This podcast has bad words. Every little thing you think that you need Every little thing you think that you need Every little thing that's just feeding your greed, oh I bet that you'd be fine without it.
Hello everybody, welcome to the minimalist podcast where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life. with Les.
My name is Joshua Fields Milburn and joining me here at Earthing Studios in beautiful West Hollywood, California. is my good friend TK Coleman.
It's a beautiful day. Today we're joined by everyone's favorite philosopher, Welcome back to the show, Peter Rollins.
Coming up on this free public minimal episode, a caller has a question about how social anxiety makes her feel isolated.
And we've got a question about what's missing from your community.
That's followed by our right here, right now segment and a listener tip.
As always, you can check out the full two-hour maximal edition of this episode where we answer three times as many questions on Patreon.
The link is in the description. By the way, big thanks to our patrons.
Your support keeps our podcast 100% advertisement free because sing along at home, y'all. advertisements suck.
Let's start with our callers. If you have a question or a comment for our show, we would love to hear from you.
Our phone number is 406-219-7839. Or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to podcast at theminimalists.com.
Our first question today is from Rebecca.
Hello guys, it's Rebecca here from England and I'm a Patreon subscriber.
I would like to know your thoughts around social anxiety, introversion and isolation.
According to the Myers-Briggs personality test, I'm a 99% introvert, which surprised me at first until I realized, well, it was true.
I need and enjoy alone time, but the amount of alone time I need to feel whole is quite frankly embarrassing.
I feel a connection to Josh who spends so much of his time alone.
Listening to your podcast, I'm learning to love myself for who I am.
So thank you. Recently, my therapist has kindly made me question if my extreme introversion and social anxiety, which makes enemies out of people, is a response to my childhood trauma.
My question is this. Do you believe extreme introversion is born or made?
Wow. So I'm interested in your thoughts on introversion because if I gave TK the test, I think he'd be 199% introvert.
And I think I'm right up there, although if this was a competition, I might lose that one.
My wife's the same way, too. She's extremely introverted.
I will say though, I am quite introverted.
My slogan is I'd rather be alone. In just about any situation, I would rather be alone.
However, I also recognize that I don't want to be the guy who moves to a cabin in the middle of Alaska by himself and doesn't see people for the rest of his life.
I think we sort of trick ourselves into thinking that we need to isolate because we're introverts.
And I don't think about it that way anymore.
But Peter, I'm interested. How do you think about introversion?
How do you think about social anxiety? Are those things you even think about at all?
Yeah. And there was so much in that question.
I love to hear the English accent, by the way.
It's very close to where I am in Northern Ireland.
There's a philosopher and friend called Julie Resche, and she actually recently talked about extroversion and introversion, and she's very interesting. introverted herself, as am I, so I think we all share the same issue.
But one of her reflections was on how extroverts seem like they're very social and they go out and talk to lots of people or always enjoying seeing people. lots of people and chatting and small talk.
But sometimes that can actually be a defense against the other.
Because every person is like a universe, like you can never fully gets into one person, even if you spend your entire life with them.
There's something about the introvert sometimes that they understand this.
Like deep down, they know that to even know one person is too much.
And sometimes it's not that the introvert is less social than the extrovert.
Sometimes they so appreciate depth and connection and they experience also the the difficulty of that the difficulty of knowing someone almost the fear of knowing somebody and So in some respects, Julie Reche, you know, questions that idea that the extrovert is really social and the introvert isn't.
And she says sometimes that the party is the introvert. who gets to know one person, because even getting to know one person, as I say, is almost too much.
You can't even do it. So there's something beautiful about that.
I would say in relation to the very last question, is this born or is this made?
The one thing that's a huge question, but in psychoanalysis, often our symptoms are monuments to the past.
They remember something that we don't, and they replay something that was from our past.
And so a symptom is really they talk about this thing called jouissance and jouissance is pleasurable suffering.
It's something that causes us suffering, but also enjoyment, like maybe doom-scrolling is a type of suffering that we enjoy.
There's things that we suffer from, but we get something out of.
That's kind of a symptom. Well, didn't Nietzsche also say love everything that happens to you or to love your suffering in a way?
And I think that's great as an aspiration.
Like, until you suffer so much that you're like, I just wanna get out of this.
I need to shed this. And maybe I think as an introvert, It does feel like suffering sometimes when we're bombarded.
When I worked in the corporate world and I had to be around people all the time, I did.
I didn't have the same, maybe I trained myself out of the social anxiety, but I still had that desire to be alone.
And to me, be around someone is being around one other person quite often, right?
I think about Nicodemus, my best friend, his idea of being alone is being alone with one other person.
Yes, because he's extremely extrovert. He's 90 plus percent extrovert on the Myers-Briggs scale.
And so I think understanding I think back to my corporate days.
TCAN, I'd love to get your thoughts on this too.
When we did inventory, there was this accidental profundity that happened to me when I was fulfilling orders and this pop-up screen would happen on the computer.
And it would say, what are your conditions for fulfillment?
That's so good. And it was about fulfilling a retail sales order.
But I think I've carried that with me in my life.
What are my conditions for fulfillment? And it's not being around a lot of other people.
In fact, I will feel unfulfilled or unsatisfied. satisfied when I'm around too many people.
And yet, if I'm around no one in perpetuity, I'm also going to feel unfulfilled.
And maybe another analogy that's useful for me is when you think about like baseball, there's a strike zone.
You have to you have to throw the ball right down the plate.
Maybe it's cricket for you. I'm not sure what the sport is over there.
And if you don't hit the strike zone, then it's not a strike, right?
And for me, that strike zone is really small.
For Nicodemus, it's the side of a barn. Anyone is sufficient for his condition of fulfillment.
For me, it's it has to be in that really narrow window.
And for TK, that window might even be smaller.
And for my wife, it might even be smaller than that.
It's not that we don't want to be around other people.
Introversion does not require isolation.
In fact, isolation can make us feel a different kind of social anxiety.
Yes. You can go deep and you can go wide.
It's hard to go deep and wide. So if a person's an introvert and they have one brilliant conversation a month, like a beautiful conversation with one person that goes really deep.
That can be the same as an extrovert who has had 50 conversations or 100 conversations in that month.
And so, yeah, in a sense, you go like the introvert can go to a place that the extrovert can't go and the extrovert can go somewhere that the introvert can't go.
And I love what you said about Nietzscheism.
In some respects, it's about learning to countersign your own desires, to not say that I'm not strange, but to go, you are strange and so is everybody.
We're all a bit strange in how we interact with each other and how we do life.
And that's OK. You're not OK. I'm not OK.
And that's OK. Enjoy it. It's perfectly normal to be abnormal.
Yes. That's right. And, you know, to this aspect of the question that involves, hey, am I the way I am because of trauma?
There's a sort of prescriptive approach you can take to that and then there's a descriptive approach.
The prescriptive approach would be to say, hey, I am this way because of this trauma.
Therefore, I should make myself be another way because it's just my trauma that's causing me to artificially suppress who I really am.
That just gets you into war with yourself and makes things even more complicated.
And it also really raises the stakes because you have to be right about this theory.
But the descriptive approach is a little bit more modest, a little bit more healthy, a little bit more playful, where you to emerge should I make progress on the path of healing my wounds.
So if it is true that you are really an extrovert, and you're only behaving in this introverted manner because you have trauma, then that means as you work on that trauma, as you heal, and heal and heal.
You might find yourself opening up in some ways that surprise you, but you don't have to force that, right?
So if the two are disconnected, your trauma is still worth healing.
If the two are connected, your introverted tendencies are still worth wondering, still honoring because that's where you are right now.
And you don't want to push yourself to socialize beyond what you can handle just because it may be possible that you are this way because of trauma.
Can I jump in there as well? I think that's beautifully said.
In some forms of therapy, it's almost like a religious thing.
In some religions, they say there's an original blessing. original state of perfection, then there's a fall, and then there's a return to blessing.
And then in some forms of therapy, it's similar.
There's a pre-traumatic subject, we are traumatized and then we can hope to get beyond the trauma.
Now, within the psychoanalytic tradition and within kind of radical theology, the idea is actually to fall this first There's an original trauma that is being human.
Like we're all traumatized. There's a trauma that happened to us.
And then there's just the trauma that is us.
The trauma of being born. We are traumatized.
We are trauma. I have a friend who's just had a child and she's saying, I can see the child almost starting to look around and going, what the hell is this? this you know that's ontic shock the shock of beating and and in this in this idea Because we're all, in a sense, traumatized in some way, we are all caught in the world of loss.
Extroversion is just as much a trauma. You know, people can be traumatized.
They can't be alone at all. They have to be surrounded by people because they're terrified of being alone.
And so sometimes it's not about trying to postulate a post-traumatic subject like, oh, I can get beyond this. you can understand what formed you like you were saying, come to countersign it like you were saying and in kind of learning your history and being able to embrace what made you you, somehow that robs the trauma of a sting.
And you'll probably still be introverted, but it won't cause as much suffering. introversion doesn't mean necessarily that you're socially incompetent.
I know some extroverts who are super incompetent socially.
They barrel into the room. They need to be around people and they become the life of the party.
But in the way that it's like they're a tornado, the Tasmanian devil.
And it's not competent in a social way. And the opposite is true.
Like for me, I got a sales job when I was 18 and I was hyper introverted and I was also socially awkward. but eventually it's like dribbling a basketball.
You learn how, even if you can't dribble it at first, if you do it every single day for eight hours, 10 hours, 12 hours a day, you get pretty good at it.
Even if it's not your natural inborn talent, you can still be socially competent.
It may still be your default to isolate or to seek solitude.
And I'd like to make a distinction between those two.
When we had Cal Newport on the show the most recent time, He convinced us to get off social media for a year, which we did.
But he also talked about the distinction between isolation and solitude.
Solitude means free from input of other minds, as the way he described it.
So it's possible to be by yourself, but still be bombarded by other inputs, whether that is entertainment or you're scrolling TikTok or whatever, you're not really experiencing solitude in those moments, but you're still having maybe an approximated introverted moment.
That's a beautiful distinction. Absolutely.
So that gives rise to a question. Does that mean there's the possibility of the age of the pseudo introvert, someone who is experiencing themselves as an introvert relative to social interaction or but they're really seeking that same stimulation, but they're just getting it in a way that wasn't previously available.
Or is that media creating more people who behave in these silos and it's isolating us in ways that where even if we're extroverts, it approximates the other people and it approximates interaction.
And of course, we need to roast over this when it was television, because now all of a sudden you could be a voyeur in the 1960s and turn on the TV.
And now you're watching these other families that can't interact with you, but you in a way are interacting with their world.
Although I'd be interested in this distinction too.
Chris Kelly, a previous podcast guest, he doesn't believe that introversion exists.
He's studied a lot of anthropology. And what he says, we're all extroverts.
And the detente that I was able to form there is...
Yes, maybe we are all extroverts, except for that one guy who lives in a cabin in Alaska by himself.
He's the anomaly, but everyone else. We aren't truly independent.
I drove here in a car that other people made.
I drove here on a road that other people paved.
We're in a studio right now that other people build, and someone manufactured this microphone, so I'm not truly independent.
I could say, I'm an independent person, But that's a bit of an illusion as well.
And so maybe I'm not. truly introverted, no one is 100% introverted, but maybe we're all extroverts and it's just a scale.
And so someone like Rebecca is 1% extrovert, And someone like Ryan Nicodemus is 98% extrovert.
And it could just be a different way to look at it.
That's a beautiful way of seeing it because the psychoanalysis, even by having language, we are connected.
So even the person in the woods, they have a shared language.
There's something about being human where we're woven into each other as an infant.
We are We share a same language. We, as you say, share a same structure.
And so in some ways, we're always interconnected with each other.
One issue potentially that we really experienced today, we may have talked about this before, but Lacan, psychoanalyst, he talks about how One of the issues is we have this super egoic injunction to enjoy.
There's a message that's always saying you should be having more fun.
You should be hanging out with more people.
Everyone else is having more sex and relationships and fun than you.
And so it's not that you're suffering from being an introvert. you're suffering from this voice that is continually condemning you with fear of missing out.
And it's that voice that in some ways if we can exorcise that voice from us, we can enjoy who we are.
So perhaps this guest or this listener is in some ways being tyrannized by a voice that's saying you should be having more fun.
And the truth is, everybody seemingly in modern society is being tyrannized by that voice.
Even people I know who are out all the time. in fact, even more so, are tyrannized by, I must have more fun, I must do more things.
And that voice of FOMO is almost how do we exercise that voice from ourselves?
I think that gets us back to the condition of fulfillment. what are your conditions for fulfillment?
And for Rebecca, it might not be someone else's condition.
For Ryan Nicodemus, his condition for fulfillment is constantly being around other people and recognizing that then you can be around those people and feel fulfilled.
But if I were to take on that mimetic desire, I should behave like Ryan Nicodemus because he's having so much fun. of course, in order to have fun or to enjoy my life or to feel satisfied or fulfilled, then I too need to Be around all these people all the time, even though it's kind of making me miserable.
I guess I'd rather be alone because my condition for fulfillment isn't nobody. but it also isn't everybody all the time.
Any last words on this, TK? Yeah, I just want to say it's so important to remember that the labels are a means to an end.
When we discover something like the label introvert and we say, ah, that's who I am.
It can be quite validating because then you can make sense out of so many tendencies and that maybe you felt embarrassed about or that maybe you condemned yourself for.
And that's a very valuable thing. But the labels are not rules.
They're not impositions upon your personality.
And you can always remain open to the possibility that you will show up differently in your future than how you've shown up in the past. that you may be attracted to something later that you're not attracted to now.
And so don't look at the labels as a kind of constraint that you have to conform to.
Oh, I don't do that. I'm an introvert. I can only be here for 10 minutes.
I'm an introvert. It's no, this helps me make sense of myself.
And at the same time, I don't have to box myself in.
If as I make progress with healing my traumas, I find that I want more socialization, that's cool too.
And I don't have to know. whether or not this is my permanent condition or this is an inherited condition or an acquired condition in response to my trauma.
I can be an agnostic with the labels and just engage the experience.
That's super helpful for me because I recognize that It's not who I am as a person.
It's not my identity to be an introvert.
It's a useful label until it isn't useful.
If I start battering myself with that label, because this is who I am, or I should be someone different from this, well, that becomes a problem too.
Could I have one final thought as well? Absolutely.
We could talk all day about this. It's a great question.
What it sounds like this women's therapist is doing, which is very, very important, is getting a stop getting this person to reflect on what's going on in the social anxiety.
So I just literally two days ago talked to a friend who has a lot of social anxiety.
And it turns out she has this sense of that others are dangerous.
It's an unconscious thing, but it's like almost the world is dangerous and people are dangerous.
And as we talked, it became obvious that that was her experience as a child.
There was a certain instability in her family and that instability caused her this kind of embedded itself.
And so interestingly, the last bit of advice I would say is almost like try to think about what's going on in in this kind of introversion.
And if it is a fear of the other, and it might not be, but if there's something about fearful of the danger of the other, it's interesting to then go, does that reflect on some element of my past? some element of my relationship with my siblings or my parents.
And as you symbolize that, you might find that that fear begins to dissipate.
That's so good. Rebecca, I know you have a therapist, but if you'd like a clutter counseling session to help unpack some of the emotional clutter, that anxiety that you're dealing with.
I'd love to give you a session with TK Coleman.
Anyone else who's interested in a clutter counseling session for their physical clutter, mental clutter, emotional clutter, calendar clutter, career clutter, relationship. clutter, head on over to TheMinimalists.com and you can click counseling at the top and you can book a session.
We just opened up. next month's calendar with TK Coleman, my favorite clutter counselor.
Before we get back to our callers, Peter, it is time for the lightning round.
Since you are our most popular guest ever. popular in a sense that he's been on the show more times than anyone.
Now, you know what happened, right? TK was on the show 11 times and eventually.
That's right. You were beating me. It became a common law marriage.
And we were forced to – I don't want him here.
He's just here. I'd rather be alone. He just doesn't leave.
You sleep in the cupboard, don't you? Yeah, yeah.
I actually have seen him sleep on that couch before.
I sleep in the closet they used to film in.
All right, so before we get back to our callers, let's do the lightning round.
This is where we answer the Patreon community chat's question of the week.
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All right. So the question of the week this week.
Peter, he was talking to me about some topics.
What are we gonna talk about? I was like, do you wanna talk about Machiavelli?
We've already talked about like, Schopenhauer and we've talked about Lacan and what are we going to talk about?
And he's like, well, I want to talk about community, but in a completely different way from how anyone has ever talked about it.
And so the question of the week this week is, what is missing from your community?
What is missing? from your community? Now, before we get to our pithy answers, I wanna see what some of our listeners had to say.
Susan said, Attention is missing from my community.
Everyone is staring at a device much of the day.
Peter, how is tech getting in the way of our communities?
Okay. Well, can I start by saying that I want to critique the word community?
Yes. Okay, brilliant. Because I've always been funny about that word community, and I've been theorizing it more of late.
What I would argue, without showing the working out, so please attack me if you want anybody, is that communities are a social bond, that is forged around shared beliefs, practices, values, obstacles and enemies.
That's generally how we think of community.
Yeah. But you're thinking about community differently. yeah so i even want to use a completely different word because i i would argue that community and there's great book by todd mcgowan by the way on this subject embracing alienation i'd recommend Um,
He would argue that all communities, there is something shared, some identity, some belief, and there's nothing wrong with that.
We all like snooker, we all like cricket, whatever, we form community. but then there's always an outsider.
So there's an inside, there's always an outside.
You can't have a community that says we welcome everybody.
As soon as you see that, you ask yourself, well, who would they not welcome?
There's always an outsider. Now, there's almost like this implicit message.
We welcome everyone as long as you think the way we do.
Yes. As long as you have the same opinions or similar opinions.
Yes. As long as you vote like we do. As long as you believe what we believe.
We welcome everyone within these bounds.
And another add on to is we welcome everyone and we need to explicitly state that because clearly we behave in a way that isn't effectively producing those results. oh yes yeah yes so that's what i would argue right community and even the best communities then have outsiders and insiders we're all parts of communities The opposite of community is what's called the commons.
The commons is a space where you meet people who are genuinely different.
Like a park is a commons, allotments. uh the greyhound bus and what a commons is in terms in theory is it's a space where you don't just encounter people who are different from you who disagree with you those people might even disagree with you about what the disagreements are about.
And that's what the problem is in society.
It's not that we simply disagree about something like you're on one side, I'm on the other side. depending on which side you're on, you disagree about the very way that you frame the disagreement itself, and that makes something intractable.
The commons is where you literally rub shoulders with potentially someone who you think is anathema, awful, terrible, right?
So that's the opposite. Then the third position, and this is what I'm excited about.
I call it a communion, but I don't mean that in a religious sense i do borrow the word from theology for a reason which we can get into or not but a communion is a social bond forged not on what we share in common, but on the fact that we all have a lack, we all desire, we all have loss.
Now, an example of a communion for me is AA.
AA is not a group that's forged on shared beliefs, shared class structure, because you get people who are so different in that AA group.
They're surrounded by what joins them together is a trauma and a lack that they've tried to cover over with alcohol.
So alcohol is not the problem. It's the solution to a problem.
And that's what they're. So a communion for me is like.
Put it on TikTok. Just take him out of context.
Oh, yes. Yes, that's right. Alcohol is the solution.
That's a very Irish thing to say. But a communion then is almost like a universal AA. where we gather together and we say that we've all experienced loss, we all mourn, we all desire, And so in a way, we have nothing in common.
I saw a meme once that said a deity, a dating app for nihilists.
And the tagline was for those who have nothing in common, right?
And that's almost it, is that no matter what we have, you know, you have things in common with me and vice versa, but communion is not that we're all insiders, but we're all outsiders.
That's the existential idea. Albert Camus talked about this, that in a certain way, we're all in the world but not of it.
None of us fit in completely. But we try and we pretend and often the cool people in the school, they seem like they fit in the most.
But you talk to them and they feel that they don't fit in.
So there's a certain sense in which we're all outsiders.
And I don't think a community can do justice to that, but a communion can.
That's a social bond that I want to see.
Yeah, yeah. And so what's fascinating here is what is missing from your community from your peer group, whatever we're calling it in this context, often defines what we're gathered around, which is actually different from the community that you were talking about earlier, I would use the word tribe when you say it's with enemies.
If we're uniting against something, that is a tribe.
It doesn't really say what we stand for anyway.
But it's like we have a common enemy. We have someone we can beat up or pick on.
And that creates a rather toxic community quite often.
And also the most strong community. I mean, shared beliefs and practices create community, but what really binds people together is a shared enemy. whenever somebody or a shared obstacle, whenever we can point to those people and say they are the problem.
And in someone like René Girard, He talks about how, interestingly, a community thinks that the problem is some group of But they're actually, again, the solution to the problem.
It's they are what hold the community together.
And And without that shared enemy, they'd have to find a new enemy or disband.
Or disband. So weirdly, you need the very thing that you think you don't need.
The very thing you think you want to get rid of is what you need. to solidify the grip.
Yeah. And TK, that brings us back to what Susan was saying a moment ago about technology getting in the way, like attention is missing from my community.
And technology often gets in the way because it amplifies those enemies in a way, gives us more access, creates new enemies for us.
That's exactly right. And we see this play out so much in politics, right?
What would people do without the person they are running against?
So much of... Each party's campaign is about I'm not like that other person because that just invigorates people a lot more.
When it comes to the technology, I think it amplifies the distractions, but I think it also exposes more of who we are.
It's kind of like the question about money.
Does money really change people or does it just give you the opportunity to act on who you've always been?
Sometimes we confuse changing or becoming someone different with having the opportunity.
But there are lots of things that people would do that they simply can't do because they don't have the power to do it or they don't have the power to say it and get away with it.
You give them a lot of money, you might see what they're made of.
In a similar way, technology, functions as a kind of mirror to help us begin to see what we're made of.
Two things on that as well, money and technology. provide us an ability to inoculate ourselves from the other.
So I used to live in a place in Connecticut for a few years, had a lot of people who had money.
And literally geographically, you have more space between you and your neighbor.
Like money provided more ability not to encounter the toxic other, the other who is who can destabilize you because true others destabilize us.
People who are different from us cause us to see ourselves in new ways.
So money can do that and technology as well where when you enter into a social space, you can surround yourself with people who think like you, who have the same interests as you.
And what we saw over COVID when we were not in the commons anymore, we weren't rubbing shoulders with people who were literally different. people's communities became more tightly rigid, which then causes more aggression and fighting from between communities.
So interestingly, money and technology inoculate us they provide us a ways of protecting ourselves from the other and yet love The definition of love, again, I'd have to argue why I think this, but love is precisely providing a harbor for the otherness of the other.
So in dating apps, for example, We often are all looking for people who are like us.
We list who we want and whether their political views are the same as ours or whatever.
But in something like Romeo and Juliet, You have two people who are completely other from two different tribes, from two different groups. encountering otherness and that's where love erupts.
So in some ways, dating apps, what they foreclose is the ability to find love.
The more we, I almost would like to create a dating app that purposefully throws you against somebody who is so different from you that you, you know, that at first you hate them and you despise them and you're going, why?
And then because in that place of pure otherness, love can spark.
Wow. Wow. Let's listen to some more listeners here.
Anne said, what's missing from my community?
Respect. For example, cars drive around my neighborhood at 3am blasting music through the stereo.
It happens at least once every night. The sound systems shake the ground and you can hear every word.
DK, what role does respect play in building a community?
Well, you could say in many ways that respect is the baseline that makes community possible.
If I can't interact with you in a way that preserves your dignity and you cannot reciprocate, then what kind of interaction is possible other than one of antagonism?
Perhaps that's the difference between uh being at war and being in community is that one proceeds with the sincere effort to preserve your dignity in this interaction and the other is to see you as a threat What would you say about that?
Yeah, no, that's beautifully said. And the interesting thing about that example of say the car is sometimes when you kind of, why is a person doing that?
And you sometimes think, well, maybe they feel that they're nothing.
And so in some respects, by blasting the music really loudly, they're saying, I am something.
They're kind of saying, I am here, I exist.
Like it's often our symptoms, because that's a symptom in a way.
If you're rolling down your windows playing your music really loud, there's something going on there.
And sometimes kind of understanding that can help create a possibility where you might actually take an interest in that other.
And as you take an interest in them, They could, if you communicate, maybe go, yeah, and maybe I'm being a bit of an asshole by playing my music really loud.
And it opens up a possibility. I do remember a story of somebody calling into a radio show.
It was a gardening show and they said, I've got these weeds.
I've tried everything. I've tried plucking them.
They come back. I've tried weed killer. They keep coming back.
There's nothing I can do. What do you suggest?
And the guy said, I suggest you learn to love them.
So there's something about that the other is kind of dangerous and other.
But what love is, I think, and it's very hard to do, so I wouldn't say that the person should do this.
I can't do it. I should take this advice seriously.
But whenever I encounter, I had this actually with a neighbor who played music really loudly when I was young.
And when I was younger, it's going like, how do I remain open to that other.
For me, I was able to go round to the house and knock and go like, listen, it's three o'clock in the morning, your music is blasting.
We had a little moment of interaction. But it's how do we remain open to the other? by being sensitive to the idea that there's something going on in that behavior that maybe testifies to as a monument to a suffering. that person feels insignificant in some way.
And this will make me significant. Look at me, look at me.
And we all have different ways to do that.
And unfortunately, what would happen is if you could get this person to stop playing their music, there's going to be something else to to frustrate you or to upset you or to complain about.
It's never going to be perfect. And yeah, of course I don't want someone driving around my neighborhood at 3 a.m. blasting music in my neighborhood.
I live in Ohio, California, and The commons there are amazing.
I think it's, I love how you use that term.
That's why I moved there. There's something about the commons.
There's only 8,000 people who live there.
Last night I'm going for a walk with my wife and we do this right now where we go look at the bees.
They land on these cacti. that have these little flowers and they buzz and only happens for about a month every year.
And it's magical. And then we've got these little shared libraries.
But then, of course, what happens? someone rides by on a motorcycle and it's so free, like no muffler, it's so loud, right? but that's all part of it.
That's a little bit of the flavor I don't like in this stew, but I really like the stew otherwise.
And even if I remove that flavor, Now something else might come to the forefront where I'm like, I wish I could get rid of that.
And then I wish I'd get rid of this. And before I know it, I just have a bowl of hot water because I've removed all the elements that made the commons the commons in the first place.
That's it. That's beautifully said. I experienced this in my own life when I moved from Ireland to where I lived in Connecticut for a while, where I got rid of all of the the nasty things and the result was worse because In a way, whenever I was surrounded, I was able to protect myself from others.
And, you know, you didn't have noisy neighbors and everything was smooth and everything was good.
In some ways, it's lovely. It's homeostasis.
It's peace. But it's also boring, boring, boring, boring.
And as you say, then, you know, you have to find something else to kind of like ruffle things.
There's something about life that's dirty, that's messy.
People are toxic and awful, except for myself.
And so there's something about... There's no way to protect yourself from it.
It's whether we can remain open to... that dimension of life somehow to remain open.
Because that's where apocalypse happens.
Apocalypse means something that you don't expect.
So progress is, oh, I know A to B to C, I know what's going to happen in my week.
An apocalyptic event is an event that you can't put in your calendar.
It's the thing that no matter how obsessive we are, and the obsessive wants to kind of plan, it's that thing that throws you off, that decenters you and destabilizes you.
And in a way, you do want that to happen every day or even every week.
But being in a world where you're rubbing shoulders with people and different people, apocalyptic events can happen and love can arise, you know.
Yeah, you're forced to interact in a way.
And TK, you've told me about this. Like one of the reasons that you go to church is you're around people where you. have one particular shared belief and even that one's in question, you know, like, I don't know what you mean by this.
Do I mean the same thing as you mean when you say the same thing that I say?
We recite the same prayer or whatever. But then beyond that, you may lack in all other shared.
Communion, you know, you may have this one communion, but you may there may be this this lack everywhere else.
And actually, the reason why you would like that we should talk more about this, the reason why I use the word communion, which you might be interested in, is precisely because I borrowed a theological term because I don't think there's another term like it.
Communion is a meal around a shared loss, which is the death of God.
So the death of God is the ultimate loss, the death of all meaning, the death of all certainty.
And so in a religious setting, they have this meal around a shared loss and it's like, oh, that's beautiful.
It's not around a shared set of beliefs or a shared set of values.
It's almost like we're all marked by loss.
And so there's something in that theological tradition that I think is deeply rich.
Yeah, that's powerful. And that gives rise to that charity that you talked about.
And just one quick comment on that, I would say, The spirit of charity can coexist with the willingness to be honest about what you don't like.
When that person is playing their music too loud, I find that the number one inhibitor for conflict resolution is the insistence that you must agree with me. about the idiot I think you're being in order for us to arrive at a solution.
But you being an idiot is in theory that I've come up with to explain why I'm having this unpleasant experience.
I can keep that separate from the fact that I don't like this experience.
And so if I can say, I don't know why you're doing this thing that displeases me.
I'm not an expert. I'm not gonna come up with a theory.
I'll just leave that to the side. but I can say, I don't like this.
And now I can speak with you without presupposing that you're an idiot and requiring you to agree with me And that becomes the space for charity.
That becomes the space for learning to love it.
You're gonna love the Taco Battle Bowl we have, one of the Taco Battles we have on page three.
Because we're going to talk about precisely what you're talking about there.
What about you, listeners? What's missing from York? community let us know your thoughts in the patreon community chat which by the way you can join for free even if you don't subscribe to our private podcast okay give me something pithy tk What's missing from your community?
Community is the willingness to be imperfect together.
There's the old saying that If you ever find the perfect community, it will cease to be so the moment you arrive.
I love the Groucho Marx story that his son tells.
There are many different variations. He purportedly resigned from a club and the leader wrote him asking why.
And he says, I refuse to be a part of any organization that would have me as its member.
What is community missing? The recognition that letting other people connect with you is an act of grace that you must give them.
It is grace that makes it possible for someone to connect with you.
Because as Peter said here, we're all a world together. unto ourselves, an impenetrable world, a world that cannot be exhaustively understood.
And every effort we make to commune is inherently imperfect.
And so if I'm sad because someone dies and you come to me and you say, man, I know what you're going through.
I lost an important job last year and I didn't know what I would do about it.
I always have the right to say, you don't get me.
What I'm going through is different from that.
I always have that right because no one gets me.
But you getting me is an act of grace I extend to you by recognizing that you are just trying to connect with me in a way that's imperfect.
And I respond to that with charity by saying, Hey, thanks, Josh.
I appreciate that because I know what you're trying to do.
That's what always happens when we connect.
Nobody really gets us, but we give them that grace to say, hey.
I embrace this imperfection of what we're trying to do.
That's community. Can I tell a quick story with that?
It's a wee story from home, but this guy Seamus, right?
He's on a plane. and he crashes on this desert island, right?
He's completely on his own and he's there for 10 years and eventually he gets picked up.
This boat comes by and they pick him up and before they take him away, they say, oh, like, show us where you lived.
You're on this island on your own. So he brings them to this clearing and in the clearing there are three buildings.
And the person points to the first building and says, what's that building?
It says, that's where I lived, built that when I first arrived, you know, running water, the whole shebang.
He says, what's that second building? He says, oh, well, he says, that's my church.
He said, a building, a very religious man.
You know, that's where I go to worship once a week, you know.
And then they go, well, what's the third building?
And Seamus is like, I don't want to talk about that. go, come on, what's the third building?
No, no, no, I don't want to talk about it.
Let's just go. He said, come on, what's the third building?
He says, okay. He says, that's a church I used to go to.
Terrible place, right? That's I think once you understand that logic, that the community always has to have an enemy, it always has to have something it's against.
Once you begin to acknowledge that, I think you begin to enter into a healthier community.
And I would almost say you move from community to communion, you know.
Yeah. Yeah, my pithy answer, I'm going to do something different here.
I'm just going to give you my minimal maxim, and I'd love for Peter Rollins to riff on it.
I think it sums up kind of what we're talking about here today.
Yes, we want to be part of a community. Yes, we want to also...
Introverts like us, we'd rather be alone a lot of the time until we want to be around other people, obviously.
Yes, we want this sense of communion. bonding around a lack and that brings me to my pithy answer which is missing out is a hallmark of peace What are your thoughts on that?
Oh, I love that. There's a beautiful book called, I think it's called On Missing Night.
And it's by Adam Phillips. And it's, I think, a beautiful whole book-length expression of what you just said there.
Because You're the minimalist. And I think boss level minimalism is not just that you enjoy the little you have.
That's great. But you start to enjoy what you don't have.
And so not only do we accumulate products, we accumulate beliefs and identities.
This is a big thing today and I completely understand why we do it.
If you can name your anxieties, you can like read the DSM or whatever, and you can name this is who I am.
It can help with your anxiety. but only for a short time.
Ultimately, no identity will fully define you.
As I said earlier, Albert Camus says, no matter how many identity markers you have, there's something about you that never completely fits.
You're a bit of an outsider. And in this idea of a social bond where we acknowledge that we're all outsiders and we weirdly go, what unifies us is the most minimalist thing of all. that we're all missing out, that there's lack at the heart of everything.
You can't get more minimalist than embracing nothing.
Yes, yes. Oh, it's so good. That's almost the end of page one.
We have so much more to talk about. I do want to talk to you coming up on page two about how products give us dissatisfaction. the things that promise us fulfillment actually dissatisfy so we'll talk about that and so much more coming up but first Real quick for right here, right now, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist.
Actually, I got two things for you right now.
Speaking of community, or maybe speaking of communion, Every month we do something called Sunday Symposium.
And we have a group of people, just 200 people who meet in LA or Orange County or sometimes other places here in Southern California.
And we just fill up a small black box theater and we have an event together.
These are some of my favorite things. TK, you just put out a post up on Instagram.
Welcome back to... social media. And what you said about that was so beautiful.
I don't want to steal your thunder. What did you say about these events?
There's a magic of spontaneity at these events that is unlike anything else.
I recounted an experience where we did a live show and A person stands up during the Q&A and says, I'm ready to have sex, but I can't find anyone who's ready with me.
And Ryan goes, TK, you got this one. Ryan's like, I'm right here.
Yeah. And it's those kinds of moments where there's the tension that people feel like, what's this person doing accidentally? asking this at a minimalist event.
What does it have to do with minimalism?
And I love the way Josh is able to go with the flow on that and release any expectations around what questions need to conform to.
It's whatever is on people's heart And like a live theater experience versus a movie, there is no redo.
Like it's a unique self-contained event that you never know what you're getting into, but it's always so beautiful.
I would prefer you hadn't said what I said at that event.
That was private. I feel like I'm being called out.
One of the things we do at the events is we go to minimalmaxims.com.
We have over a thousand of our pithy maxims up there from.
10 years of podcasts and books and films and all the stuff that we've done.
And I will just refresh Minimal Maximum.
It gives you a new maximum every time you refresh. the browser and I'll print out 10 or 12 of them and I'll say, all right, TK, pick a number between one and 12 or one and 40 and he'll pick it and we'll just have a discussion about that.
And we might disagree with what we said previously.
And it opens up to much broader discussion.
Like that's not what I meant when I wrote that, but maybe it means something different to me.
And maybe it means something different in this context with this community here with us as well.
So if you'd like to be a part of that community, the tickets are free.
We're releasing 200 tickets today for our next event.
It's in Los Angeles on September 28th. and if you can't attend because maybe you're not in america we have people come all over they come from we had the last people uh last one people came from china like flew here from China to come to the event.
We have had people come from Iowa and Texas and Canada, quite a few.
Yeah, Germany. People come from Mexico. Another way, China, Iowa.
Beijing, Iowa. No, two different places, I swear.
But I really enjoy these because you're walking the tightrope and it's this community experience.
It's different from the podcast. And we are doing this in person.
So if you want to join us, you can. Sundaysymposium.com.
Get your tickets before they sell out. If they do sell out, because they're free.
You can put yourself on the wait list. We'll let you know if anyone gives up their tickets.
But if you can't listen to the event or you can't be there for the event, you can listen to it online if you're a true fan supporter. over on Patreon.
One more thing. Speaking of Patreon, we also do a live event online every month.
We call it the Friday afternoon minimalist Zoom.
It's just a Zoom call with the minimalist.
So We grab a few hundred people, we hop on a Zoom call together, and we just have a discussion here on Zoom for folks who can't make it to our live events.
If you are one of our Patreon supporters, audio plus or above so if you subscribe to the video version of the podcast you'll also subscribe to the friday afternoon minimalist zoom our next one is this friday it's the first friday of every month.
September 5th is our next Friday afternoon Minimalist Zoom.
You can find the details at theminimalists.com slash Zoom.
All right, so much more coming up. But first, here is a quick insight from one of our listeners.
Hi, my name is Miri. I'm a Patreon subscriber from Berlin, Germany, and I have a listener's tip for people who are trying to overcome their bibliomania.
I love books and I'm trying to buy less books and find more time to actually read the books I bought.
I've made it a rule only to buy a book when I'm sure that I'm going to start reading it the same day.
What I'm not doing is trying to avoid bookstores.
Bookstores are wonderful places. Most of them have areas where you can just sit down and browse through books without being pressured to buy them.
That way you can actually relax and spend some quality time in a wonderful environment.
By the way, the same goes for libraries.
I used to check out loads of books from libraries.
Now I'm spending more time in the library having a closer look at what I might take home with me later.
I hope this is useful for everyone who loves books but wants to stop hoarding them in their home.
Thank you guys for everything that you do.
Bye. I just built a new library in my neighborhood, like two blocks from my house.
And it's amazing. You just go there. My daughter's always getting the Harry Potter audio books.
And she's checked out all of them. And she just keeps cycling through all of them.
And she gets them on CDs. So she has this boom box she carries around with headphones.
I've got her all the way back in the 90s at this point.
And that's a kind of commons. Library is a commons because you have Nobody, like in community, there's insiders.
In a library, there's no one controls it.
There's no insiders. Everybody is an outsider.
So yeah, that's a great image or an example of a commons.
Video rental stores used to be there. Oh yeah, yeah. yeah that and where I live now it's like there's a bunch of nature trails that's a type of Commons as well and a lot of people are out there hiking and so you're running into people you recognize regularly when you just go out for a walk anyway mary thank you so much for that comment i think tk would probably put a bed in a barnes and noble if they'd let him get away with it For anyone else has a list or tip or insight about this episode or any other episode, you can just email a voice memo to podcast at podcast.
The Minimalists dot com and we'll feature your voice on the show up next, page two and page three.
But first, let's take a quick pandiculation break.
We'll be right back. All right, y'all, that is the first 39% of episode 503.
We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition with Peter Rollins, which includes answers to a bunch more questions.
Questions like... How do I get rid of my clutter more quickly?
Is nostalgia a type of psychological clutter?
Will letting go of sentimental items help me grieve the loss of someone who is still alive? plus a million more questions and simple living segments over on the minimalist private podcast on Patreon.
When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your favorite podcast app.
Plus, you'll gain access to all of our podcast archives all the way back to episode 001.
That's a full episode. decade of archives.
Big thanks to Peter Rollins for joining us today.
We'll put a link to his website and his YouTube channel in the show notes.
And that is our minimal episode for today.
Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space.
On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, post-production Peter.
Spire Jeff and Spire Dave, Jordan No More, Professor Sean, Savvy D on the board, and the rest of our team.
I'm Joshua Fields Milburn. If you leave here today with just one message. let it be this.
Love people and use things because the opposite never works.
Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll see you next time.
Peace. Every little thing you think that you need Every little thing you think that you need Every little thing that's just feeding your greed, oh I bet that you'd be fine without it.
