https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=3URQ0xIyT04
John Vervecky and Sean Coyne have together authored a new book, Mentoring the Machines. It’s a book about artificial intelligence and the path forward that further develops the arguments of how to align artificial intelligence to human flourishing, and it sets those arguments into beautiful and accessible writing. It’s an incredibly timely book. In fact, it will be released August 1, 2023, as a four-part series that will culminate into a final volume. You can pre-order today a special edition copy that will include a signed hardback edition. Pre-order in the link in the description below. Welcome everybody to another Voices with Vervecky. I’m very excited here to be talking with Joe Alto. We are going to be doing an interesting thing, and I’ll let Joe talk about it a little bit more. Although he’s on Voices with Vervecky, we want you to consider that I’m also on Joe’s channel. We’re sort of going to be interviewing each other and talking for both audiences in an integrated fashion. Welcome, Joe. Thank you so much for having me, John. Just a quick introduction, I guess, about myself. As John just mentioned, I have my own YouTube channel called The Gist with Joe, and that channel is really dedicated to talking to what I consider great minds in the fields of psychology and philosophy, theology, really just culture in general. And I essentially ask my guests, what’s the gist of their intellectual, their artistic, their spiritual project? We know that distilling what your project is to the gist is a good practice. So I like doing this with my guests, and it usually blossoms into a really beautiful and meaningful conversation afterwards. So that’s going to be one part of our conversation today. As John said, I’ll be on Voices with Vervecky. John will be on The Gist with Joe. And obviously, my channel is much more teeny tiny than John’s. So to, I guess, even further introduce myself, I’m currently studying clinical mental health counseling. I am the campus minister at a public university in Cleveland, Ohio, and just very interested in pursuing what, you know, my, as a Catholic man, you know, the, with the church fathers or what other great thinkers in philosophy in general would consider the good, the true, the beautiful. So I’m on that search myself, and it’s a hard, long search. But having conversations with great thinkers is something that helps me with that endeavor. So yeah, I’m just really honored to be on today. So thank you so much, John. Well, thank you, Joe. Let me go first, and I will happily answer your gist question. But from my side, I guess what I’m really interested in hearing from you and talking about it a bit is how does my work intersect with your pursuit, your quest as a Catholic man to track the true, the good, and the beautiful? How does my work, like, does it help? Does it afford? Does it challenge? Does it problem-solve? Well, it definitely does a lot. It definitely does a lot. It challenges one really good thing. Help is another. It helps a lot. And so, you know, as a Catholic, I will explain. So, you know, I’m a Catholic campus minister, but I’m also studying intensively right now, be able to practice next April. I actually start my clinical internship in a couple of weeks, so I actually start seeing patients soon. So, I’m on this journey right now, as I stated, of clinical mental health, and, you know, I don’t have any plans of ever advertising myself per se as a Catholic counselor. I actually think, and you know what, anyone who does religious-specific counseling, that’s very needed, and I laud anyone who’s watching who does, like I said, religious-specific counseling. However, given just my charisms, my personality, just what my goal in this profession is, I don’t necessarily plan on ever advertising myself as a Catholic counselor. However, I do believe that, in my, it’s in my opinion that counseling, you know, psychotherapy is one can consider a spiritual or religious endeavor. There’s many Christian, there’s many Buddhists, there’s many Islamic, there’s many Jewish, there’s really all, every major world religion and the ethos of that religion, you can see elements of that in the counseling profession, right? And so, it’s not going to ever be explicit, but you know, it’s more so in the implicit of my counseling that I want to, well, that I will express or exude my Christian faith that ever, without ever, you know, possibly ever stating, hey, I’m a Christian man. And so, John, what does your work come in for this? So although I’ve only had a couple encounters, right, with people coming to counseling, but in my time in classes, in my work reading the great thinkers of both, you know, just the psychological field and just even the counseling field, I do know that, and although I don’t have any stats to prove it, this is more operating in the anecdotal right here, I do know that many people go to counseling, not for, well, what we would consider, what the DSM would consider, you know, a particular disorder, right? So not everyone. So people who are depressed don’t always have a major depressive episode or major depressive disorder, right? People who are anxious don’t always have a specific phobia or generalized anxiety disorder. And that’s actually one of the downfalls of the current field of counseling, in my opinion, is the overdiagnosis of… Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You said it, and again, I don’t know the, I’m going to misfire on the exact quote, but you once said that in all of his time counseling, around something like 60% of the patients we’re never dealing with an actual psychological disorder, but they were dealing with, and John, this is where you come in, a crisis of meaning. Yes, yes, yes. And you know, your work has been so influential in what I want to do when I hopefully, knock on wood, right? Either I work with a group or I open up my own practice one day. I want to create really this psychotherapeutic model that invites the individual to think more deeply about virtue. And that’s one thing that I really think plagues so many people. It’s like, if you could just realize, right, how virtues can be, virtue cultivation, how virtue cultivation can be so profound and have such a reformational, such a reformational influence on your life. If you pursue these virtues, I believe that a lot of what people are coming in for, if those individuals are not suffering from a particular disorder that you could diagnose via the DSM, I do believe that something like virtue cultivation could be a serious modality to really help, you know what, I’m trying to think, what’s the word that Aristotle uses in eudaimonia, to get to this eudaimonic state, right? And that’s really the goal of all mental health counseling is you want the individual to reach this eudaimonic state. You want the individual to be happy, right? And I won’t get into like the happy, but it’s the happiness that is more, well, it’s the more profound, it’s more joyful than it is happy, right? So you want people to be joyful. And yeah, I do believe that one way that we can reach joy is by the cultivation of virtues. And so, yes, your work, I think, and a lot of what you’ve been doing with the meaning crisis and what you’ve been doing with aftersocraties and what you’re doing in general is really in alignment with what I’m doing. And I would hope to use your work and to pick your brain a lot, you know, now and in the future to help me with this endeavor. Wow, that’s very well explicated and thoughtful answer. There’s a lot in there. I’m going to ask a question and it might sound like a challenge, but I honestly, it’s not. So one one thing that’s happened in response to and I agree with all the stats you were laying out, you know, the particulars where it might be move around a bit. I think the general point, I think, is as well stated. So one of the ways in which there’s been a response, and I know people that do this, like Rick Rick Rappetti, they’ve taken up philosophical counseling as a way of trying to address the people that are coming in, not because I mean, the slogan is they’re not pathological, they’re confused and they’re not sick. They’re finding that they’re being too foolish in their life. And those are those are not the same thing. And of course, there’s nothing that prevents them from both being comorbid either. Often often you can have both and they’re making each other worse in really obnoxious fashion for the person. So are you planning on getting any training in and incorporating the philosophical counseling into what you’re doing? Because it sounds like it would also be helpful for you. Yeah, no, I most definitely looked into it and I think it would be helpful. And I’ve already been tapped on the shoulder by a few to pursue things like, you know, you know, become maybe like a union analyst or to like you said, maybe journey down that avenue of what we would consider philosophical counseling. And I’m sure many people who are watching don’t even realize there might be like this very specific type of counseling. Yes, it is philosophical counseling. And usually the individual who is the counselor usually has a higher degree in philosophy. Yes, it’s almost like this. You know, I always think I tell people I’ve many people this before. You know, I think the greatest counseling relationship that we’ve ever seen in human history has been the has been the counseling relationship between Virgil and Dante. I really believe that that is, quite frankly, the most beautiful, most beautiful vision of what a counselor should be. It’s like, hey, I’m going to help you get here. Realize, though, that I can’t go with you to that. I can’t get that same place that we need you to get. But I know that you need to get there and I have to leave you behind. And it’s going to be sad when we terminate. That’s like the counselor counselor counselor lingo. We terminate our relationship. It will be sad. And we have learned a lot from each other. And we may not ever see each other again, but, you know, realize that, again, this relationship has been reformational that it’s like this beautiful vocation that we have journeyed on together. But to answer the question more directly. Yes, I have thought about pursuing it, but here’s my only issue with that. I want my I was talking to so it’s actually funny because I was actually approaching this question with my wife literally last week and I was I was like, hey, because, you know, it’s all about the particularities. It’s like, OK, well, there’s some very practical things that we have to do. Right. So like I’m going to open up my own business. So you have to get a small business loan and yada, yada, yada. So it actually does. You know, this is it’s not just a knee decision. It’s a family decision. But how is this going to affect my wife and my kid and all these things? We were talking and my vision has always been working with very high insight in individuals with high insight. Right. So individuals who possess high insight. And when you do philosophical counseling, you’re usually working with individuals with high insight because who is going to a philosophical counselor other than that, other than the individual who has probably is somewhat learned in, you know, Western, more than likely Western continental philosophy. Right. And so I was telling her this and she said, you know, very wise. She said, well, you’re really just missing the mark then. At that point, I was like, what does that mean? She said, you know, you. Virtue cultivation is not just for the intelligentsia. It’s not just for those in an academic. Right. Virtue cultivation sometimes is needed more by the individual who don’t who doesn’t realize that you cultivate virtues. I mean, people don’t even know if we were to go out on the our respective cities sidewalks, we said, what’s virtue? Yeah, I would be able to. I mean, really, I have a hard time myself answering that without the help of great thinkers, right, like they’re so I mean, so it’s not even like my so I even sometimes have a difficult time buying the correct language that I have to rely on great thinkers of the past. So given that, I mean, stemming from that, who realizes that we have to cultivate it? People just think, oh, this is people have a very odd relationship with virtue because they just they just don’t understand that it’s a vocational call, right? That virtue, I believe that virtue truly operates in the beautiful. It’s like the beautiful is the car and virtue are the parts of the car. So they’re very connected, but you can also make the distinction, right? So I’m not going to say my steering wheel is my car, but I will say, yeah, beauty is the car. And I do believe that virtue is the steering wheel because they function similarly, right? Because the beauty and things that are beautiful, the things that are beautiful allow the individual. It’s like one of the only things in our life that allows us. To not be content with how things are. Yeah, so it’s like we are not content with our lives and philosophically, but even like put that on like a lower rung of the scale. Maybe I look at my bedroom and it’s a mess and I’m like, why? So thing beauty really orients us towards the good, right? But it but it also allows us not to be content. And it calls us right. Beauty calls us to achieve or go up a rung of understanding and seeing reality more vividly. And that’s what virtue does, too. So this is why I really do believe that. I agree. That’s a very platonic argument you just made. Very platonic. That’s a very platonic argument you just made. Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, I do believe that. You know, I’m on read the Lubach talks about a saturated phenomena. And I do believe that I believe that virtue is also operating as a saturated phenomena. Again, I do believe that virtue, again, being connected with beauty operates in the erotic because it’s something that calls. It’s something that it’s something that is insightful. And, you know, I read I once read this great book. I don’t know if I mean, knowing that you have spent much time studying Buddhist philosophy, I read this great book in college once by the time because I also I was a religious studies major, but most of my time was never actually spending. Well, I was never taking Christian classes. I was I was taking classes and I read this book called Along with Others by Stephen Batchelor. Yeah, yeah, I teach that book. Oh, dear. OK, yeah. I taught that book for years. I’ve met Stephen and had dinner with him. Yeah, it’s a great book. And I also and again, it’s not nothing. It’s nothing about the book, by the way, is about, you know, it’s mostly on, you know, Buddhist, a particular Buddhist philosopher, a Buddhist philosopher’s connection with Martin Heidegger. But the book is called Alone with Others. And that’s another way I think that virtue is that virtue functions is that it’s an individual pursuit, but you aren’t going to realize it unless. It’s practiced with others, right? So so let me make sure I’m not losing the thread here. So you’re. You took a look at philosophical counseling and there was an appeal there, but your wife said something very insightful about what, you know, maybe what you’re called to is to bring virtue to people who are not awakened to the quest for virtue. And you want to learn how to awaken them. And one of the functions of beauty is to awaken them to the quest. And then and this. Yeah. And beauty is one of virtue is one of these alone with others. We you only do this virtue if you have Gaiji’s ring and you’re alone. But it’s because you’re responsible to other people. I get all that connection. And that was very eloquent. So how does this beautification, how would the beautification and the awakening to virtue come into sort of the psychotherapeutic practice? Now, first of all, I give you the caveat. If somebody had somebody is coming in disordered pathological, that that has to be that’s exigent. That has to be addressed and dealt with. We’re talking about this other group, the people that are coming in existentially confused, meaning crisis. So tell me what how you’re like, how you’re. This is where a lot of my thoughts are. I’m ruminating on most of these. So if my answer isn’t as developed, please, you know, show me some compassion. But I’ll of course, of course, of course. I was in my own. So I see, you know, part of my program is that I think every good counselor. Every good psychotherapist should see their own psychotherapist. Oh, totally, totally. I I’m very critical of people who practice who have never gone through therapy. Right. It’s odd. It’s like being a priest, but never going to mass. And. It’s funny, I mean, I don’t I don’t really mean to. Make this very direct joke, but as a Catholic, right, sorry, one thing I struggle with, I think I would struggle with this without it. I was being without being Catholic or not, but I have a lot of guilt. Right. That’s one thing that I have in me and I don’t and I were. Getting into my getting into my my particular sessions, I’m trying to figure out I’m on my own quest right now of figuring out if this guilt is a personality trait, where this guilt comes from, why do I have this guilt? And it’s also yesterday I had a great I had a great realization, but it was also very embarrassing realization that, you know, a lot of my identity, I a lot of. A lot of my identity that I do is still the identity that I had, you know, when I was in middle school. And that’s very embarrassing. Right. But it’s like it’s like it’s like these characteristics, these personal personality characteristics that I obviously just haven’t processed correctly. Right. And they and they they’re not bad and they don’t necessarily get in the way. But they make me for a lot of reasons without getting into my psychology. Right. I have a lot of guilt, like I said, so I feel guilty for. Why am I telling you this? Well, I’m telling you this because I think with people of high insight who would come in for this particular type of counseling, maybe something that they would also feel ashamed or guilty. And so usually high, insightful people will do something, something very mean. Right. Could be mean. Like I lied to my spouse about I don’t know. I mean, maybe I lied about how many beers I had at the party or. I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe I maybe I watched pornography and I feel really bad about that. Maybe I bullied a friend. I jibbed a friend a little too hard, you know, when we were in our in our group text message or and you could think of whatever, you know, to. I feel guilt. OK. And then, you know, unfortunately, nowadays, I mean, how everyone who feels guilt like four times in a week, am I a narcissist? Am I this? Am I? No, no, no. Let’s let’s let’s take a deep breath. Let’s sit down and let’s take this. What if it’s not guilt? What if it’s not shame that you’re experiencing? What if, again, because like virtue is a call, right? It’s something that calls you. So what if virtue is a call? And what if the fact that you were able to admit to me that you lied to your wife or you did something dishonest, you did something that wasn’t courageous? You did something, you know, you did something. Again, you just didn’t enjoy the fact that you’re able to sit here in a counseling session and tell me that you have guilt and that you didn’t enjoy it. Maybe that’s not guilt at all. And maybe that’s your conscience telling you or maybe that’s virtue, right? Trying to signal to you that. You should pursue this further, the fact that you were able to feel that the fact that you knew that it was wrong to lie, the fact that it was the fact that, you know, you were being deceptive, that you were being surreptitious. That insight right there might allow you to realize that, no, no, I don’t need to feel guilty, but the fact that I. Was cognizant of my fault. Maybe that’s actually virtue communicating with me and inviting me to indulge in a deeper relationship with virtue. Well, I see, I see. So you’re reframing it. It’s very high garriant, which Stephen would love, Stephen Batchelor. Yeah. You know, the conscience is the is there’s a there’s an existential version of conscience, there’s a psychological version of conscience, which is basically your internalization of certain norms. And you punish yourself as a way of redirecting your behavior. Guilt and shame. They’re not the same thing, but they’re sort of working. But then there’s an existential sense where conscience is the call to. Yeah. To authenticity. But you’re saying conscience could be understood as the call to virtue. So where does the beauty come in? Is that trying to see the beauty of the life that you could be called to? Is that is that the idea? Yeah, that’s precisely it. And even trying to. You know, again, like I think if you pursue and try to cultivate and therefore try to live a virtuous life, I do I do think, yeah, in that process, I mean, life automatically becomes more beautiful, right? So what’s a more beautiful vision of life that a complete. As hard as it could be, a complete honest relationship with your wife or a dishonest relationship with your wife. And what’s more beautiful, right? What’s what’s a higher form of that? Right. So, yeah. So, yes, I what you said precisely. Oh, that’s very interesting. So, yeah, I could see how a lot of the work that I do would be relevant to that project. And so how does. You know, you know, truth, the truth, the good, the beautiful David Schindler, who I get to talk to, you know, these are the transcendentals. They’re the transcendentals because they apply universally across domains, but the idea is their ultimate unity is in is in the one or God, your Catholic. So I’ll say God for your benefit. How does that sense of the transcendence, you know, Plato, the symposium, the cult of the love of virtue is not the final love. We move beyond that to the love of the source of intelligibility the possibility of virtue, except the ability, the ground of being, the ground of life, the ground of wisdom, that sort of vision that’s articulated in Aquinas, Maximus. How does so now given all of that sort of explication, how does God show up in this for you? Yeah, I mean. You’re Catholic, so it’s fair to ask that question, I think. Oh, 100 percent, it’s fair. So, again, like. This is why I bring up this is why I say that Dante and Virgil is such a good model. It’s you know, in a counseling session, I don’t know if I would. I mean, unless the individual is comfortable with bringing it up, you know, then I would talk about God. But. Yeah, well, you I mean, you almost I think and challenge me and push me further, but I really almost think that, you know, you gave the answer in your question, though, and when it’s, you know, all these things are in submission to the one. Right. Virtue and beauty and the true and the good. And I don’t you know what? I’m having a hard time trying to order three transcendentals in my own life. I would love to get your take on that. It’s like, you know, what’s it’s like, what’s, you know, everyone tries to say, oh, you pursue the good and that opens up the beautiful and that gives you truth. I don’t necessarily think that it matters how you orient the three transcendentals for me personally. I believe, like I said, that beauty is the most approachable because that’s what yeah, that’s what Plato thought, because beauty is the one that reaches so readily and obviously into the sensual aspect of our being in the way that truth and goodness don’t. We can see and touch beauty in a way in which we can see and not. We cannot see and cannot touch truth and goodness. So I think David talks about it as what is it? I might get it wrong, but something like the primacy of beauty it comes first, but the centrality of truth. And then I think the ultimate seed of goodness, or it could be those to the other way around, but they each have a superlative, but in different ways. I think I think speaking temporally, I think beauty comes first. I saw. But what we have to remember is to not human beings have a proclivity to this, this error we have. We shouldn’t confuse that. That’s what David’s trying to address. We shouldn’t confuse temporal priority with ontological priority. Just because beauty comes first doesn’t mean it’s the first of the transcendentals. Right. They’re all they’re all they’re all first in different ways. Beauty is temporally first. I think the true is central in some way, but they have different priorities. And I like I say, I remember which way David does it. It’s really good. His work on that, on the primacy of beauty, and then he talks about primacy, centrality and ultimacy. And so I think truth is the ultimate, actually, and goodness is the central. But I could I could have looked around. That’s because I have a slightly different notion of goodness is perhaps making me confused. So I’m just admitting I’m confused. But the point, the point that I’m not confused about that I think is well taken is to not is to recognize that each transcendental is ultimate, but in a different way. Each there’s firstness and there’s centrality and there’s ultimacy. And these are all superlatives, but in fundamental different ways. And just don’t. So learn to differentiate the different ways in which they’re ultimate, but also learn to not confuse them and give each one its proper due. It’s profound. Yeah. And I, you know, just because of my background, you know, I my my undergraduate degree is in art history and religious studies. My master’s work is working with my favorite Catholic theologian, Ivan Baltazar. So obviously, yeah, yeah. You’ve got to you’ve got to read some Schindler, a man. He is the person that has made Baltazar like accessible. And I think clearer. And also, he’s developed David’s just done amazing work developing beyond bond. And I mean that in the way a good student goes beyond their teacher. But he’s gone beyond involved Baltazar in just profound ways. Of course. Oh, this is great. OK, this is great. I need. Oh, man. OK. Yeah. Well, now I have something to do. I do want to say one thing, though, back to your question about, you know, where is the one and where does God come in and all this? Yes, please. This makes me a bad Catholic, I’m sure. And I’m worried about sometimes. Yeah, I always have a hard time. I I always have a hard time trying to know. I have a hard time knowing where I fit in in these circles. I watched that video that you and Paul Vanderclay and Jonathan Peugeot. And forgive me, I don’t remember the woman’s name. I have it was the first time I interacted with her virtually. It was her. What’s her name? Who’s on you? I’m sorry. Let me give you the title first on a spiritual home. It was on. Oh, oh, that’s Catherine. And there were John Van Dunck was there as well. Yes. Wonderful. Well, it’s kind of funny because, you know, is it is someone I mean, obviously, someone who’s Catholic, I still somewhat don’t feel that I have a spiritual home. And the reason why I preface this is this in my counseling, like, you know, my goal is never to make in life. I mean, in life, this is very hard to admit. I’m not necessarily concerned with converting people to Catholicism. I don’t think you should be when you’re in therapy. I think that’s I think that’s the same. I’m not necessarily, you know, and I. And that’s for my own personal reasons, and that’s because, you know, I’m basically not I mean, I’m a cradle Catholic, but I’m also a revert. And I had, you know, a long bout with atheism and I, as I just expressed to you, I mostly studied Buddhist philosophy and undergrad and deep, deep compassion for anyone who has that proclivity. And so it’s not my goal to make anyone Catholic, but it is my goal to and I’m not a relativist. I want to make that very, very, very. It is my goal, though, to unite the individual with the one God, right. And I won’t necessarily get into. Like, I understand what I just said was loaded, because then you can again, you can always what is he saying that, you know, what he what he’s saying? Is that like a relative relativist thought? And I don’t necessarily want to get into my my spirituality or, you know, things that I subscribe to. I really enjoyed the more mystical teachings of Catholicism. But yeah, it’s not my goal. Yeah, it’s never my goal to make anyone anything. My goal is the only the only goal I have is, like I stated before, is to help the individual pursue the path to eudaimonia. Right. And now I want to do so. I think that’s a good clarification and specification. So let me make my question more precise. That my question is. Well, I first of all, proposal, I propose that getting people into right orientation towards the one towards ultimacy is how you can best help them. Explicate, articulate and respond to their and here I’m being tiller. Their ultimate concerns and that part of what is underneath their confusion is very often they are confused about what they ultimately care about. That’s one part of the confusion. The other can be what is ultimate such that I should care about it as ultimate is another thing that people are often confused about. We often pursue evil not because we’re pursuing evil, but because we pursue a lesser good at the expense of a greater good. Oh, amen. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So what I what I meant was, you know, how yes, I get it. You’re not proselytizing. You’re not trying to surreptitiously convert people. That would be duplicitous. I think it would be vicious in fact. But there’s a sense in which if what we’re talking about again, not the pathological people, but the deeply confused people, if we’re trying to bring them clarity, then I think the orientation towards, you know, what’s real, what’s most real and how well connected am I to it is a fundamental question about meaning in life. Of course. And that’s where your I mean, and that’s exactly where your specific project comes in. And it’s like, okay, but now how do I make this a psychological modality, right? I don’t sit them down. Hey, in today’s session, we’re going to watch episode four of the meeting. Of course not. That would be utterly ridiculous. That sounds like a weird sitcom to that could be done or something. Yeah, right. But it’s again, it’s like, yeah, how do I distill and again, I’m not and you know this you are not the only individual who has written or thought about this extensively, right? I totally have many though. It’s not just you. It’s you in accompaniment with other great thinkers. It’s you in accompaniment with spiritual teachers. It’s you in accompaniment with simply just like already like empirically proven psychotherapeutic practices, right? So it’s like and it’s also in company with my own with who I am as a person, right? My demeanor. Yeah, so it’s like how do I put it’s how do I how do I get all of us to converge? How do I how do I create this tapestry of all these voices and that’s what’s difficult because it can’t just be right. So this is the thing. I mean counseling is not what we are seeing on YouTube, right? This is not I mean, this is this in a way. This is nice and I’ve had many counseling sessions where it has just been a dialogue. But how do we transform the dialogue, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that’s the question that I’m struggling with quite frankly. I mean, so again, there’s more skin in the game because this is not just a theoretical. I’m not just like having this conversation with you just to you know, kill an hour. It’s like, no, this is quite frankly like a livelihood that I might have, right? This is this is also that this has economic implications, right? Yeah, I get it. So it’s like what’s a model that what’s the model and so yeah, this is the thing that I’m I’m I’m tirelessly thinking about every day and it’s like, yeah, I’m breathing a lot and I’m thinking a lot and I’m watching a lot. I want to know this when like I’m not demanding it now. I get it. It’s a progress. So but so don’t mistake my injury. But like I want like I want to I want notes from the front or something. I want to know like how this is how you are doing that how you translating that into this is very important. I mean, it is like I mean part of what the verveky Foundation is trying to do is collect, you know relevant psychotherapists and counselors and philosophical counselors who can deal with people who are wrestling with not just sort of the pedagogical struggles of taking on an ecology practices, but you know, a therapeutic slash existential dimension. So, you know, let me interrupt you right there even so, I mean part of it is also just not trying to reinvent the wheel. Right. We have I mean, who the hell am I not not that much right? Who the hell am I to say I’m going to create this new psychotherapeutic model, right? No. How am I going to have? How am I how am I going to personally put my ego aside for a second and I’m going to submit myself to the great thinkers to visionaries of the past and I again, I interact with them and I transcend time and space and they come into that session. So it’s like, yeah, it’s like how do we okay. So part of it is I’m wrestling with kind of this hybrid CBT existential model because there is because there you do need to involve some type of cognitive behavioral therapy and of course, of course people free reframing abilities. You have to exactly because you can give everyone the existential jargon and someone’s going to say, you know, you can talk about, you know, like I said, use I you just throw out like it’s like a word box like, oh, yeah, I doubt relationship or you know, yeah, whatever like you can’t do that unless you have to first get the individual to a place of insight. They weren’t there. It wasn’t there before right and the only way you can get there is through the you know, and we should be in we should be in we should have much gratitude towards the individuals who really developed the CBT model and I do believe you know, one thing it’s funny. I talk about never knowing where my footing is. It’s like I yeah, I tend to in the psychological circles. I tend to hang out with the more existential psychologists, right? There’s a lot of like good existential psychology happening right now. Even from, you know, my institution where I’m at Clay Rutledge over at Coda, he’s doing a lot of great work in terror management and nostalgia and just more existential things that you could actually trickle down to using that as like a therapeutic modality. But so what I’m getting at is that you have the existentialists on one side and just being like sometimes it’s weird how we just like group think they’re like, no this you know, the people who subscribe to CBT that’s just a bunch of bullshit like no, it’s not just a bunch. I mean, they can’t be a bunch of bullshit. It’s not just that it’s not that simplistic and the evidence is the effectiveness of CBT is going down because as it’s been abstracted and extracted from therapists who had a much broader philosophical base and bring in and address existential issues and sapiential having to do with wisdom and virtue issues. Yeah, when you take it out and you abstract it and you just have it as a separate method, like it looks like it’s effectiveness as an evidence-based therapy is actually going down. There’s a lot of reasons for that and just like the pre yeah, like it’s unfortunate how much your basic sorry your average clinician who is working in the modality of CBT might not actually have a keen of an eye and they might not understand CBT. So what ends up happening is you just you go back to third grade vocab class and you just get a word. Yeah, I have a stronger critique. Yeah, yeah, it’s I think the way to address this is that CBT and other people said this Robinson and others CBT needs to be resituated in to inside stoicism. Wow, which it was derived because what needs to be offered is not a technique but the cultivation of virtue within the aspiration to a good life and that’s what’s missing from CBT as a framework right now. So I think CBT was more effective. You know the people who invented it were deeply educated with right stoicism, right and that that has fallen away because of psychology’s proclivity to forget its philosophical past. Amen. And that’s why I said that’s why you know to get to the point or to get to the genesis of this sub conversation. Yeah, you have to bring in the existence the existential psychotherapeutic techniques are the most approachable of you know, that side of the coin. So you do need to have this blend of you know, cog and existentialism and you need to blend these two together and I think I personally think if this if this and machine happens then this is then we can borrow that and use that for this vision of counseling that I’ve been discussing. Interesting interesting. It’s very interesting. So I mean virtues often have to do with two other things emotions. So I mean I’ve done training also in EFT emotional focus healthy and also inner conflict and inner parts work like IFS and other things are really good for learning how to also internalize the dialogue inside the psyche and not always make it. So I’m wondering do you think those other two? I mean, I don’t I don’t want to take you on an education by the way Joe or just you know get educated on this for the next 20 years and then but it seems to me I guess I’m making an argument. I agree totally with the proposal of integrating CBT and existentialism and therefore getting something back to something like stoicism. But we also know, you know stoicism and should be put into dialogue with Buddhism because we all kinds of evidence that combining CBT and mindfulness together is synergistically helpful. Right. So I’m just wondering like is it you know, and then you want the inner dialogue work to overcome inner conflict and how to internalize dialogue and IFS is good for that and then dealing with emotions is very very important part of cult of any virtue. I mean Aristotle said, you know, it’s not about being angry or not. It’s being angry at the right time for the right reasons to the right degree for the right person. Amen. Yeah. And this is where you know a lot, you know, even thinking about now and forgive me if I don’t directly answer your question, but now I’m just, you know, brainstorming and just again, they’re not they’re not again, please have compassion for me because they’re not the most they’re not developed thoughts yet because I’m spending a lot of my time thinking about this and so that’s like, you know how to what effect will to what effect does psychoeducation even have this type of therapy? It’s like, you know, you said I forget exactly you I know you talked about mindfulness, but even just like the differentiation between teaching someone what the difference the difference between mindfulness and contemplation. Meditation. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So it’s like how often do we conflate these and we can plate these and then we think that and it’s just confused. So if we don’t understand the meaning of words that we use, well, then we have we don’t understand our very selves because like the person is like a word. I mean, we are like letters. I mean, it’s all these things are connected, right? My friend Spencer Claven. He writes about this in his newest book and he talks about how really one thing that’s been lost is the meaning of the meaning of words, right? I mean with structuralists. So, you know, we think that words can mean whatever the hell they want, but it’s like no, like these these things these symbols engender something, right? And once we believe that they don’t well, then we get in a weird really weird place. And okay. So how are we like letters then or how are we like words like well our forms engender something and if we believe you bet they don’t engender or true or how about this that we all engender possibly the same thing getting back to the notion of the one to God, but when we stop believing this we get into really weird places and it’s so funny that you brought up stoicism because I thought when I was thinking about how you know, the Stoics naturally and again, even with the Buddhist, right? So the Stoics what’s stoic and you can naturally start ushering them into the Christian ethic, right? It’s so easy. It’s a bit it’s not easy, but you know, you do it via neoplatonism. That’s right. And so yeah, I mean so because because in stoicism it’s obviously I mean people nowadays especially individuals who might be going to counseling who aren’t necessarily religious right taking those more stoic practice people are going to people are going to automatically feel more comfortable. Yeah very much. If they begin to sniff that of what you’re saying, I remember kind of hearing a very watered-down version of that sometime in my in Christian school or that’s mildly religious, right? So yeah, it’s yes, it’s it’s trying to be as approachable as possible. But no you when you were talking about, you know, the regulations of emotions and trying to figure out I mean, yes that I think that that very much so is going to be a big part of this again. It’s just like and I and part of this conversation which I didn’t necessarily expect it to be but I’m really happy it isn’t it’s trying it’s trying to talk with you know individuals. I’m sorry. I’m also talking next Thursday. Her name is Nancy snow. I don’t know if you’re familiar with her work. Nancy snow. No, sorry. No, it’s fine. And so I wasn’t that familiar with her work either until just do my own research at the University of Kansas, but she previously was at the University of Oklahoma and so from 2002 that from 2015 to 2018 Nancy in collaboration with other academics in the psychological field they held experience experiments just on like on this topic of virtue cultivation how to yeah how to and I’m so sorry. I don’t have the exact name but you should look her up after this is yeah, Nancy Nancy snow and. What their goal was in this three-year project was to discuss how you can use virtue cultivation. Can we make this we give this like some empirical backing right? No one the psychological field is going to care if you don’t have empirical backing. Yeah, so yeah part of it is having conversations like with you next week Professor snow and hopefully what I end up doing is I take all these voices and I like I said, I put everyone into a company man and you know, maybe we’ll talk in the future. I don’t know but I’d like to I’d like to I’d like to know when when you find your voice from all of these voices. I’d like to know what that was like and what how you did it and what is properly idiosyncratic to you and what is properly shareable with other people. Yeah, I would very much like to know that. Yeah, so we’re we’re on the journey together. I guess you know, we’re and that’s and that’s the really beautiful thing. So yeah, you know, and you know, I did it. I just say I’m kind of like, you know going off the path little bit. I did want to ask you a question though that I’ve been thinking about. I was just going to say I think we should turn things over to you now asking me questions. And you okay, that’s the let’s do that. Okay. So how about this? Well, we’ll probably stay on this path. Well, I have a couple questions. I’m going to ask you about virtue and about play and about male and female virtue and I’m going to incorporate Jung in that I’m going to incorporate play in that so I’ll ask some questions but we’re still going to be on the same. Yeah, if that’s okay. With all that being said real quick just just to answer the question. What would you say is the gist of your intellectual project because you do so much? What are you trying to what are you really trying to? What are you trying to achieve? What do you want people to take away? I want people to recover how to cultivate meaning in life and wisdom so they have wise meaning and meaningful wisdom such that they can fall in love with beauty truth and goodness and ultimately fall in love with being again and continue to do so for the rest of their lives. Real quick endeavor, right? I appreciate that. Thank you. And I will say I mean so you’re getting bigger and bigger. This is I just thought of this question now, but you know, and your pursuit is truly the most noble of pursuits and your voice is being heard by many and you’re helping out a lot of people has that hit you yet? Is that hitting you now that you are getting that you you’re gaining some type of what we would probably consider celebrity status, right? You’re probably getting more into the public intellectual sphere probably that you ever thought you were ever going to get into I’m guessing for you. Very very mixed. One part of me is deeply grateful and I take great pains to demonstrate and to point out that there’s this is not me alone. This is very much a lot of people that I’m collaborating with and in community with. So I’m very grateful for the recognition. I’m very grateful for the collaboration very grateful for both of those. I’m very concerned very concerned about undertaking whatever the exercise of whatever influence I garner to do it with as much virtue and virtuosity as I can. So that’s why I’ve set up. I’ve got there’s the Reveke foundation, which is not-for-profit and there’s Ryan Barton and his executive director and Eric Foster from Upfire the director of operations and there’s people on the board and so right. And so there’s I have an arms-length relationship. So the money and the recognition is not right here. It’s over there and it’s there’s a lot of people who I selected very carefully who are very committed to a virtuous vision. And so and I’m constantly looking for feedback on how not to become a guru in the pejorative sense of the word. Yeah, so that that’s hitting me. Because unfortunately people will do that. Oh, they will and I don’t want to yeah. Yeah, and I really wish you really really don’t want to I really don’t want I want I really am. I I deeply aspire to being Socrates and I really that is the most profound thing I want and I don’t want anything. To come at the expense of my aspiration to being as authentically Socratic as I can and and in connection with that, although it doesn’t sound like they’re the same thing, but they’re connected, you know, all the all the fundamental relationships that that I value for their own sake. So I don’t want that. There’s I’m not I’m socially phobic by nature. This is a this is a decade long persona that I have crafted that you’re interacting with not in authentically by the way. I’m sure you’re aspirationally but so I was talking to Ryan last night about I recently released a video on AI and the scientific and philosophical and spiritual import of what’s happening in AI right now and it’s it’s doing very well. And and so I get a sense of exposure that I is on like quite unpleasant for me around that. But but if I hadn’t have done it like I did that I worked really really hard like almost obsessively so for about three or three to four weeks before I released the video essay because I felt a tremendous sense of responsibility. So it’s not like I can’t do these things because of the exposure because then I’m beset by a tremendous sense of responsibility to the level of obligation, you know about trying to do something try to do whatever I can to steer this towards the good for the sake of my family and my kids my friends and for the world. Yeah, right. But but on the other hand, yeah, like I it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s it’s it’s a negative affect of exposure that I also confront around it. So techniques that you do to control your id from seeping into all of this. What do you what do you do to well, I have my I mean, I do my daily ecology of practices and that which are do a lot about, you know, that there’s dialogical practices, imaginable mindfulness practices, you know body movement, the whole ecology trying to design it all the stuff I’m talking about designing a proper well, I enter into, you know, dialectic into dialogos, philosophical fellowship. I do practices. I like my patrons are becoming like it we do we do practices together, which is and I mean this I mean this with respect. It’s kind of like going to church together. Yeah. And then like I said, I know that we we can’t rely on self-interpretation and self-direction. We have to engage it, but we can’t rely on that for getting us to the good. We have to make sure that there are people other than us. We nevertheless have our best interest at part who we have empowered or also make it personal who I’ve empowered to challenge me to speak on me to keep me away from so I don’t be like for example, all the money doesn’t come to me. It goes to the revaki Foundation and then I will take out expenses for projects and I also take out, you know, a relatively small honorarium because you know my time I should I might this is a lot of my time and I like I’m not generating income elsewhere that I could be doing so it compensates for that but it’s very much about putting in place also the external safeguards where there is specific people who have been specifically empowered with specific duties to help keep me on track. Yeah, all of that could still screw up but the more and more of this I can make self-organizing and independent from my, you know, personal my personal cognitive and emotional biases the better. I think I can meet the demands which the meeting the demands I do find very meaningful meeting the demands of doing this virtually and with doing it virtuously and with virtuosity. Yeah, that’s that’s what I’m trying to do. That’s beautiful. It’s hard sometimes, you know, and I am obviously nowhere near you but as I you know, I’m this little podcast has allowed me to it’s opened up doors. Of course, it’s allowed me to write for you know, a publication. It’s allowed for me to have great conversations with you and other people. It’s I have I mean I have my one only one video and I don’t ever wanted to look because that was I was very anxious when I saw how many people were watching it but one video was 40,000 views and I remember I was like I remember like working out and I was at the gym and I was just clicking to see how many people were watching it and I was both flattered and both. I was getting egotistical about it, but I was also extremely I was growing extremely, you know anxious over it. And so it’s like in all this you kind of you get this false sense of gravitas and so sometimes I know in my life the people you made that very clear and you made that beautiful point. It’s like, you know, you have the individuals the friends or the loved ones the lovers right that that ground you and it’s like well oftentimes now that I’ve been doing more sometimes that gets that gets into the way that gets in the way with you know, sometimes with my relationship with my wife, maybe I’m working on something and you know, my wife says, oh look at the baby and or hey you want to hang out and say well, I’m writing or I’m collaborating and so that’s on a teeny tiny scale. So I you know, I can’t imagine, you know, the how conscious you have to be basically on a moment to moment basis, which is good, but it’s also very hard in order to not deteriorate these relationships and we don’t have to get into it by any means. I don’t I’m not asking you to I’m well, I do want to say something about it. I mean I was because I was talking to I was talking to my life partner. I was talking to her last night and it’s really interesting. I was saying how she actually becomes more and more real. I said something to the effect is as some of my you know, dreams come true. I more and more find the woman of my dreams to be more real. That’s what’s actually happening for me. Because the ephemerality of this and again, please I want to read it. I’m very grateful for the recognition. I really am and I’m not I’m not being dismissive or insulting of it, but sometimes there’s an old Greek proverb to God sometimes punish us by giving us what we want, right? And so a lot of these things that I had, you know, I don’t I wanted more recognition. I wanted my work to get out there. I wanted to make a difference and you know, and to be really honest that there’s there’s an there’s an egocentric egotistical aspect to that which always is. Yeah. Well, I mean, because you know, if you totally get rid of the self-preservation strategy, you’ll die. And so but you know, getting a lot of the success as you said, I didn’t really expect to get although I’d always wanted it, you know, that weird sort of semi fantasy thing that we all do getting that fulfilled has and I don’t want to come off as being saintly because that is not what I am or claiming to be but it’s it’s kind of it’s it’s salience diminishes in some important way with respect to the things that are really mattering in your life. That’s what I found. I mean, I’m not saying this is universal but but for me that’s been helpful is like wait, you know, all of this is really cool and everything but what’s really happening and phenomenologically is that sort of now more background for me and my relationship with Sara and like in my kids and my friends is that’s not really more. I really do. I mean, I’ve only been a dad now for a year and a half but this his birth and his life has coincided with this project of mine and kind of my you know, this is my second career. I was a high school teacher and then I had my own meeting with my wife and I was in the same process for a while and I kind of this is this allowed me to it jolted me back on this path and part of that jolt was my son being born and the encouragement of my wife and but getting into but getting into and connecting what you were saying. Yeah, I understand that he’s actually more real now than I ever have before and I hope that as I grow and I develop in my life, I hope that I can be more vivid to my parents that actually allows my boy to be more vivid to me and my wife to be more vivid to me day by day and it’s beautiful when these things mesh and when our you know, intellectual pursuit allows for our personal pursuit to become more vivid. I hope so. I mean I at the end of my practices. I frequently pray a prayer that Socrates pray if you praise beloved pan and all God to dwell in this place give me the inward beauty inward beauty and let the outward man and the inward man be as one. I probably messed that up a bit. I don’t know if that’s right and and like you like I hope and I try to put effort into cultivating the discernment. I could see how people could be tempted for the reverse. This the salience of the fame and other things could actually cause that to be foregrounded and the real things to be backgrounded that’s obviously happen to every day. Yeah tons of rock stars and I know exactly right with the rock star phenomena. There’s that and I’ve also I’ve also seen. There’s a temptation. I don’t want to totally use that in religious sense, but I don’t want to ignore the religious sense either. So that’s why I’m hesitant, but there’s a temptation. I can feel it like this fame and this you know, this fame and his wealth. It’s not as satisfying as I thought it would be. So the answer is I should get more. I felt that impulse come up to me and it comes up from this dark and dark and dark and dark and dark and dark and dark and impulse come up to me and it comes up from this Darwinian depth, right? Wait, the answer is go higher on the hierarchy. That’s surely the answer right and it’s like whoa and I’ve noticed that too. Sounds so I’m trying to keep right. I’m trying to you know, be properly like mindful of them not suppress it but also not not obsess about it like get that golden mean about it so that I can hopefully not fall prey to that temptation. I would like to be if I could get what I wanted. I would like to be, you know, have a large enough audience where people have to take me seriously, but not so large that people would start to idolize me and that’s where I would like to sit. The sweet spot. Yeah, that’s the sweet spot for me. I really do hope you get there. I think you are going to get there because you got you you walk through this so precisely and you can see it like you I mean in my opinion, you don’t you never come off as this and genuine, you know, and even like with your conversations I mean how I mean how I and how I’m sure many people approached you at first was through your conversations with Jordan Peterson and yeah, you never came off as disingenuine. You came off as real came off as authentic and I think that’s why people ended up, you know following you and and I think there’s I don’t know. I’ve never really I mean, this is not a developed thought whatsoever. And I think Jordan Peterson is on the same path, but there’s obviously a difference between you and Jordan Peterson and I’m not just talking about philosophically. You know, I think Jordan probably has a little more Proclivity towards the pomp and pageantry of it all and I don’t think that’s not a shot. I think that’s actually that’s sometimes a very good thing and you need people like that, right? Because you need people who also are going to talk to the being you said you want to find that sweet spot and people have different sweet spots and there are some individuals who just need to talk to the culture at large, right? And you need that and sometimes that actually makes you or that is it’s then taken on the pomp and pageantry of that is actually a necessity though because it’s part of the game. So but anyway, I mean, I think but that’s why I think that’s why a lot of individuals have really linked up with your work though is because It’s and I don’t know the word to describe it. I’ll be and I’ll just say authentic again, but and so I think that’s really telling that you admitted yourself that you want to find that sweets pie where you want to get big, but you don’t want to get big. Right and I just think that’s really cool. Really cool. I know that’s like it’s not the most profound. I just think it’s really cool though. No, but thank you. Thank you. Yeah, Jordan and I are different. Yeah, I mean we we have an interesting relationship and of course it predates him becoming like a superstar. Did he ice? All right. We aspire differently. Sure. I think I think Jordan aspires to being this is half a joke and I think I’ve said this to his face and he laughed. So I don’t think it’s I don’t think it’s inappropriate, but he aspires to be Moses. I aspire to being Socrates and those are very different aspirations. Those are very different aspirations. Right and and and I agree with you. There are times when we need a Moses figure of the prophet that will lead people to the prophet land lead them out of bondage in the proper land of the promised land. I think Jordan is you know, I think both his virtues and his vices and I will admit that I have virtues and vices are not trying to be but I think both his virtues and his vices orbit around that vision. Right. Whereas mine are around Socrates and that’s a different vision. Oh, you everyone has a mediator, right? I mean everyone has a mediator. Everyone has that object of desire and the sweet spot in life, right? Just really quick, you know what Gerard would say is that everyone is going to have mediator. It’s picking the right mediators. That’s what that’s that’s exactly it. That’s about that’s the that’s the Socratic prayer. I want that outward and inward to be resonant and resonant such that I my life is as virtuous as possible. I mean, try to manage these three things virtue virtuosity and the virtual is sort of what I’m wrestling with a lot because they intersect and really interesting and on and ways that haven’t been very well articulated by previous people because they didn’t have the virtual as the third in those three which and it alters things like you and I would not be speaking like this without the virtual what how does virtuosity and virtue show up here and how does the how does the and the reverse how does what we do in virtual space translate back into the real space of virtue and virtuosity be these are important questions. We were wrestling with right now. I’m in and it’s sometimes you got a they’re hard questions and I think precisely and so they’re so difficult that we’re trying to actually have these conversations function in the in brick and mortar spaces. And so it’s like I know that you are doing you’ve been doing conferences and that there’s another conference coming up and me and my me and my good friend Marcus who runs the channel more Christ we have an event coming up in DC with Michael Martin and Paul Vander play and excellent excellent and you know, we hope our goal actually one of our goals is that we plan our vision Marcus don’t get mad at me that I’m talking about our vision but our vision is you know, we plan on having conferences hopefully multiple times a year now Marcus is in Ireland. I mean, I’m in Cleveland. So it’s obviously far away. But if we could do like a European thing and maybe an American conference another thing that we’re thinking of is, you know doing conferences. It’s a conference camp where a group of 15 16 20 people is actually a camping trip right and that that that projects you into a different headspace and conversation is oh, yeah, getting the people is is just important. We yeah Ryan and Eric and I need to talk more about this. We’re first doing lots of events trying to get regular events going and regular communities of practice. But we have we need we also need we need to have retreats where people live together for a bit when I went on return to the source last July with Rafe Kelly living with these people and pushing yourself to the horizon of horror every day for spiritual transformation. Yeah, as an impact on you Joe. I’ve got to go soon on it. We’ve sort of shifted to you being the host. Is there any final thing you’d like to ask me before I leave there is but I don’t know how far we would get into it, but I’ll pop it in there. Maybe this will leave us for a conversation in the future really quick want your opinion on this. Physical Beauty is it Beauty or P are people’s physical selves beautiful or just not ugly? That’s to ask the question if I would answer it from like a platonic framework is yeah, can physical bodies diamond shine with Beauty? Yes. Beautiful. That was a question that was on my mind and I thought that was a that was going to get me a one-sentence answer. So you gave it to me. I appreciate that. One of the most interesting things things of my relationship with my current partner is by objective measures. She’s she’s a physically attractive woman. But so I want that understood but I was really attracted first and this had not happened to me before it was really attracted first and I’ll speak a little bit poetically because it’s appropriate. I was first really first attracted to the Beauty of her soul. Yeah, and then I noticed in conjunction and as a function of that I noticed how physically beautiful she is and that has been really important for me. That was like a that was a wake-up moment for me. And I think we have to be open to very often and you know many people argue this Plato famously that we start with physical Beauty and then we move to right other but it’s happened that the reverse has been the case for me really importantly. I just wanted to note that I just wanted to note that I think the question of Beauty is very much. It’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not unidirectional what I’m saying. You can both be drawn through the physical to what is beyond and what is beyond the physical can can reach to you first and then draw you in attraction to the physical. Yeah. All right, that’s so true. It’s bad like gave me goosebumps when you said that my wife is absolutely gorgeous. I would say she’s absolutely gorgeous and I would say by side of me just absolutely gorgeous but you know, there’s always those times where every woman and every man will get insecure and you know, my wife sometimes asked me why why I tell her because you really have the most beautiful soul that I’ve ever encountered in my whole life. Yeah, and you you admitted the same thing. So I just think that’s really it’s wonderful. It is it is and Yeah, that’s great and I think that’s a beautiful place to end. Yeah, it is a good place to end. It is a good place to end. Thank you Joe. This has been really wonderful. Yeah. Thank you for having me. Oh, thank you for having me and I’ll send you a copy of this for your channel and we’ll talk again soon. Thank you so much, Jen.