. But there is no category of come across in which you can't find some people who managed to pull through. I mean, there are Holocaust survivors who somehow survived all those years in the camps and who then came out and became great moral philosophers. Yeah, there's nothing that's so bad that some people can't find resilience in it. Yeah.

Yes, and it's not measurable, and it is mysterious, and I think it's often not predictable. Though to people with a lot of experience, it's more predictable than it is to people with less experience. I mean, when I worked in a prison in Minnesota for a while, I really it was juvenile felons, and I formed pretty close relationships with a number of them. And I remember one of the people who worked at the prison. There was one guy who was particularly He was charming and he was brilliant, and I thought he could have gone to an Ivy League school and he could have run a major corporation. And the guy who worked at the prison said, he's a psychopath and he's going to spend the rest of his life in jail. And I thought that's a horrible defeating thing to say, but it turned out to be true. He is a psychopath, and he is in a maximum security prison now and it's his sort of third imprisonment since then, and he's in for a long time this go around. But others of the people I met, some of whom I didn't automatically warm to as much, have actually made really good lives for themselves and have not gone back to jail. And so the program that I was working in was focused on rehabilitation rather than simply unpunishment. And what I realized was that I started off thinking, well, we have to rehabilitate everyone, and I ended up thinking, Okay, if twenty percent of the people who are here, who might otherwise have gone on to a hollow, empty life of criminality and destruction, instead go on to positive, productive lives in which they're able to do terrific things, that's a triumph. You don't have to have it work out for everyone, and it won't ever work out for everyone. You can't rehabilitate all the criminals, or all the addicts, or all the people with mental illness, or all the whatever other category you want to propose. But there is no category of come across in which you can't find some people who managed to pull through. I mean, there are Holocaust survivors who somehow survived all those years in the camps and who then came out and became great moral philosophers. Yeah, there's nothing that's so bad that some people can't find resilience in it. Yeah.

So let's turn to youth's suicide because we're kind of right on it a little bit, because there's something you said about it that I think is really interesting and I think applies to what we just said. You're describing the research you've done on it. You've written a very extensive piece for The New Yorker, you're writing a book on it, and you said, I really would have loved to discover a guiding principle in which I could say, terrible things happen to these families, but they'll never happen to me, and they'll never happen to you. This is how you steer clear.

So let's turn to youth's suicide because we're kind of right on it a little bit, because there's something you said about it that I think is really interesting and I think applies to what we just said. You're describing the research you've done on it. You've written a very extensive piece for The New Yorker, you're writing a book on it, and you said, I really would have loved to discover a guiding principle in which I could say, terrible things happen to these families, but they'll never happen to me, and they'll never happen to you. This is how you steer clear.

You know.

You know.

I came up with a certain amount of wisdom that may be helpful to some people, but overall, I felt like people are probably going to go on dying by suicide, and there's nothing I can do to make that not happen to anyone.

I came up with a certain amount of wisdom that may be helpful to some people, but overall, I felt like people are probably going to go on dying by suicide, and there's nothing I can do to make that not happen to anyone.

Well, that's absolutely true. I'man. The impulse to endra life exists in a lot of people, and it actually exists in more and more people as we move into this period of climate change and political extremism and all of the other the social immobility, all of the other problems that are affecting us, also into an era of technology and information overload, and you know, to some extent, though myself I'm not religious, I think the movement away from a certain kind of mainstream faith has been devastating for many people, for whom it would have served as a protection against suicide. You aren't going to be able to make it all go away, but there is a lot that can be done to reduce the rate, especially of youth suicide. I mean, that's what I've been primarily studying, and we aren't doing it, and nobody empower seems to be very interested in doing it. And mostly I think people in power aren't very interested in doing it because doing it would entail admitting the vulnerability to this possibility that exists in every family in the world, and nobody wants to acknowledge that vulnerability, and the force of that insistent denial results in social policies that are destructive, damaging problem, and that are leading to enormous numbers of unnecessary deaths. So you can't make the problem go away entirely. But you don't have to indulge it the way that we do and face up to the fact a that you're afraid of it and be that actually it could happen to you. I mean, let's hope it doesn't. It doesn't happen to most families. It doesn't happen to most people, but it happens apparently out of the blue to many families that are good and loving and whatever else it is that families are supposed to be insightful, generous, whatever our families are supposed to be that one would hope is protective. None of it is fool proof. Yeah.

Well, that's absolutely true. I'man. The impulse to endra life exists in a lot of people, and it actually exists in more and more people as we move into this period of climate change and political extremism and all of the other the social immobility, all of the other problems that are affecting us, also into an era of technology and information overload, and you know, to some extent, though myself I'm not religious, I think the movement away from a certain kind of mainstream faith has been devastating for many people, for whom it would have served as a protection against suicide. You aren't going to be able to make it all go away, but there is a lot that can be done to reduce the rate, especially of youth suicide. I mean, that's what I've been primarily studying, and we aren't doing it, and nobody empower seems to be very interested in doing it. And mostly I think people in power aren't very interested in doing it because doing it would entail admitting the vulnerability to this possibility that exists in every family in the world, and nobody wants to acknowledge that vulnerability, and the force of that insistent denial results in social policies that are destructive, damaging problem, and that are leading to enormous numbers of unnecessary deaths. So you can't make the problem go away entirely. But you don't have to indulge it the way that we do and face up to the fact a that you're afraid of it and be that actually it could happen to you. I mean, let's hope it doesn't. It doesn't happen to most families. It doesn't happen to most people, but it happens apparently out of the blue to many families that are good and loving and whatever else it is that families are supposed to be insightful, generous, whatever our families are supposed to be that one would hope is protective. None of it is fool proof. Yeah.

Do you think that this increase is cultural and the factors that are at play in our culture? You say that certainly, if you've got a terrible childhood and you're traumatizing all that you're more likely to do it. And I think we can all see that. I think that's more commonly understood now. Right, bad things happen to you as a kid, you're much more likely to have challenges as an adult or even in your youth. Right, But you mentioned, as you said, families that it appears like everything is going right and still a child wants to die. What's going on.

Do you think that this increase is cultural and the factors that are at play in our culture? You say that certainly, if you've got a terrible childhood and you're traumatizing all that you're more likely to do it. And I think we can all see that. I think that's more commonly understood now. Right, bad things happen to you as a kid, you're much more likely to have challenges as an adult or even in your youth. Right, But you mentioned, as you said, families that it appears like everything is going right and still a child wants to die. What's going on.

Some of that is just an organic quality that may exist in that child. As we were discussing before, Different people have different levels of resilience. Some of that, I think has to do with the relationships that kids now have to social media and to the internet. It used to be that you were bullied at school, but you came home and it stopped. And now you come home and it doesn't stop. And it used to be that if you were paying attention to what was happening in the world, perhaps your father read the paper in the morning and you all watch the news for half an hour in the evening. Now you have an alert on your phone every forty five seconds telling you about some other hideous disaster somewhere or other. I mean, there are a million factors I consider to spend the next hour listing what a lot of them are. The problem, I think is that we don't make any attempt to notify people of what those dangers are and to prepare them to negotiate those problems. So there's a lawyer with whom I've had some interesting conversations who's based in Seattle, who for many years worked on asbestos claims and the issue with asbestos was not so much that a product had been developed that turned out to be carcinogenic. It was that nobody was told that it was carcinogenic. The companies tried to hide the fact that it was carcinogenic. There is a great deal of damage that could have been prevented and it wasn't. And he now is representing families who have lost children to suicide because apparently of their experiences on social media, which I could detail, but in any event, the case is quite convincing. And what he said is, you know, people need to be warned. They need to know what are the algorithms, what are the dangers with those algorithms, What is it that you're getting into when you sign up for these different platforms, what's going on? I mean, I think TikTok is responsible for an enormous amount of despair among American youth, and that many people have ended up dying by suicide in part because of the way that the TikTok algorithms feed people who have clicked on one thing about suicide once so much material that they then come to think that this is what everyone is doing and end up forming an identity around and the group of people contemplating suicide because they don't have a strong enough identity elsewhere. The debate that's going on in Congress right now is about whether TikTok should be banned, and I don't actually think anything should be banned. That's a separate topic. Whether their TikTok should be banned because it might be used at some hypothetical point by the Chinese to spy on American citizens and collect And I thought, okay, but it's killing children. TikTok is killing children. Shouldn't we be having a conversation about that. You know, obviously it preferable if national enemies don't have extreme amounts of information about one another that could be used to cause damage and chaos. But the level of hysteria about the I think very remote possibility that TikTok could somehow be weaponized in a war is so tremendous, and the lack of interest in what it is about TikTok that has caused it so particularly to lead children down a path toward despair and self injury and self harm and death through a variety of sort of weird challenges and things that are on TikTok, and ultimately towards suicide. That's barely discussed at all. It's a very distorted system of values.

Some of that is just an organic quality that may exist in that child. As we were discussing before, Different people have different levels of resilience. Some of that, I think has to do with the relationships that kids now have to social media and to the internet. It used to be that you were bullied at school, but you came home and it stopped. And now you come home and it doesn't stop. And it used to be that if you were paying attention to what was happening in the world, perhaps your father read the paper in the morning and you all watch the news for half an hour in the evening. Now you have an alert on your phone every forty five seconds telling you about some other hideous disaster somewhere or other. I mean, there are a million factors I consider to spend the next hour listing what a lot of them are. The problem, I think is that we don't make any attempt to notify people of what those dangers are and to prepare them to negotiate those problems. So there's a lawyer with whom I've had some interesting conversations who's based in Seattle, who for many years worked on asbestos claims and the issue with asbestos was not so much that a product had been developed that turned out to be carcinogenic. It was that nobody was told that it was carcinogenic. The companies tried to hide the fact that it was carcinogenic. There is a great deal of damage that could have been prevented and it wasn't. And he now is representing families who have lost children to suicide because apparently of their experiences on social media, which I could detail, but in any event, the case is quite convincing. And what he said is, you know, people need to be warned. They need to know what are the algorithms, what are the dangers with those algorithms, What is it that you're getting into when you sign up for these different platforms, what's going on? I mean, I think TikTok is responsible for an enormous amount of despair among American youth, and that many people have ended up dying by suicide in part because of the way that the TikTok algorithms feed people who have clicked on one thing about suicide once so much material that they then come to think that this is what everyone is doing and end up forming an identity around and the group of people contemplating suicide because they don't have a strong enough identity elsewhere. The debate that's going on in Congress right now is about whether TikTok should be banned, and I don't actually think anything should be banned. That's a separate topic. Whether their TikTok should be banned because it might be used at some hypothetical point by the Chinese to spy on American citizens and collect And I thought, okay, but it's killing children. TikTok is killing children. Shouldn't we be having a conversation about that. You know, obviously it preferable if national enemies don't have extreme amounts of information about one another that could be used to cause damage and chaos. But the level of hysteria about the I think very remote possibility that TikTok could somehow be weaponized in a war is so tremendous, and the lack of interest in what it is about TikTok that has caused it so particularly to lead children down a path toward despair and self injury and self harm and death through a variety of sort of weird challenges and things that are on TikTok, and ultimately towards suicide. That's barely discussed at all. It's a very distorted system of values.

So when you're referring to social media being sounds like the lawyer you're talking to would use the phrase responsible for or we could say contributing to. It's not just the way we normally think of social media in that well, you might be on it and you might get bullied. You might be on it and you might negatively compare yourself to other people. You might be on it and it keeps you from relationships in the real world. You're talking about actually people who are being fed suicidal ideation by the algorithm, because all the algorithm is essentially doing is saying, if you like this, I'm just going to give you more of it. If you like just a little of it, and you like a little more of it, I'm going to keep feeding it to you. That that's the very direct link.

So when you're referring to social media being sounds like the lawyer you're talking to would use the phrase responsible for or we could say contributing to. It's not just the way we normally think of social media in that well, you might be on it and you might get bullied. You might be on it and you might negatively compare yourself to other people. You might be on it and it keeps you from relationships in the real world. You're talking about actually people who are being fed suicidal ideation by the algorithm, because all the algorithm is essentially doing is saying, if you like this, I'm just going to give you more of it. If you like just a little of it, and you like a little more of it, I'm going to keep feeding it to you. That that's the very direct link.

Here until you finally get to the point at which, as happens more and more frequently, people are live streaming their suicides to a group of other people who are egging them on and cheering for them and saying, I know you can do it and go ahead, and so on and so forth, and it becomes a social structure within a world to which again, people who haven't been able for one reason or another to fit inadequately in their own opinion, to whatever their general social context is, school or some place, then they find an identity in this and they follow through on it, and it could be regulated. I mean, we do regulate, back to what we were talking about earlier, but we do regulate certain substances of abuse. We do regulate certain dangerous medications. There would be ways to regulate it without banning it, without saying that you can't look up this material, without trying to bowdlerize texts. You could just say, okay, but you know this is a dangerous direction. You could have alerts of various kinds that came on. I mean, there also are many people I should emphasize who find community on social media in all kinds of other ways, and it can be very rewarding. It's not that I think all social media is terrible, or that we should be getting rid of social media, which we couldn't do anyway, but right. It's just that I think that it has a dark side, and that dark side needs to be acknowledged, and there needs to be warnings about it, and then it needs to be regulated.

Here until you finally get to the point at which, as happens more and more frequently, people are live streaming their suicides to a group of other people who are egging them on and cheering for them and saying, I know you can do it and go ahead, and so on and so forth, and it becomes a social structure within a world to which again, people who haven't been able for one reason or another to fit inadequately in their own opinion, to whatever their general social context is, school or some place, then they find an identity in this and they follow through on it, and it could be regulated. I mean, we do regulate, back to what we were talking about earlier, but we do regulate certain substances of abuse. We do regulate certain dangerous medications. There would be ways to regulate it without banning it, without saying that you can't look up this material, without trying to bowdlerize texts. You could just say, okay, but you know this is a dangerous direction. You could have alerts of various kinds that came on. I mean, there also are many people I should emphasize who find community on social media in all kinds of other ways, and it can be very rewarding. It's not that I think all social media is terrible, or that we should be getting rid of social media, which we couldn't do anyway, but right. It's just that I think that it has a dark side, and that dark side needs to be acknowledged, and there needs to be warnings about it, and then it needs to be regulated.

Yeah. I mean, one of the things about technology that's so challenging at this point is obviously it does an enormous amount of good, it can also do an enormous amount of harm. And it is changing so fast that our systems of thinking about regulation, ethics, all of that are like stone age speed, and technologies like computer speed is just even just with AI is just crazy how fast.

Yeah. I mean, one of the things about technology that's so challenging at this point is obviously it does an enormous amount of good, it can also do an enormous amount of harm. And it is changing so fast that our systems of thinking about regulation, ethics, all of that are like stone age speed, and technologies like computer speed is just even just with AI is just crazy how fast.

But a friend of mine pointed out that every time we have a breakthrough in communications, there ensues a period of chaos and horror before we really figure out how to control it. So you had the invention of the printing press, and then you had one hundred years of religious wars in Europe. Immediately following you had the invention of broadcast technology, and you had fascism and communism. And now we have the invention of the Internet, and we're once more in a period of I think, quite a lot of horror, and hopefully we'll eventually be on top of it. But you're right, technology is now proceeding so rapidly that we no sooner get on top of what seemed to be problematic two years ago than something new has come along.

But a friend of mine pointed out that every time we have a breakthrough in communications, there ensues a period of chaos and horror before we really figure out how to control it. So you had the invention of the printing press, and then you had one hundred years of religious wars in Europe. Immediately following you had the invention of broadcast technology, and you had fascism and communism. And now we have the invention of the Internet, and we're once more in a period of I think, quite a lot of horror, and hopefully we'll eventually be on top of it. But you're right, technology is now proceeding so rapidly that we no sooner get on top of what seemed to be problematic two years ago than something new has come along.

Yeah, we're still figuring out what to do with Twitter, and now now we got chat GPT to worry about. Which is going to start? You know, how do I commit suicide? Chat GPT? Right, Like, I mean, one of the things from your work on you suicide that was startling to me, and I know it was to you, was this idea that obviously those being bullied or at a higher risk for suicide, but so are the bullies themselves. That's actually a correlation that goes to both of those. I thought that was unusual. I was struck by it.

Yeah, we're still figuring out what to do with Twitter, and now now we got chat GPT to worry about. Which is going to start? You know, how do I commit suicide? Chat GPT? Right, Like, I mean, one of the things from your work on you suicide that was startling to me, and I know it was to you, was this idea that obviously those being bullied or at a higher risk for suicide, but so are the bullies themselves. That's actually a correlation that goes to both of those. I thought that was unusual. I was struck by it.

I hadn't really stopped to think very much about the experience of bullies, because we as a society are sympathetic to victims and not sympathetic to perpetrators. Right, bullies are mostly not very happy people. Very happy people don't become bullies. I had also worked a lot on the experience of families of people who commit crimes, and therefore looked at the experience of criminals. They're also not mostly people who are having a really great time. They are people who are suffering. We may be unsympathetic to their suffering because they cause so much suffering to other people, but we shouldn't forget that they are suffering. And people, for example, who are school shooters almost always die by suicide. And even if what they've done, what's remembered is the people they killed. Part of their impulse was a suicidal, desperate impulse. And so the fact that bullies have a very high rate of suicide made perfect sense to me. Bullies are not happy, and nobody likes them. Yeah, accept I suppose Donald Trump, but that's its own, full separate.

I hadn't really stopped to think very much about the experience of bullies, because we as a society are sympathetic to victims and not sympathetic to perpetrators. Right, bullies are mostly not very happy people. Very happy people don't become bullies. I had also worked a lot on the experience of families of people who commit crimes, and therefore looked at the experience of criminals. They're also not mostly people who are having a really great time. They are people who are suffering. We may be unsympathetic to their suffering because they cause so much suffering to other people, but we shouldn't forget that they are suffering. And people, for example, who are school shooters almost always die by suicide. And even if what they've done, what's remembered is the people they killed. Part of their impulse was a suicidal, desperate impulse. And so the fact that bullies have a very high rate of suicide made perfect sense to me. Bullies are not happy, and nobody likes them. Yeah, accept I suppose Donald Trump, but that's its own, full separate.

We're recording on the day that mister Trump is being indicted here in New York, and the city's a little interesting today. It's always interesting in New York, I know. I mean, I think it makes total sense. And I do think that question of how do we relate to people who do awful things, who almost certainly have had awful things done to them, or have been the victim of some difficult circumstance, how do we relate to that. I think it's a broader question about how do we relate to people who make mistakes and what do we allow for rehabilitation.

We're recording on the day that mister Trump is being indicted here in New York, and the city's a little interesting today. It's always interesting in New York, I know. I mean, I think it makes total sense. And I do think that question of how do we relate to people who do awful things, who almost certainly have had awful things done to them, or have been the victim of some difficult circumstance, how do we relate to that. I think it's a broader question about how do we relate to people who make mistakes and what do we allow for rehabilitation.

When I was little, I remember having a conversation with my mother that didn't particularly strike me at the time is extraordinary, but it does in retrospect. There was a kid in my class who was bullying me quite badly, bullied other kids too. And I was talking at the breakfast table when I was I think in second grade, so I was maybe seven or eight years old, and I said, you know, I just I can't deal with going to school and having to interact with Kenny. And it's just my mother said, well, she said, look, she said, you know, Kenny's behavior is horrible, she said, and I've talked to the school and I'm trying, she said, But you know, she said, Kenny does not come from the same circumstances you do. She said, Kenny has a single mother, she works incredibly long hours. They have a lot of financial problems. They live in quite a violent neighborhood. She said, Kenny is not having an easy time. And at the time, I mean, obviously it stuck with me because she said it's me when I was seven, and I'm now fifty nine and.