Falling in Love for Ugly People.
12 November 2017 [link youtube]
Advice Nobody Wants to Hear!
Youtube Automatic Transcription
it's easy to say beauties in the other
beholder and the beauty is of social construct that it's to some extent specific to the culture of living it but if you just live in one culture you may really be stuck with that struggle you're stuck with the way you're you're perceived in that culture I also think that in Western culture we cultivate this misconception it's a misconception we're proud of that human attraction and para bonding is based on the soul or that it ought to be based on the soul it ought to be based on who you really are and we imagine who you really are is something totally different from just who you are that combines with the anecdotal nature of oh this one time had this one experience where this person really found me attractive I had this one experience or this person fell in love with me like you guys had a deeper connection with someone and then and then adding to this delusion of those people those people who were really enter into me it's because they they could see who I really am it's cuz they could see my soul they saw something in me the other people didn't see and I think that is wrong wrong wrong but the real moral of the story of what I'm saying here is that the discipline of making sense of your own love life is keeping the shallow things shallow like appreciating the shallow side of human experience as shallow you know if you're a cancer researcher you do research to try to find the cure for cancer and then you meet someone else who's also passionate about cancer research how important is their physical appearance gonna be it's gonna be different for every couple it's gonna be different for a person whether you're thinking about yourself you know it's a unique example in this process or if you're scaling up and thinking about society in general or or life in general you know yeah of course if you care about something passionately whether or not it's cancer research whether or not it's you know painting or what-have-you well then it's politics without you and you meet someone else who relates to you on that level who has those common aspirations with you there's a lot to love there I mean there's just there's a lot of common ground to build on and I do think it's something I mean if you are if you are objective ugly witch you know funny people are funny people live with that burden their whole lives you know or if within your own culture you're considered ugly you're within a culture we're only tall skinny people are considered attractive and you're not tall and skinny whatever the case might be nevertheless it seems so clear to me that the way forward is for you to find and build on you know some passionate direction that kind which is gonna create the basis for those those meaningful relationships I think that a lot of people get behind this competitive view of evolutionary biology like everyone's trying to be as pretty as possible everyone's trying to be as handsome and as muscular as possible and so on because it gives them the comforting delusion that there's one finish line one standard one set of goal posts that we're working towards that presumes that you know the nature of the competition and you know what it is that you're competing for right I could not imagine the woman that YouTube brought into my life like there was no way I could have contrived my life or put on a fake persona or done a fake career or anything to try to attract you as my partner right I can work on developing when I'm really interested and passionate about and then I can find out who has common ground with me like I didn't even know about you for the first couple months were together that one of these you really related to was my interest in First Nations people's so crea ghibli den a native peoples of Canada native languages and stuff right and I'm coming here on YouTube just talking about that from the position of a failure you know I mean it's like hey this is something I tried to do with my life and it didn't work out and that you know that brought this woman in my life that was one of the things that really turned her on a boat me that she really related to you positively right so nobody's gonna give you that advice like talk about your aspirations and failures and meet people who can relate positively to that aspiration and failure but it's great advice bad news Yin one of the ideas that comes out of the philosophy of Karl Popper is just the extent to which empirical experience can lead us astray so Karl Popper was a philosophy or a philosopher of science tried to make them the one word there he was a loser science and naturally in the flaws science a lot of people say well what's good about science is that it's based on what you see and hear and experience empirically and Karl Popper was interested in kind of examples to the contrary well you know empirical experience going to eat astray and sometimes we have to reason things through in a more theoretical or abstracted philosophical sense in order to interpret what we see empirically now like a lot of people's relationship advice or how they live their own lives in terms of seeking a partner or having a partner to have you it's based on a few very powerful empirical experiences like it may be based on their own experience falling in love which is maybe something them once in their life maybe twice maybe not even right at the time of this matters it may be based on a friend of theirs falling in love it may be based on someone else falling in love with them or even just someone being attracted to you you know which is really random and can be very misleading like if you're not gorgeous whether you're like objectively ugly or you're objectively mediocre looking you may have the experience that stands out in your mind of a few times in your life when somebody met you and forever they they were really into you they found you really attractive you know that happens to most of us even if you're not that good-looking you know a few times in your life and then it's really easy to kid yourself like oh I just need to like repeat the circumstances that created that situation you know what I mean and so it's an empirical experience it may be very powerful and you know your best friend you may have seen them fall in love or seen someone fall in love with them or again even if there wasn't even love even it was just someone who met you on a certain day in a certain way and they were really into you it's easy to take that as a guide for you what you should be doing when really the exact opposite is true it's it's very random on a human face to face level who finds you attractive and there is no why there is no reason why like I mean you know it is it is kind of surprising to me how much my current girlfriend finds me attractive and like hey I got I got a real good comparison so my girlfriend doesn't find me attractive in real life but like we'll be looking through photographs with me like photographs we took together in rolling munication and she'll say oh wow you look really handsome in that photo and I think I look like garbage in the photo like I I know some photos of me are flattering it some are unflattering but like a really unflattering photo of me she will still think I'm hot in this in this awful photo of me right now I remember by contrast when I was a student in conveying one of my teachers especially you know photographs of my more up like you know I made this poster a red but you know and also we had to all the ID stuff we had like my passport you know just part of the school so different photos we were on the table at different times of study and I remember she really went out of her way to let me know how ugly I looked in these photographs of me or some she'd be like oh that doesn't look like you at all like about fuzz and it like you know it was like wow you know cuz like again some of the photos that look bad but some of them I look at that photo looks terrible you know so I mean it's it's very idiosyncratic who finds who finds who attractive and so so we're currently living in China it's easy to say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the beauty is of social construct that it's to some extent specific to the culture living it but if you just live in one culture you may really be stuck with that struggle you're stuck with the way your you're perceived in that culture I don't know if I mentioned this to you before but like most wall okay China is a huge country when I lived in Hong Kong nobody found me attractive nobody even referred to me as attractive and I mean two different categories there cuz like there's someone walking up to you on the street right now at a cocktail party and like hitting on you letting you know that they find you if that's one type of information but another type information is like conversations with your boss or your coworkers where they refer to you as attractive look or even just the nature of the conversation it's like oh well or you're doing this event whatever when I was in Hong Kong nobody found me attractive and then just a couple years later my parents was the same or worse I think I was probably object less attractive when I was living in Kunming China this is back in 2007 everyone found me attractive and it gave us kind of both categories they were both like all these women directly hitting on me directly like Sun is directly propositioning me but you know trying to spark up with me but also those cousin direct conversations with co-workers and colleagues and that kind of thing whereas being referred to as like self-evident that I was really attractive you know for this and this both China and I looked the same in those two periods in my life you know what I mean is it is a cultural context is it just luck like is it just I do singers is just random you know what I mean but the difference there was not me if anything I was better looking in the period when I was living in Hong Kong I was I was really broke when I was living in conveying poverty poverty never attractive I had a beard part of that time too and stuff you know anyway whatever so you know it's really really easy to let these kind of anecdotal experiences lead you astray whether they're your own anecdotal experience or there's someone else's anything experienced now on a deeper level I also think that in Western culture we cultivate this misconception it's a misconception we're proud of that human attraction and para bonding is based on the soul or that it ought to be based on the soul it ought to be based on who you really are and we imagine who you really are is something totally different from just who you are like you know what you do what you say your job your hobbies your interest these are extrinsic and shallow things and what you look like your appearance and then there's this idea there's this separate category of who you really are your spirit your soul your intrinsic essence that allegedly somebody who wants to you should be able to appreciate even if it's in great contrast to who you are you know in a shallower sense now these things can can overlap the the latter delusion the delusion of the soul what I call an essentialist approach to human personality there's an essence within your personality which is your true self in contrast to your false so firstly that combines with the anecdotal nature of oh this one time had this one experience where this person really failed me attractive I had this one experience or this person fell in love with me like you know she had a deeper connection with someone and then and then adding to this delusion of those people those people who were really enter into me it's because they they could see who I really am it's cuz they could see my soul they saw something in me the other people didn't see and I think that is wrong wrong wrong you see the same thing my Chinese teacher saw both in person and in the photographs right you like it and she doesn't you think it's attractive she thinks it's repulsive period you don't mean you're responding to the same man and the same outward experience and the same combination of different shallow factors that makes up you know who you are what you have to offer as a partner you know blah blah blah I mean you know I'm talking about this in a philosophical way but the real moral of the story of what I'm saying here is that the discipline of making sense that your own love life is keeping the shallow things shallow like appreciating the shallow side of human experience as shallow not looking for something deep where it or it can't be found you know if somebody gives you the advice which is maybe maybe common advice but isn't maybe isn't taken seriously enough despite being in common that you should find someone you love you should base your relationship on on developing common interests I noticed you have in common now I think in a really profound sense this runs counter to the the cultural idea of the soul the essence of who you really are and it also runs counter to this notion that like society is one big competition for who's the prettiest and that it's the most attractive people trying to pair off at the most attractive people to have the most attractive children or something I really do not think that's that's what's going on I mean there's thousands of examples of sure rich unattractive people getting together with attractive people to prove that huh yeah I think the point is I learned to unattractive people getting deals right sure ugly people get laid and ugly people have happy marriages and what I do mean straight up ugly people I think a lot of people are may be scared of the feeling within themselves that they could fall in love with an ugly person I think that's partly an ego trip like I am i lowering my social value am I am I you know is am i damaging my own ego or my own worth if my girlfriend is less attractive than some standard I have set up in my mind or for the woman if her boyfriend is slower than some Jennifer but you know you can fall in love with someone who's objectively unattractive I think and I think you can fall in love with someone who's subjectively unattractive you know who you don't feel attracted to but you overcome that because of some combination of other redeeming qualities they've got but maybe that's maybe that's scary to people and its own way too right yeah you know what does it really mean creating and building on on common interests I think that's basically as deep as it gets for this kind of relationship advice you know if you're a cancer researcher you do research to try to find the cure for cancer and then you meet someone else who's also passionate about cancer research how important is their physical appearance gonna be it's gonna be different for every couple it's gonna be different for a person I'm not here to shame those people they're probably it's possible someone's watching this video right now I was in a specialized field like that and they said well all my life I assumed that wanted to be with another cancer researcher but when I actually met these women or actually met these men I found I couldn't feel attracted the middle fine you know and I think for some people you know the question of whether or not they can feel attracted someone might be really narrow you know they might they might only be able to feel attracted to someone if certain certain conditions are met it's a certain type certain look or what have you and you know there's no reason to lie to yourself about that but I think you also shouldn't lie to yourself the other way whether you're thinking about yourself you know is a unique exam in this process or if you're scaling up and thinking about society in general or or life in general you know yeah of course if you care about something passionately whether or not it's cancer research whether or not it's you know painting or what-have-you well then that's politics without you and you meet someone else who relates to you on that level who has those common aspirations with you there's a lot to love there I mean there's just there's a lot of common ground to build on there's a lot you know there's a lot that's gonna smooth over and make it worthwhile for you to move into an apartment together and learn learn how to get along and have your first experience washing dishes together and have your first fight about the dry cleaning or who forgot to return their library books because you know they're all kinds of little bumps in the road you know when you're a couple she smiles you know I'm sober but you know we have something profound and enduring some kind of common ground like that some kind of interest in common that I mean that really creates the basis for the relationship and I do think it's something I mean if you are if you are objectively ugly which you know plenty of people are plenty people live with that burden their whole lives you know or if within your own culture you're considered ugly you're within a culture we're only tall skinny people are considered attractive and you're not tall and skinny whatever the case might be and that again that can be quite localized that could be the sense of competition your own culture or may just be the sense you're left over with from your own high school who you know a lot of people are shaped by little experiences like that that are really even more specific than their culture in general or where they're living in general nevertheless it seems so clear to me that the way forward is for you to find and build on you know some passionate direction that kind which is going to create the basis for those those meaningful relationships all right sorry two or three things to take onto this two or three you know Cabot's I think are really significant so one I used to be married to an anthropologist I used to marry to someone who had a PhD in anthropology I think it's actually worthwhile to reflect that yeah sometimes you can have an interest in common with somebody and it seems like a common interest but it's really not because what you're talking about is such a diverse category of things for which we use just one word in the English language so I can through Paula G my ex-wife who were her co-workers and colleagues and anthropology some of them are Christian missionaries there are people with PhDs in anthropology but they're going out to tribal areas and trying to convert ethnic minority people's Christian for them that's the meaning of life but it's like well what do you have in common anthropology or even a PhD anthropology and there were a lot of people anthropology who were left-wing extremists who were communists who supported the Communist Party and for whom anthropology is really about you know proven communism now I use an example I know nothing about when I say cancer research I can't tell you probably if you talk to people who are really in the cancer research dating pool I think a lot of labels like that you're gonna have one word in English language but then when you look past that it's really not just one interest it's not common ground that's easy to build on when you really understand that people with very diverse motives and interests are brought in under that one tent are brought in under that one that one heading so you have to look beyond I mean anthropology may be an extract an exceptionally bad example but I think that's an example worth thinking about and for people to question themselves their own interest if they're going to conferences or meetings or events for that interest and the pursuit of that interest or they really meaning think people they have things that are profound they have profoundly comment so we're both vegan but we have a lot more in common than just veganism right like if you make a list of all the examples all the specific political issues addressed on this channel so she got to see a couple hundred of my YouTube videos before she met me in person so she knew we had all this in common right a surprising amount of things that come yeah I mean wait it was surprise for me I learned it that you learned it first cuz you watch the YouTube videos I mean that yeah yeah yeah well also you know earlier you said like she smiles you know cuz I'm not laughing about us not being able to get along with washing dishes it's just a process surprisingly we've been really sure we've been able to get along really well you've been copacetic yeah copacetic is the word you know you can say in terms of us having on stuff in common it would be hard to make a full list of all those issues but it's like we're both into veganism or not industry protests we're not into smashing windows or not as a now there was drink or do drugs yeah that is true oh no that's also a huge one sure we're both basically anti-drug and yeah a cheetah back home idea right we both don't watch hockey even there's an enormous list of things we have in common but my phone is gonna be just within the vegan category like you know okay we both we both don't want to adopt dogs we don't that's a huge one so like there are people in our Facebook groups which are just vegans who are heavily into pet ownership where they're all their time is devoted to they have six dogs and five rabbits and they've rescued a bunch of rats you know there are people who have rats in their apartment there people are raising chickens you know there are vegans but where their time is running this small farm you know inside their apartment or in their backyard we're not like that we're not just into it for the health reasons - right okay that's another great example right so like my point is your whether it's anthropology including everything from like conservative Christians to left-wing extremist communists or it's veganism veganism seems really specific but when you get down to it like okay you want a date you want to meet someone else because they're a vegan activist or an aspiring vegan activist well what does that really mean you know and politically or practically like you know I don't I literally don't think I could live with a woman who had a bunch of pets I don't want to live in the same space with with a bunch of animals like that but you know and it's not hard to think of you know a parallel universe where that I ended up in that situation right but no so yeah even within veganism though there are those there are those kinds of questions to dig down to uh I mean this is this issue of common interests of having kind of an own declared common interest and you're then kind of dating inside that that interest I think it really does run counter to this notion of the the essential self the soul the spirit who you really are right and I think at the other hand I mean I'm gonna use my own my own experience getting married getting divorced to it you know in a self-critical way there um you know you can say when my ex-wife met me I was a scholar of Buddhism you know now she wasn't but she respected that she wanted know more about that she knew she knew basically nothing about Buddhism when she met me she had met some other people she had met some people and her PhD program who you know also at some engagement with Buddhism so you know you could really say that I let her down or that I you know we can validate it part of the basis for the relationship when I ceased to be a scholar of Buddhism when I quit that field and moved into a new field right now Mike Smith has never ever said that to me she's never said like she fell out of love with me or start felt differently about me regarded me differently because I stopped being a scholar of Buddhism and I assume we'll never have a conversation like that now that we're divorced you know there were a million other things that happened everybody there were a million other factors to consider but nevertheless I've got to say self-fertile I think that is a reason to leave me I think that is a reason to break up relation I think you can say well look the common interests or what part of the base relationship was for whatever ten years plus I was a scholar of Buddhism I worked on pally we're gonna set these Dasia this kind of stuff and then that all came to a halt and she was very much part of those discussions not like I sprung it on her as a surprise but again there's nothing intrinsic here there's nothing essential I'm not in a position to say to my ex-wife well you're supposed to love me for me you're supposed to love me for who I really am and supposed to love me for my solar spirit no you fell in love with a with a Pali scholar with a scholar of tera vaada Buddhism and now I'm stopping that listen for the rest of my life like I'm it's not a temp or everything like I'm quitting that field and I'm going another you know the directions now I think a lot of people are made to feel ashamed of that in Christian culture like if you fall in love with your husband because he has a good job as an aircraft pilot and then later his vision gets worse he can't be an aircraft pilot anymore you're supposed to feel like a piece of because you married him because he's an aircraft pilot now you don't want to be with him anymore that he's not like you know I understand like there's a thing there it's and I think it is based on this like Christian culture of suffering and support like no like you're supposed to have this profound connection with this guy that has nothing to do with the fact that he's an aircraft but you got to be real with yourself maybe it does you know that's what attracted to you were that was the basis for the relationship I don't know maybe the husband's an aircraft pilot and the wife works in aircraft design or engineering or craft engine repair whatever I mean I don't know why but now he's no longer in that field he's doing Santilli if it's like that matters that's not you know intrinsic or essential or happy okay I think that a lot of people get behind this competitive view of evolutionary biology like everyone's trying to be as pretty as possible everyone's trying to be as handsome and as muscular as possible and so on because it gives them the comforting delusion that there's one finish line one standard one set of goal posts that we're all working towards like there's one standard of beauty and the struggle is to be as beautiful as possible or there's one standard of success like commercial success and we're working towards it and you know maybe that makes sense to be bowls in terms of the high school experience like in your high school maybe there were only five or ten people you find attractive and then there's a sense of a closed competition you know for these limited resources of who can be the handsomest or the strongest of the prettiest of the most successful and only a couple ways to be successful like maybe you can be successful in sports or something like bodybuilding and maybe you can be successful in getting high grades or seeming promising in terms of your career options this is really limited horizons really limited form of competition now there's a sense in which even high school is not really like that that's just one way to perceive high school but definitely once you join the adult world it's not like that um you know a lot of people it seems like harmless advice you just say well be as fit as you can possibly be be as pretty as you can possibly be as strong as you can possibly as lean or as muscular or whatever these these things are that presumes that you know the nature of the competition and you know what it is that you're competing for right I could not imagine the woman that YouTube brought in my life like there was no way I could have contrived my life or put on a fake persona or done a fake career or anything to try to attract you as my partner right I came on YouTube I kept it really real I talked about my actual political beliefs that were alienating to a lot of people like a lot of people look my political beliefs and they thing it's the left wing is he right wing what's the deal with this guy you know my political leaves don't fall into some simple you know box my views on veganism alienate the vast majority of vegans the best if he gets why my views on veganism offensive those honest about that stuff there's no sense in which I can say like I'm out here trying to be the best version of myself you heard that like you really got to think about that that's that's a mode of thinking where there's already a presumed ideal you're working words whether it's a finish line or goal posts or standard standard of beauty or standard of success you know I can work on developing what I'm really interested and passionate about and then I can find out who has common ground with me like I didn't even know about you for the first couple months were together that one of the things you really related to was my interest in First Nations peoples so crea jib way then a native peoples of Canada native languages and stuff right and I'm coming here on YouTube just talking about that from the position of a failure you know I mean it's like hey this is something I tried to do with my life and it didn't work out and that you know that brought this woman in my life that was one of the things that really turned her on about me that she really related to you positively right so nobody's gonna give you that advice like talk about your aspirations and failures and meet people who can relate positively to that aspiration and failure but it's great advice you mean sorry this is I think the really the final point you can jump in if you got some say but you know this is really the final point I want to make here one of the really interesting dynamic things is that this this issue of common ground as a basis for romance love etc it doesn't just rely on things you've actually accomplished so before I hit record I mean I mentioned to my girlfriend look you know we've fallen in love we have this now really stable high commitment long-term relationship and part of the basis is that at the time we met I was an aspiring vegan activist and she was an aspiring vegan activist what have we actually accomplished in terms of those aspirations almost nothing and it's it's completely possible that due to circumstance in the future what will we accomplish in future in terms of our aspirations for unites them the answer may be nothing like it maybe we both just get jobs the demand our attention 24/7 the do - you don't professional or family obligations okay let's say my mom gets sick and then we decided to take care of in the last couple of years of her life or something in a role Dejan illness and you get pregnant and I get a job at the CIA like you know whatever and you know the CIA says look we don't like your doing this YouTube in your spare time you know whatever you know whatever the scenario is okay nevertheless we were brought together by that positive aspiration and we'll stay together like it doesn't rely on us pursuing that and it doesn't rely on any actual accomplishments right and the First Nations thing I think is a really powerful example that also like to some extent she knows who I am she knows what kind of person I am she does what I'm gonna do what I'm capable of because of my experience trying to do something positive for First Nations First Nations languages even though what I accomplished was like this much and I can make a video talking about that you know what I mean that was basically a failure I enrolled the First Nations University where and I just had videos on YouTube talking about my feelings under that heading you know to me there's no promise of me accomplished in there but the fact that I cared about that the fact that I tried to accomplish that and then you know about that you relate to that that's also part of the positive basis the relationship but it doesn't rely on any actually existing thing it doesn't rely on me having money in the bank or me driving a fancy car or you know me having the right tattoos or me being able to benchpress 300 pounds etc etc doesn't rely on me every once so that's a really interesting dynamic and I you know I think there I think there are pretty clear reasons to why that is when you fall in love with someone you want to have a sense of who they are you want to have a sense of who in future they're gonna become you want to have a sense of their of their potential you know you want to is this someone who's gonna end up as a lazy drunk watching sports on the couch that's a big percentage of guys you know they may look good in high school ten years later the guy's a lazy drunk you know in high school he was lean and muscular and was on the football team ten years later he's drinking beer on the couch watching some but some other football team it's a very common pattern for men right you know their potential through their that what kind of a partner they can be and what they were do in life a lot of that is about those intangibles although again those intangibles I think it's really important to view them as shallow not to think of them in terms of the soul of the spirit or something essential but just as those common interests and what you can build on that is everything I have to say okay we killed this video is done okay well this was this was more flattering than denigrating to you in our relationship no I think this gives a give you that's rapid evolution
beholder and the beauty is of social construct that it's to some extent specific to the culture of living it but if you just live in one culture you may really be stuck with that struggle you're stuck with the way you're you're perceived in that culture I also think that in Western culture we cultivate this misconception it's a misconception we're proud of that human attraction and para bonding is based on the soul or that it ought to be based on the soul it ought to be based on who you really are and we imagine who you really are is something totally different from just who you are that combines with the anecdotal nature of oh this one time had this one experience where this person really found me attractive I had this one experience or this person fell in love with me like you guys had a deeper connection with someone and then and then adding to this delusion of those people those people who were really enter into me it's because they they could see who I really am it's cuz they could see my soul they saw something in me the other people didn't see and I think that is wrong wrong wrong but the real moral of the story of what I'm saying here is that the discipline of making sense of your own love life is keeping the shallow things shallow like appreciating the shallow side of human experience as shallow you know if you're a cancer researcher you do research to try to find the cure for cancer and then you meet someone else who's also passionate about cancer research how important is their physical appearance gonna be it's gonna be different for every couple it's gonna be different for a person whether you're thinking about yourself you know it's a unique example in this process or if you're scaling up and thinking about society in general or or life in general you know yeah of course if you care about something passionately whether or not it's cancer research whether or not it's you know painting or what-have-you well then it's politics without you and you meet someone else who relates to you on that level who has those common aspirations with you there's a lot to love there I mean there's just there's a lot of common ground to build on and I do think it's something I mean if you are if you are objective ugly witch you know funny people are funny people live with that burden their whole lives you know or if within your own culture you're considered ugly you're within a culture we're only tall skinny people are considered attractive and you're not tall and skinny whatever the case might be nevertheless it seems so clear to me that the way forward is for you to find and build on you know some passionate direction that kind which is gonna create the basis for those those meaningful relationships I think that a lot of people get behind this competitive view of evolutionary biology like everyone's trying to be as pretty as possible everyone's trying to be as handsome and as muscular as possible and so on because it gives them the comforting delusion that there's one finish line one standard one set of goal posts that we're working towards that presumes that you know the nature of the competition and you know what it is that you're competing for right I could not imagine the woman that YouTube brought into my life like there was no way I could have contrived my life or put on a fake persona or done a fake career or anything to try to attract you as my partner right I can work on developing when I'm really interested and passionate about and then I can find out who has common ground with me like I didn't even know about you for the first couple months were together that one of these you really related to was my interest in First Nations people's so crea ghibli den a native peoples of Canada native languages and stuff right and I'm coming here on YouTube just talking about that from the position of a failure you know I mean it's like hey this is something I tried to do with my life and it didn't work out and that you know that brought this woman in my life that was one of the things that really turned her on a boat me that she really related to you positively right so nobody's gonna give you that advice like talk about your aspirations and failures and meet people who can relate positively to that aspiration and failure but it's great advice bad news Yin one of the ideas that comes out of the philosophy of Karl Popper is just the extent to which empirical experience can lead us astray so Karl Popper was a philosophy or a philosopher of science tried to make them the one word there he was a loser science and naturally in the flaws science a lot of people say well what's good about science is that it's based on what you see and hear and experience empirically and Karl Popper was interested in kind of examples to the contrary well you know empirical experience going to eat astray and sometimes we have to reason things through in a more theoretical or abstracted philosophical sense in order to interpret what we see empirically now like a lot of people's relationship advice or how they live their own lives in terms of seeking a partner or having a partner to have you it's based on a few very powerful empirical experiences like it may be based on their own experience falling in love which is maybe something them once in their life maybe twice maybe not even right at the time of this matters it may be based on a friend of theirs falling in love it may be based on someone else falling in love with them or even just someone being attracted to you you know which is really random and can be very misleading like if you're not gorgeous whether you're like objectively ugly or you're objectively mediocre looking you may have the experience that stands out in your mind of a few times in your life when somebody met you and forever they they were really into you they found you really attractive you know that happens to most of us even if you're not that good-looking you know a few times in your life and then it's really easy to kid yourself like oh I just need to like repeat the circumstances that created that situation you know what I mean and so it's an empirical experience it may be very powerful and you know your best friend you may have seen them fall in love or seen someone fall in love with them or again even if there wasn't even love even it was just someone who met you on a certain day in a certain way and they were really into you it's easy to take that as a guide for you what you should be doing when really the exact opposite is true it's it's very random on a human face to face level who finds you attractive and there is no why there is no reason why like I mean you know it is it is kind of surprising to me how much my current girlfriend finds me attractive and like hey I got I got a real good comparison so my girlfriend doesn't find me attractive in real life but like we'll be looking through photographs with me like photographs we took together in rolling munication and she'll say oh wow you look really handsome in that photo and I think I look like garbage in the photo like I I know some photos of me are flattering it some are unflattering but like a really unflattering photo of me she will still think I'm hot in this in this awful photo of me right now I remember by contrast when I was a student in conveying one of my teachers especially you know photographs of my more up like you know I made this poster a red but you know and also we had to all the ID stuff we had like my passport you know just part of the school so different photos we were on the table at different times of study and I remember she really went out of her way to let me know how ugly I looked in these photographs of me or some she'd be like oh that doesn't look like you at all like about fuzz and it like you know it was like wow you know cuz like again some of the photos that look bad but some of them I look at that photo looks terrible you know so I mean it's it's very idiosyncratic who finds who finds who attractive and so so we're currently living in China it's easy to say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the beauty is of social construct that it's to some extent specific to the culture living it but if you just live in one culture you may really be stuck with that struggle you're stuck with the way your you're perceived in that culture I don't know if I mentioned this to you before but like most wall okay China is a huge country when I lived in Hong Kong nobody found me attractive nobody even referred to me as attractive and I mean two different categories there cuz like there's someone walking up to you on the street right now at a cocktail party and like hitting on you letting you know that they find you if that's one type of information but another type information is like conversations with your boss or your coworkers where they refer to you as attractive look or even just the nature of the conversation it's like oh well or you're doing this event whatever when I was in Hong Kong nobody found me attractive and then just a couple years later my parents was the same or worse I think I was probably object less attractive when I was living in Kunming China this is back in 2007 everyone found me attractive and it gave us kind of both categories they were both like all these women directly hitting on me directly like Sun is directly propositioning me but you know trying to spark up with me but also those cousin direct conversations with co-workers and colleagues and that kind of thing whereas being referred to as like self-evident that I was really attractive you know for this and this both China and I looked the same in those two periods in my life you know what I mean is it is a cultural context is it just luck like is it just I do singers is just random you know what I mean but the difference there was not me if anything I was better looking in the period when I was living in Hong Kong I was I was really broke when I was living in conveying poverty poverty never attractive I had a beard part of that time too and stuff you know anyway whatever so you know it's really really easy to let these kind of anecdotal experiences lead you astray whether they're your own anecdotal experience or there's someone else's anything experienced now on a deeper level I also think that in Western culture we cultivate this misconception it's a misconception we're proud of that human attraction and para bonding is based on the soul or that it ought to be based on the soul it ought to be based on who you really are and we imagine who you really are is something totally different from just who you are like you know what you do what you say your job your hobbies your interest these are extrinsic and shallow things and what you look like your appearance and then there's this idea there's this separate category of who you really are your spirit your soul your intrinsic essence that allegedly somebody who wants to you should be able to appreciate even if it's in great contrast to who you are you know in a shallower sense now these things can can overlap the the latter delusion the delusion of the soul what I call an essentialist approach to human personality there's an essence within your personality which is your true self in contrast to your false so firstly that combines with the anecdotal nature of oh this one time had this one experience where this person really failed me attractive I had this one experience or this person fell in love with me like you know she had a deeper connection with someone and then and then adding to this delusion of those people those people who were really enter into me it's because they they could see who I really am it's cuz they could see my soul they saw something in me the other people didn't see and I think that is wrong wrong wrong you see the same thing my Chinese teacher saw both in person and in the photographs right you like it and she doesn't you think it's attractive she thinks it's repulsive period you don't mean you're responding to the same man and the same outward experience and the same combination of different shallow factors that makes up you know who you are what you have to offer as a partner you know blah blah blah I mean you know I'm talking about this in a philosophical way but the real moral of the story of what I'm saying here is that the discipline of making sense that your own love life is keeping the shallow things shallow like appreciating the shallow side of human experience as shallow not looking for something deep where it or it can't be found you know if somebody gives you the advice which is maybe maybe common advice but isn't maybe isn't taken seriously enough despite being in common that you should find someone you love you should base your relationship on on developing common interests I noticed you have in common now I think in a really profound sense this runs counter to the the cultural idea of the soul the essence of who you really are and it also runs counter to this notion that like society is one big competition for who's the prettiest and that it's the most attractive people trying to pair off at the most attractive people to have the most attractive children or something I really do not think that's that's what's going on I mean there's thousands of examples of sure rich unattractive people getting together with attractive people to prove that huh yeah I think the point is I learned to unattractive people getting deals right sure ugly people get laid and ugly people have happy marriages and what I do mean straight up ugly people I think a lot of people are may be scared of the feeling within themselves that they could fall in love with an ugly person I think that's partly an ego trip like I am i lowering my social value am I am I you know is am i damaging my own ego or my own worth if my girlfriend is less attractive than some standard I have set up in my mind or for the woman if her boyfriend is slower than some Jennifer but you know you can fall in love with someone who's objectively unattractive I think and I think you can fall in love with someone who's subjectively unattractive you know who you don't feel attracted to but you overcome that because of some combination of other redeeming qualities they've got but maybe that's maybe that's scary to people and its own way too right yeah you know what does it really mean creating and building on on common interests I think that's basically as deep as it gets for this kind of relationship advice you know if you're a cancer researcher you do research to try to find the cure for cancer and then you meet someone else who's also passionate about cancer research how important is their physical appearance gonna be it's gonna be different for every couple it's gonna be different for a person I'm not here to shame those people they're probably it's possible someone's watching this video right now I was in a specialized field like that and they said well all my life I assumed that wanted to be with another cancer researcher but when I actually met these women or actually met these men I found I couldn't feel attracted the middle fine you know and I think for some people you know the question of whether or not they can feel attracted someone might be really narrow you know they might they might only be able to feel attracted to someone if certain certain conditions are met it's a certain type certain look or what have you and you know there's no reason to lie to yourself about that but I think you also shouldn't lie to yourself the other way whether you're thinking about yourself you know is a unique exam in this process or if you're scaling up and thinking about society in general or or life in general you know yeah of course if you care about something passionately whether or not it's cancer research whether or not it's you know painting or what-have-you well then that's politics without you and you meet someone else who relates to you on that level who has those common aspirations with you there's a lot to love there I mean there's just there's a lot of common ground to build on there's a lot you know there's a lot that's gonna smooth over and make it worthwhile for you to move into an apartment together and learn learn how to get along and have your first experience washing dishes together and have your first fight about the dry cleaning or who forgot to return their library books because you know they're all kinds of little bumps in the road you know when you're a couple she smiles you know I'm sober but you know we have something profound and enduring some kind of common ground like that some kind of interest in common that I mean that really creates the basis for the relationship and I do think it's something I mean if you are if you are objectively ugly which you know plenty of people are plenty people live with that burden their whole lives you know or if within your own culture you're considered ugly you're within a culture we're only tall skinny people are considered attractive and you're not tall and skinny whatever the case might be and that again that can be quite localized that could be the sense of competition your own culture or may just be the sense you're left over with from your own high school who you know a lot of people are shaped by little experiences like that that are really even more specific than their culture in general or where they're living in general nevertheless it seems so clear to me that the way forward is for you to find and build on you know some passionate direction that kind which is going to create the basis for those those meaningful relationships all right sorry two or three things to take onto this two or three you know Cabot's I think are really significant so one I used to be married to an anthropologist I used to marry to someone who had a PhD in anthropology I think it's actually worthwhile to reflect that yeah sometimes you can have an interest in common with somebody and it seems like a common interest but it's really not because what you're talking about is such a diverse category of things for which we use just one word in the English language so I can through Paula G my ex-wife who were her co-workers and colleagues and anthropology some of them are Christian missionaries there are people with PhDs in anthropology but they're going out to tribal areas and trying to convert ethnic minority people's Christian for them that's the meaning of life but it's like well what do you have in common anthropology or even a PhD anthropology and there were a lot of people anthropology who were left-wing extremists who were communists who supported the Communist Party and for whom anthropology is really about you know proven communism now I use an example I know nothing about when I say cancer research I can't tell you probably if you talk to people who are really in the cancer research dating pool I think a lot of labels like that you're gonna have one word in English language but then when you look past that it's really not just one interest it's not common ground that's easy to build on when you really understand that people with very diverse motives and interests are brought in under that one tent are brought in under that one that one heading so you have to look beyond I mean anthropology may be an extract an exceptionally bad example but I think that's an example worth thinking about and for people to question themselves their own interest if they're going to conferences or meetings or events for that interest and the pursuit of that interest or they really meaning think people they have things that are profound they have profoundly comment so we're both vegan but we have a lot more in common than just veganism right like if you make a list of all the examples all the specific political issues addressed on this channel so she got to see a couple hundred of my YouTube videos before she met me in person so she knew we had all this in common right a surprising amount of things that come yeah I mean wait it was surprise for me I learned it that you learned it first cuz you watch the YouTube videos I mean that yeah yeah yeah well also you know earlier you said like she smiles you know cuz I'm not laughing about us not being able to get along with washing dishes it's just a process surprisingly we've been really sure we've been able to get along really well you've been copacetic yeah copacetic is the word you know you can say in terms of us having on stuff in common it would be hard to make a full list of all those issues but it's like we're both into veganism or not industry protests we're not into smashing windows or not as a now there was drink or do drugs yeah that is true oh no that's also a huge one sure we're both basically anti-drug and yeah a cheetah back home idea right we both don't watch hockey even there's an enormous list of things we have in common but my phone is gonna be just within the vegan category like you know okay we both we both don't want to adopt dogs we don't that's a huge one so like there are people in our Facebook groups which are just vegans who are heavily into pet ownership where they're all their time is devoted to they have six dogs and five rabbits and they've rescued a bunch of rats you know there are people who have rats in their apartment there people are raising chickens you know there are vegans but where their time is running this small farm you know inside their apartment or in their backyard we're not like that we're not just into it for the health reasons - right okay that's another great example right so like my point is your whether it's anthropology including everything from like conservative Christians to left-wing extremist communists or it's veganism veganism seems really specific but when you get down to it like okay you want a date you want to meet someone else because they're a vegan activist or an aspiring vegan activist well what does that really mean you know and politically or practically like you know I don't I literally don't think I could live with a woman who had a bunch of pets I don't want to live in the same space with with a bunch of animals like that but you know and it's not hard to think of you know a parallel universe where that I ended up in that situation right but no so yeah even within veganism though there are those there are those kinds of questions to dig down to uh I mean this is this issue of common interests of having kind of an own declared common interest and you're then kind of dating inside that that interest I think it really does run counter to this notion of the the essential self the soul the spirit who you really are right and I think at the other hand I mean I'm gonna use my own my own experience getting married getting divorced to it you know in a self-critical way there um you know you can say when my ex-wife met me I was a scholar of Buddhism you know now she wasn't but she respected that she wanted know more about that she knew she knew basically nothing about Buddhism when she met me she had met some other people she had met some people and her PhD program who you know also at some engagement with Buddhism so you know you could really say that I let her down or that I you know we can validate it part of the basis for the relationship when I ceased to be a scholar of Buddhism when I quit that field and moved into a new field right now Mike Smith has never ever said that to me she's never said like she fell out of love with me or start felt differently about me regarded me differently because I stopped being a scholar of Buddhism and I assume we'll never have a conversation like that now that we're divorced you know there were a million other things that happened everybody there were a million other factors to consider but nevertheless I've got to say self-fertile I think that is a reason to leave me I think that is a reason to break up relation I think you can say well look the common interests or what part of the base relationship was for whatever ten years plus I was a scholar of Buddhism I worked on pally we're gonna set these Dasia this kind of stuff and then that all came to a halt and she was very much part of those discussions not like I sprung it on her as a surprise but again there's nothing intrinsic here there's nothing essential I'm not in a position to say to my ex-wife well you're supposed to love me for me you're supposed to love me for who I really am and supposed to love me for my solar spirit no you fell in love with a with a Pali scholar with a scholar of tera vaada Buddhism and now I'm stopping that listen for the rest of my life like I'm it's not a temp or everything like I'm quitting that field and I'm going another you know the directions now I think a lot of people are made to feel ashamed of that in Christian culture like if you fall in love with your husband because he has a good job as an aircraft pilot and then later his vision gets worse he can't be an aircraft pilot anymore you're supposed to feel like a piece of because you married him because he's an aircraft pilot now you don't want to be with him anymore that he's not like you know I understand like there's a thing there it's and I think it is based on this like Christian culture of suffering and support like no like you're supposed to have this profound connection with this guy that has nothing to do with the fact that he's an aircraft but you got to be real with yourself maybe it does you know that's what attracted to you were that was the basis for the relationship I don't know maybe the husband's an aircraft pilot and the wife works in aircraft design or engineering or craft engine repair whatever I mean I don't know why but now he's no longer in that field he's doing Santilli if it's like that matters that's not you know intrinsic or essential or happy okay I think that a lot of people get behind this competitive view of evolutionary biology like everyone's trying to be as pretty as possible everyone's trying to be as handsome and as muscular as possible and so on because it gives them the comforting delusion that there's one finish line one standard one set of goal posts that we're all working towards like there's one standard of beauty and the struggle is to be as beautiful as possible or there's one standard of success like commercial success and we're working towards it and you know maybe that makes sense to be bowls in terms of the high school experience like in your high school maybe there were only five or ten people you find attractive and then there's a sense of a closed competition you know for these limited resources of who can be the handsomest or the strongest of the prettiest of the most successful and only a couple ways to be successful like maybe you can be successful in sports or something like bodybuilding and maybe you can be successful in getting high grades or seeming promising in terms of your career options this is really limited horizons really limited form of competition now there's a sense in which even high school is not really like that that's just one way to perceive high school but definitely once you join the adult world it's not like that um you know a lot of people it seems like harmless advice you just say well be as fit as you can possibly be be as pretty as you can possibly be as strong as you can possibly as lean or as muscular or whatever these these things are that presumes that you know the nature of the competition and you know what it is that you're competing for right I could not imagine the woman that YouTube brought in my life like there was no way I could have contrived my life or put on a fake persona or done a fake career or anything to try to attract you as my partner right I came on YouTube I kept it really real I talked about my actual political beliefs that were alienating to a lot of people like a lot of people look my political beliefs and they thing it's the left wing is he right wing what's the deal with this guy you know my political leaves don't fall into some simple you know box my views on veganism alienate the vast majority of vegans the best if he gets why my views on veganism offensive those honest about that stuff there's no sense in which I can say like I'm out here trying to be the best version of myself you heard that like you really got to think about that that's that's a mode of thinking where there's already a presumed ideal you're working words whether it's a finish line or goal posts or standard standard of beauty or standard of success you know I can work on developing what I'm really interested and passionate about and then I can find out who has common ground with me like I didn't even know about you for the first couple months were together that one of the things you really related to was my interest in First Nations peoples so crea jib way then a native peoples of Canada native languages and stuff right and I'm coming here on YouTube just talking about that from the position of a failure you know I mean it's like hey this is something I tried to do with my life and it didn't work out and that you know that brought this woman in my life that was one of the things that really turned her on about me that she really related to you positively right so nobody's gonna give you that advice like talk about your aspirations and failures and meet people who can relate positively to that aspiration and failure but it's great advice you mean sorry this is I think the really the final point you can jump in if you got some say but you know this is really the final point I want to make here one of the really interesting dynamic things is that this this issue of common ground as a basis for romance love etc it doesn't just rely on things you've actually accomplished so before I hit record I mean I mentioned to my girlfriend look you know we've fallen in love we have this now really stable high commitment long-term relationship and part of the basis is that at the time we met I was an aspiring vegan activist and she was an aspiring vegan activist what have we actually accomplished in terms of those aspirations almost nothing and it's it's completely possible that due to circumstance in the future what will we accomplish in future in terms of our aspirations for unites them the answer may be nothing like it maybe we both just get jobs the demand our attention 24/7 the do - you don't professional or family obligations okay let's say my mom gets sick and then we decided to take care of in the last couple of years of her life or something in a role Dejan illness and you get pregnant and I get a job at the CIA like you know whatever and you know the CIA says look we don't like your doing this YouTube in your spare time you know whatever you know whatever the scenario is okay nevertheless we were brought together by that positive aspiration and we'll stay together like it doesn't rely on us pursuing that and it doesn't rely on any actual accomplishments right and the First Nations thing I think is a really powerful example that also like to some extent she knows who I am she knows what kind of person I am she does what I'm gonna do what I'm capable of because of my experience trying to do something positive for First Nations First Nations languages even though what I accomplished was like this much and I can make a video talking about that you know what I mean that was basically a failure I enrolled the First Nations University where and I just had videos on YouTube talking about my feelings under that heading you know to me there's no promise of me accomplished in there but the fact that I cared about that the fact that I tried to accomplish that and then you know about that you relate to that that's also part of the positive basis the relationship but it doesn't rely on any actually existing thing it doesn't rely on me having money in the bank or me driving a fancy car or you know me having the right tattoos or me being able to benchpress 300 pounds etc etc doesn't rely on me every once so that's a really interesting dynamic and I you know I think there I think there are pretty clear reasons to why that is when you fall in love with someone you want to have a sense of who they are you want to have a sense of who in future they're gonna become you want to have a sense of their of their potential you know you want to is this someone who's gonna end up as a lazy drunk watching sports on the couch that's a big percentage of guys you know they may look good in high school ten years later the guy's a lazy drunk you know in high school he was lean and muscular and was on the football team ten years later he's drinking beer on the couch watching some but some other football team it's a very common pattern for men right you know their potential through their that what kind of a partner they can be and what they were do in life a lot of that is about those intangibles although again those intangibles I think it's really important to view them as shallow not to think of them in terms of the soul of the spirit or something essential but just as those common interests and what you can build on that is everything I have to say okay we killed this video is done okay well this was this was more flattering than denigrating to you in our relationship no I think this gives a give you that's rapid evolution