Erick Godsey was almost my roommate in Austin, and even though I trust our destinies I still consider it a bummer that we didn’t. He is a nobler beast than I. He’s also the host of The Myths That Make Us, which is an excellent program for reasons that have nothing to do with my recent appearance on his show, but that’s nice too…
What Erick IS is devoted to helping people live the absolute best stories that they can, which means first figuring out why we’re living the stories we already ARE.
Notes are slim for this episode but that’s because just go listen to it right now.
Erick’s website:
“A great idea reconstructs your map. It’s one of the most painful things you can go through, but it’s beautiful.”
“I was an atheist but I prayed. At night, I would pray to a thing I didn’t understand and say, thank you, because all the people who were asking for things were stupid, and I was self-righteous.”
Don’t read Gödel, Escher, Bach and then take 5 grams of mushrooms. (Psychedelic Conservatives.)
“If you tell a twenty-eight year old, ‘Your story is an illusion,’ it f-cks more people up than it helps…especially in Western culture, it’s not the right medicine at the right time.”
Our stories are not useful for as long as they used to be. Are they no longer serving us in the “infoquake” of life online? How long will our evolutionary drives and archetypes persist amidst this metamorphosis?
Spiritual Bypass. It’s all perfect. There’s a season for bullshitting yourself. Or no, you shouldn’t ever do it. Don’t resist your own psychodynamic forces.
Most adaptive story: you are not a noun; you are a verb. Least adaptive story: you are a noun; you have to endure; the world is happening to you.
What to do about being disempowered in a global landscape of tragic news, in our own personal lives, to do anything about anything?
Is it better to be good or great?
How to be good ancestors.
Can we bring our full selves to work at our “day jobs”? What does it look like when we do? (AKA, What’s it like working at Onnit?)
What are your coping mechanisms and how can you channel them to make the world a better place?
Leave a Reply