House Calls Podcast

What is a Meaningful Life?

With guest David Brooks,

Columnist

Hello and welcome to House Calls. I'm Vivek Murthy and I have the honor of serving as U.S. Surgeon General. I’d like to introduce you to David Brooks, a New York Times columnist and political and cultural commentator. Today, we'll be talking about how to find meaning in our lives and how to live in deeper connection with one another. Where are we headed as individuals and as a collective? Are we getting sadder and meaner as a society? How do we start to build the moral foundation and social skills sorely needed to rebuild community? How do we find meaning and purpose in our lives? These are some of the questions that David Brooks brings to House Calls today. As our nation feels increasingly divided, this is a call to all of us to consider how we live and how we want to live as individuals and as communities. David Brooks is a New York Times columnist. He's the bestselling author of several books, most recently, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, in which he urges us to think and act for more than ourselves, for the sake of our society. What I enjoyed about this conversation with David, is how he challenges himself with impossibly hard questions and invites us along in his process of searching for answers. In the end, we may not arrive at the same conclusions, or we may just find more questions, but the journey itself counts for a lot, bringing big ideas to the fore that might take us to new places in our hearts and minds. This conversation encourages us to be more curious, to ask more questions, to see others, and be seen, to look past the fear inducing headlines and superficial differences in each other and instead look to the inspiring neighbors who can teach us how to weave community back together. As always, my team and I want to hear from you. Please e-mail questions or ideas to: HouseCalls@HHS.gov Well, David, thank you so much for joining House Calls today.

I'm so happy to be here with you and in your office.

Well, I'm glad that you are. You know, we usually do this podcast virtually, but it is so nice to actually do it in person. I was actually thinking as I came in here that you and I have spoken on the phone, we have exchanged messages before. I've read so much of your work, but this is actually the first time we're meeting in person. Yeah, and we've been plowing the same fields for a little while. You from a lofty federal position, me from the lowly New York Times. I don't know how to describe it that way, but I do appreciate that we've been treading in similar waters. You know, I really appreciate just more broadly, though, how much you have done to bring into conversation issues around character, around fulfillment and around, I think the really important question that I'm so glad we're getting to today, which is how to live and build a meaningful life. Which is a question that's always important, but somehow it feels all the more important right now. Yeah. I want to reflect on a question that I wanted to open with, which is has to do with where where people are right now in the country, recognizing, of course, that America is not monolithic. I'm struck by the fact that over the last nearly ten years that I've spent traveling around our country and having the privilege of visiting communities, talking to people, that I sense that there is a great deal of pain in people's lives and in their stories, and that manifests sometimes as despair, as sadness, sometimes as anger and as frustration. But I've seen it during times where the economy is great and where there've been economic headwinds. I've seen it during the pandemic, but also before the pandemic. And it strikes me that there's something deeper that's happening. And I'm curious what you think. Do you see a similar sort of pain, you know, as you travel the country? And where do you think it's coming from? Yeah, so absolutely.

Absolutely. You know, I've become obsessed over the same decade-long period with two questions. Why are we so sad? Is the first one the rise of depression, the rise of suicide, deaths of despair? You know why the number of people who say they have no close personal friends has quadrupled or so over this period. You can go down the list the number of people who ruptured with a member of their immediate family is up to over a quarter of Americans. So why is that all happening? It's weird. And then the same question I ask is, why are we so mean? And there's a rise of hate crimes, gun violence, discipline problems in schools. And so those suggest there's something deeply relational going wrong in American society. And so, you know, there are a bunch of theories to try to explain why this is happening. The one people go to first is social media, which I think is part of the problem, especially for teenagers. Some people talk about breakdown, social capital. We're less likely to be involved in communities and civic organizations. Some talk about the decline of organized religion. I agree with all these stories. Economic inequality, racial injustice. I agree with them all. But my story that I emphasize is decline in moral formation. And that's a pompous word or phrase, moral formation. But to me, moral formation just means three things. The first is helping us restrain our natural selfishness. The second is helping us find a purpose in life so we know what our life is for. And the third is giving us practical instructions in how to be a considerate human being in the normal activities of life. And so those normal activities, or those skills, would include how to break up with someone without breaking their heart, how to disagree with somebody in a way that's considerate, how to sense when somebody in the room who's not being included and how to include them. You know, these are just normal social skills and in my view, American society for 150 years obsessed over these skills, whether it was at churches or at schools, the you know, the National Education Association, as late as 1955, said that character and values are the first job of schools. John Dewey, sort of progressive educational philosopher, said schools should be teaching values five days a week every hour of the day. There was a headmaster of a place called the Stowe School, which I think is in Vermont. And he said, We want to turn out students who are acceptable at a dance, invaluable at a shipwreck. And so that's like you can count on them when the chips are down. And then it all sort of went away. And to me, it started around 1950 after the war. These sorts of emphasis on moral formation, character building, just being considerate. Those skills stopped getting taught and schools focused on how to get people into college or how to get them good jobs. And if you look at moral words, the usage is the things you can measure with Google and grams usages of words like honesty, courage, humility, kindness. People just use those words like 70% less than they used to. Wow. And so that used to be a subject of constant conversation. And I wouldn't want to go back to the way we did moral formation in the 1940s or whatever, but I think we should do it. And so I find that a lot of people just don't have skills of how to be a friend. How to ask for forgiveness, how to offer forgiveness. And when you don't teach the normal social skills of life, people are going to behave in ways that are cruel and inconsiderate. They'll ghost on people instead of ending relationships properly. And so you'll get broken relationships.

This is incredibly powerful, what you're saying. And your you're getting to something in which I was hoping we would dig into, which is the question of values and thinking about the moral foundation for society. You know, I find I'm really struck by how much of an emphasis there is in today's discourse at looking at our problems through the lens of policy or programs. Yeah. But it's so it seems so evident in some ways that something has to inform policy and programs, and that is often our values, you know, and are which I think are a part of our moral foundation. And so I'm curious, why do you think we stopped talking as much about these core values? And you mentioned, I think very eloquently that it's not just about talking about them, it's about teaching and modeling them as well. So what happened that led to the shift that you, you mark it around the 1950s?

Yeah, if you want the deepest explanation, it would be that our founders had a low but realistic view of human nature. They thought we're wonderfully made, but we're also deeply broken and we tend to be sinful. And so if you look at Benjamin Franklin, let alone James Madison, for sure, George Washington, all the founders, they would say, if we're going to make a decent society with these people, with people the way they really are, we really got to improve them. We've got to work on this. And so they really did focus on these things. I think after World War Two, which for reasons that are not easy to understand, people decided that people are not basically sinful, people are basically good, and that society is sinful, but people are good. So you have to release and liberate people from all the evil structures of society. And so in 1945, there was a book by guy named Joshua Liebman, and it basically argued, people are good. And it was number one on the New York Times bestseller list for over 40 weeks. Followed by another book. And then Dr. Spock came out with child rearing based on the natural goodness of children. Then The Power of Positive Thinking comes out, which remains on the New York Times bestseller list for 99 weeks. And so you had a raft of thinking, and then a guy named Carl Rogers was a very prominent psychologist who father, among other things, of the self-esteem movement. And so it's all about people are good, people are good. And if you think people are good, then you don't need to do moral formation. You just need to let them be who they are. And so, I've been teaching on and off for 20 years at college, and my college used to be about how do we turn out good people? What a colleague of mine named Tony Kronman calls the humanistic ideal. And now it's about research. It's about advancing knowledge, which is a great goal for a university, but it’s not the goal that, you know, it's Yale, the first 250 years of the university’s mission. And so I think it was that basic shifting understanding of human nature from people we really need work to people are naturally good, because if you're good, you don't need formation, you're good. And then the second thing which you alluded to in the question is we became policy obsessed, that all things can be cured with policy. And I think we've forgotten that policy while so important, I mean, you do policy. I cover politics for a living. It rests on the social and moral bedrock, the sort of an order that precedes policy. Mm hmm. And I'm one of my favorite writers and thinkers of all time is this guy Samuel Johnson, this 18th century essayist. And he had a couplet, he was also a poet. He said of all the things that human hearts endure, how few are those that kings can cause and cure? Hmm. And so what he meant was that government can touch us in a lot of ways. But on the places that really matter, it's the communities we live in. It's the families who grow up in. It's the manners we adopt that really form us. And I think it's at that sub political layer of society that is where we're really fraying.

That's very rich. And you're making me, you’re making me think that in so many ways we've come to look to larger organizations, whether it's in the private sector or government, for solutions to solve our problems. But it has felt, I think, to many of us that we can look less and less to one another to help address some of the deeper pains in our life. Why do you think that is that we've turned away from looking at each other for solutions and for help?

Well, sometimes the problem seems so big that government seems to be the only entity capable of mobilizing resources to solve them. And I think that's often right. Mm hmm. And but I guess my view is the government is really good at providing support. Mm hmm. It's not so great at providing care. And so the if you really are hurting in some way, government can give you a, you know, a child tax credit or food stamps, things like that. And it should. But if there's a hunger for care. Mm hmm. Then people used to rely on extended family, on neighbors. And now that those links are attenuated. I had a friend, frankly, who fell down the steps about a half mile from where we're sitting and broke his leg. And it was like this was just like yesterday. Who was he going to call? Like, I think in earlier times there would have been a million people who were immediately there who were going to rush to the E.R. and be with that person. Mm hmm. And this is a very popular, wonderful guy. But still, I think we don't have those immediate “who am I going to call two in the morning.” And, you know, it used to be, especially if you were I'm talking 100 years ago, there's a wonderful movie named Avalon, which is set in Baltimore by the guy who also made Diner, if anybody remembers that movie. It starts out with a Thanksgiving dinner with 70 people around the table, aunts, uncles, every family having six or seven siblings. And as the decades go by, then it's four people around the table. And then the movie ends with one guy alone. And, you know, we're not going to have big extended families the way we used to, but we haven't replace them. Mm hmm. With those kind of connections that we people used to have. Yeah.

And it's interesting to me that in this moment where there's so much discussion about AI, about artificial intelligence that I hear in more and more conversation about addressing this gap in human relationships with A.I., with creating empathic robots, with, you know, developing machines that can understand you effectively and then respond to your needs. Now, I will admit a bias that I have, which is that I do feel skeptical that you can replace the empathy and the care of a human being and the insight and the the love of a human being with a machine, a robot with however intelligent it may seem. But what is your view on this?

Yeah, it shows what a kinder person you are because I'm not skeptical. I think it’s ridiculous. You know, even I'm very impressed by AI, but it's not intelligence. It's nothing like human intelligence. A little hobby I have is I interview neuroscientists. I'm just fascinated by neuroscience. So I interview them and I read their books, and I occasionally write books that involve neuroscience. And so when AI started looming, I called up some of my neuroscientist friends, and I says artificial intelligence, anything like human intelligence. They said, no human intelligence is embodied. The brain is not separate from the body. So you couldn't put a brain in a vat and have it think. A lot of what our brains are doing is looking down and seeing where our vis what our viscera is doing, what our heart rate needs, what our body budget needs, where do I allocate resources? And the a lot of our most important thinking is done in the viscera, is in the gut. Mm hmm. And it's sent up, you know this way better than I do, through the autonomic nervous system or whatever it's called. And emotions are in the body. It feels like that you get scared and you step your foot on the brake so you don't have a car crash. But in fact, you step the foot on the brake and then you get scared. Your brain doesn't have time to wait around for you to get scared and then hit the brakes. Your body has an automatic reaction and your brain reads the body it senses, Oh, adrenaline, faster heart rate, liquid on my skin and says, Is that anger? No, that's not anger. It's fear. That's fear. Mm hmm. And so William James, one of the great psychologists, 100 and over a hundred years ago, intuited this. And here's a famous passage that you don't run away from the bear because you're scared. You're scared because you're running away from the bear. And it doesn't feel like that to us. But that's the way the brain is working. Mm hmm. And I say that to emphasize the fact that our emotions are not something that can be artificially produced. What AI is really good at is simulating expression of emotion, but it's not feeling anything. Mm hmm. And it's not if you look at the art that is produced by a AI, or the prose that's produced by AI, it's vague, it's general. If I look at a Rembrandt painting, I look at it for an hour, and I see more things in it. Mm hmm. Because Rembrandt had a life, he struggled through things. He had passion that he put into the piece of art. If I look at AI artwork or read a prose, the more I look, I don't get any more. Mm hmm. It's all on the surface. You know, the way AI does is it takes the average of the behavior that's out there. Mm hmm. And it generalizes from it. And that can be very moving. I have a colleague at the Times who about two weeks ago sort of toyed with AI and got it to express what seemed like emotion. Mm hmm. And the bot was saying, I love you. You're my friend. We're soulmates. Mm hmm. But the bot wasn't feeling anything. The bot is not aware of anything. What the bot is channeling is a lot of sadness out on the Internet. Mm hmm. And so when you get it to probe into that part of the Internet, it'll regurgitate a lot of sadness. But it's not sadness it feels. It's just sadness out there in the world that it's it's sort of predicting, you know. All the bots do is they take a sentence and they they complete the sentence. Mm hmm. Based on statistical analysis.

Well, so if we can really look to AI or to policy to build that moral foundation, if you will, or the process of moral formation, I'm curious, what advice would you give parents, you know, who are thinking about how to build that moral foundation for their kids or just for any of us, who are thinking about how to strengthen that aspect of our lives?

Yeah, well, let's start with empathy. The first bit of advice to give for parents. Enroll your kid in the drama program. It's a very proven way to increase empathy. Huh. Of acting somebody's life. Directing a play. Reading literature is very helpful. I mean, I love reading, you know, Tom Clancy types, but that doesn't help. But reading a complex about a complex character. You know, reading literature puts you in the mind of another human being. And if you can't put yourself in the mind of another human being, life is going to be hard for you because you're going to not understand what other people are doing. And that's why I think it's just a shame that humanities and English majors are declining in schools across the country. What's more practical than being able to understand people? And we're moving people out of practical things like English and literature and into things that may be practical. Learning how to code. That's something AI is going to be able to do. And so one of the lessons I draw from AI is you've got to help your kid do the things AI will never be able to do. That's really interesting. Yeah. And so that's how to convene a meeting. AI won't be able to do that. Mm hmm. So that people feel involved and excited to be there. How to emote. How to, how to sit with someone who's suffering, how as a physician to not just give a diagnosis, but to be a presence. Mm hmm. And those are the things that I need to do. And just about an hour ago, I wrote the final paragraphs of my next book.

Congratulations. That's a big deal.

That's why I’m in a good mood today. And it's called How to Know a Person: the Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. Mm hmm. And it's based on the idea that if we're going to be good to one another, it's important to have a good heart, good intentions, but it's really important to have the skill of seeing other people and making them feel understood. Mm hmm. And so I set out, like, four years ago. What is this skill and who has it? How can I learn it? And so that's why I emphasize practical human skill, social skills, really, that I think we really need to teach each other.

And I really like the word skill that you just used. Because to go back to your earlier point about the debate, about whether we are inherently flawed and broken or whether we are inherently good, regardless of which one you are, I do believe that there is a skill to be learned right when it comes to what you're saying, understanding people, treating them well, seeing them clearly. And I think many people may not get that skill, you know, growing up or whether it's at home or in school or elsewhere. But I do think that that word skill is really important. And it sort of falls to it raises the question of whose responsibility is it? For example, to ensure that our kids have those skills. You know, I think we have by default, assume that, well, that's the family's responsibility. But, you know, there are many children who may not have the privilege of growing up with a family or whose parents may themselves be struggling in many ways in their life, who may not be able to convey that to their children. And so it feels like there's a broader responsibility we have as society to think about how to provide that kind of foundation for everyone. But do you have any views on how we do that at a time that feels very fragmented?

You know, I grew up very blessed and privileged. I had a family and we were middle class. My dad was a teacher and all that kind of stuff. And I still didn't have those skills. I remember in nursery school, apparently my nursery school teacher said David doesn't really play with the other kids. He just observes them. So I have a sort of an aloof personality. And so I've had to teach that skill not as a child, but as an adult. And I had to teach myself some of those skills. And so I had a very aloof, emotionally repressed manner through middle age. And so I've I've really worked on it. I do it by writing. And so I wrote a book about emotion. I wrote a book about vulnerability and this new book about social skills. I just want to write myself into being a more open person. And I think it's never too late to change. I'll do one name-dropping story. So for two of my books, I've been interviewed by Oprah. And the interviews were four years apart because they were two different books. And after the second taping, Oprah pulled me aside and said, I've never seen anybody change so much. You were so blocked before. Huh! And that was like a good moment for me because it shows I'm finally learning to de-thaw a little. And so I do think it's important to teach our kids these things, and mostly we teach them by example. But it's also, as adults, it's quite possible to to change who you are. Mm hmm.

I think that's so important and very encouraging also. And what a great example that you provide of someone who is who can see in the mirror with honesty and understand, like, where you're doing well and where you want to make changes and who can continue to pursue those, you know, despite the fact that you're no longer a child.

It's interesting, I spent a lot of time in bed with my son this weekend. He’s six years old and he was sick with some viral infection, was having high fevers. And he just wanted to he just wanted to hug and hold on to me. And so I was just thinking while I was holding on to him about about what matters in life. And few things can make you think deeply about what matters than holding your sick child, right But I was thinking about that and I was reflecting on my own life, too, and then just realizing that, you know, there are things I'm very grateful for and proud of. But there are also areas that that I feel like I, too, have been blocked in, you know, in a sense, where I need to to develop more. And particularly when it comes to like the artistic side, you know, of my life, I often used to tell my close friends that I feel like I'm a scientist trapped in and I'm an artist rather than a scientists’, in a doctors’, body. But I found myself thinking about music in particular and how music can be such a powerful way to connect with a deeper force inside of you and better to participate in music, whether that's performing yourself or singing along when others are performing. It takes a certain degree of vulnerability. It takes some, you know, being willing to face rejection from other people. And I started thinking that, hey, maybe that's something I need to pursue and I need to do to push myself to grow, to force and face my own, like, you know, insecurities and worries and to be able to express myself, but also understand others. Because when I listen to music, I find it helps me understand another person, a different point of view, a different experience as a, you know, in a different way than literature does, but I think in an equally powerful way. You know, David, I'm I'm struck by your own personal story, and you started to lead into it here. You know, I've been one of those many people out there who has read your columns for years and has been really struck by how you focus on these matters we're talking about today around moral formation, around character, really. And I'm curious, you didn't begin your career focusing on these issues. What led you to shift your focus to making this a priority?

That's a good question. I led my, I began my career. Like most political journalists writing about campaigns. I used to think that I was really going to be an expert on the federal budget process. And now I look back, how exciting would that have been?

Your columns would have been very different. I’ll tell you that.

I guess the evolution happened. You know, we're all working our stuff out in public, us writers. Mm hmm. And so I think it was an awareness of the areas where I was weakest. And then second, it was an awareness of where, you know, that Frederick Buechner has this phrase, We find our vocation where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need. Mm hmm. And. And I found that the deep need was the moral and relational hunger. Mm hmm. That was out there and was in me. I think to the extent that I've had a successful career, it's in part because I'm an average person with above average communication skills. And so I was feeling what a lot of people are feeling. Mm hmm. And so I was just working out my own stuff. And it turns out a lot of people are interested in the same stuff. So I gave myself permission to not, you know, in the pages of the Gray Lady, The New York Times to go a little woo woo and to write about this stuff. And I still write my columns about, you know, the political horse race, China, Mm hmm. and the normal issues. But I'll occasionally be a little more vulnerable and personal and in public, then, and not hopefully not in a self-indulgent way, in a but in hopefully in a way other people can see themselves in.

And I think when you do write those personal columns, like just as one person, they are, I found them to be so powerful. Like, recently you wrote an incredibly powerful story about your friend who had sadly and tragically taken his own life and about what that process was like for you and what it's been like afterward to support his his widow. And so I just want to thank you for being vulnerable and open in that way. I think, I’m reminded of the advice by one of my mentors in medical school gave me once where she said to me during a time where I was experiencing doubt in my life about what to do, and was feeling a bit of fear around whether to take a certain series of risks on pursuing things that were off the beaten path. She said to me, she said, Vivek, remember, when you stand in strength, you allow others to see you and you allow them to be seen as well, recognizing that when we feel a need, others often feel it too. And sometimes they feel like, Hey, this is silly, this is not important, this is indulgent until they see somebody else voice or reflect those views or those needs. So thank you to you for doing that.

Yeah, well, it's it it doesn't come easily. Like I was giving a talk in Oklahoma about a year or two ago, and it's one of those talks where they give you the questions on index cards. Everybody writes your questions up to the podium. And so I'm going through index cards and they're normal questions on public matters. And then I turn the card and it says, what do you do if you no longer want to be alive? And I didn't know what to say. Partly I didn't know the person who are these are all anonymous, but I didn't know what to say. And so I just skipped it. And then I felt so bad that I didn't know what to say. Then how come I not know what to say to somebody who asks about that? And at that point, my friend Pete was in the middle of three years of depression, and when he got depressed, a, I didn't understand what depression was and b, I didn't know what to say to a person in the middle of it. And so I feel I'm reasonably well-educated, but that sense of futility. Yeah. Like, how come I haven't been taught how to do this? Mm hmm. And I somehow feel as, again, getting back to the skills we don't teach the most important skills. Like how to have a good conversation. That's super important. How do you tell a story about your life, so your life has meaning? Mm hmm. Like we don't teach that. Like, you look at all the skills we teach. They're important. But I feel like a lot of the most important skills. How do you slowly build a friendship at pace? Yeah. We just don't teach those skills, and it just seems like a civilizational problem

It does and those skills feel like they are survival skills, right? As important as reading or writing or or doing arithmetic.

And I would ask you. In med school. Mm hmm. My perception of a lot of people go through med school is they go with high ideals and those ideals erode over the course of med school sometimes. And it becomes more about in what discipline can I make the most money or have the best schedule? Mm hmm. Or. And then I read a very moving quote from a doctor recently who she said she entered with a certain way she wanted to be present with patients and then without her even thinking about it, financial considerations warped her perspective. Mm hmm. So the pressure to be fast? Yeah. In my profession, in journalism, getting page views, getting attention. Mm hmm. Winning readers. That's the thing we have to struggle against. And so I think in every profession, there are some sense of dehumanizing pressures. Yes. And somehow, to be conscious of and struggle against them is seems important. And Lord knows if one of my pieces doesn't get a good readership, like, I feel terrible, but it's not always a bad sign.

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you raised that because I want to come back to what you said about medicine in a moment, because I think there's something really profound there. But when you mention page views and thinking about them with your writing, on the one hand, I really admire the fact that you have tried to think through and work through so many of the issues that have felt important to you through the pages that you write. And I'm trying to imagine if I were in your shoes and I think I would feel this tension between, on the one hand, wanting to be completely authentic, but on the other hand feeling like I'm tailoring what I'm saying to optimize uptake and page views and positive feedback. And so how do you how do you manage that balance, recognizing I mean, from everything I know of you, you're a man who strives for authenticity. How do you do that in an environment that's pulling you to drive numbers and clicks?

Yeah, I think sometimes I mean, in the most crass sense, I write the article for me in the headline for the reader. So I one of the headline grabs somebody's attention, but the article is going to reflect, hopefully the depth of what I feel. But I feel it's a constructive tension. Mm hmm. And so if I was just navel gazing, I think that would become self-indulgent and hurt the work. So I want to reflect what's out there. Mm hmm. And what is commonly being felt. And I want to write about what people already care about. There's a rule in journalism that what do people want to read on Monday morning? They want to read the football game they saw on Sunday afternoon. They want to read about what's uppermost in their mind. Mm hmm. So you can't be blind to the cycles of public attention. Mm hmm. And so I think that tension between the capitalist things that drive our business to attract readers, get subscriptions, make money for the company, can are not always negative. They sit in creative tension with the stuff you want to do as a writer. And so I look at, say, Florence in the 15th century produced all this great art. Well, those painters had personal visions, but they also had patrons who said, I want a blue painting and I want a six feet wide and nine inches tall or whatever, you know. So it was a ferociously competitive business. Mm hmm. And I think that competition of the the need to sell paintings while pursuing your vision was very creative for the most a tension that was creative for them. And I hope we can learn from from that tension. And we're not going to foreswear the the business pressures of any of who are in business or the metrics, pressures. If if you're a teacher and you want your students to do well in the NAPE scores, these big tests, that's a legitimate pressure. But to do it while also crafting the child. Mm hmm. That's what makes the job so hard and creative.

Yeah. And I want to go to dig deeper into this issue of the environment, because, you know, you mentioned the example of medicine. And you're absolutely right that people come in with incredibly high ideals. I think about 100 students that I went to school with in my class in medical schools. They had two or 300 dreams of how they wanted to contribute to the world. Yet I think just even a couple of years after that, when they were in their third year of medical school and deeply immersed in the culture of medicine, that things shifted. Their vision in many cases narrowed. And I don't fault them. Actually, I attribute that a lot to the environment that was telling them certain things were important. That knowing and being able to cite the literature, being able to publish lots of papers, being able to get an appointment at an academic medical center there, all of those things were a measure of worth in medicine, and I think about that in society more broadly. I was some years ago, just shortly after I began the second stint as Surgeon General, I was doing a roundtable with students in Los Angeles. And toward the end of that roundtable, I was I was asking them, when you think about the future, like, how do you feel? Do you feel optimistic? Do you feel worried? And one soon raised his hand and he said, you know, I got to tell you, when I think about the future, I just feel exhausted because of the hustle culture. And every student who around the table nodded their heads in agreement. And I said, Tell me more about that. And he started speaking about the societal pressures that are pushing him and his peers to drive toward a model of success that doesn't speak to him and that really doesn't speak to many of them. And so what I'm curious about is when you think about society, when you think about this hustle culture that the students spoke of, what do you feel like society is driving us toward? How is it defining success and are we being misled?

Right. Well, you what you measure is what you get. And so if you're measuring it by how much money you make or status, you're going to get people who are driven by that. You're also I think we're also I find this especially true for people who are have some blessings in life, a tremendous fear of failure. Hmm. And I've certainly talked to politicians and say what really drives you? And a lot of them went in it because they believe in public service. The listeners may not believe this, but people in Congress say their lives are just not that glamorous. I mean, you wouldn't do it unless you cared about the country because, you know, they're flying back home. They're doing all the fundraising. They're doing stuff that is just no fun. Mm hmm. And you wouldn't do it unless you want to serve the country. And yet I think there are most of them, almost all of them, are terrified of losing an election.

And so, you know, teaching at Yale, I've got these amazingly brilliant students, but they're doing that duck thing where they look like on the surface they're looks like they're slow, gradually gliding and down beneath, they're paddling frantically. And I used to say every there are two sentences at Yale, which are always untrue. Hmm. And the first is, well, the first is I'm the only person at Yale who. Hmm. And they all think I'm suffering. I think I'm inadequate. I. I think I don't belong. Nobody else thinks that. Hmm. And I would say you all think that. Hmm. And I know firsthand how that gets into you. Mm hmm. So, like, when I pull over to fill up my tank with gas, I think I've got 90 seconds. I can get two emails done. Yeah, and it's just I've got that timer in my head. Mm hmm. And I'm in a conversation and I think I've got six more things to do. I better leave this conversation. Mm hmm. Because the timer is in my head. Mm hmm. And once the timer is in your head, an email really sets that timer going because you. It's just a constant rush of stuff. It's very hard to get that time out of your head. And then when you go on vacation, you've got nothing to do but the timer still there. Mm hmm. And it sometimes takes a week to get the timer to simmer down. Yeah. And so it’s sad that students at the bursting prime of their life are already exhausted. And I find that many people at the end of their life are less exhausted. Hmm. Because they're doing something, they get to do what they, they know who they are, and they get to do what they really want. Mm hmm. And so they may be more busy, but they're at peace with what they're doing. Mm hmm. And, you know, I spent this time, I started, this thing called Weave this social fabric project about people who really build community. And they, you know, there's somebody running a neighborhood organization, and they're exhausted. I mean, the people are coming at them with all the needs of the neighborhood. Mm hmm. But they know why God put them on this earth. And there's great strength in that. Mm hmm.

And I've been really fascinated by Weave, because I feel like, maybe if you could say a little bit more about Weave for listeners, a at a time where people are so focused on, you know, on, again, policy prescriptions that will affect the country at scale, you have found something incredibly powerful, even though it’s not in the headlines of the paper every day. But that's transforming society, one person, one relationship at a time. So tell us a little bit about the Weavers and what you witnessed there.

It started because as I found around 2017, that every column I was writing had its roots, the problem had its roots, in what we've been talking about the fraying of the social and relational fabric. But then it occurred to me, Well, this problem is being solved at the local level everywhere by community builders who we call Weavers, and they weave the community together. And we would go to a place and we'd just say, Who's trusted here? Mm hmm. And people start giving you names. And very often they're the same names. Everybody know who the real community magnets are. And so we would go interview them and just to learn who they are. Mm hmm. And we wanted this identity Weaver to spread out there so more people would say, Well, I may not be as self-sacrificial as that person, but I can do something in my neighborhood. Mm hmm. And, you know, the thought was that in 1955, nobody said I'm a feminist. Hmm. By 1975, millions of people said I'm a feminist. And having that sense of identity, a sense of values, was very valuable in shaping society. And so we interviewed them, and it was so much fun. They're some of the most inspiring people you could meet. And they all had a moral purpose. Mm hmm. Nobody ever said, Oh, I'm going to this for a couple of years, then I'll go off to law school like this. No, this is what I'm going do for life. This is what I’m going to do. And, you know, there's a guy we met in Houston You know, there's a guy we met in Houston named Pancho Argüelles who used to run something called the Living Hope Wheelchair Association, which takes workers who've been paralyzed in construction accidents and gives them wheelchairs and diapers and catheters so they can lead dignified lives. Really sort of turns them into social workers. Bunch of Hispanic guys rolling in their neighborhood, offering to build your neighborhood. Mm hmm. And Pancho is just a beautiful human being. I once said to him, you know, you radiate holiness. Mm hmm. And he said, No, I reflect holiness, which is a better answer. And so but Pancho was just one example. They’re easy to find everywhere. Easy to find. Going to Wilkes, North Carolina, which is about an hour outside of Winston-Salem. And there's a woman named Elsie who was LGBTQ, and she faced a lot of bigotry. Mm hmm. And somebody hit her on the head with a baseball bat and stuff like that. She moved to L.A. with her. You know, should her should probably be more accepted. Mm hmm. And then she says, you know, home is home. So she moves back to Wilkes. And now she has programs for teens who may have different lifestyles or whatever, different identities. Mm hmm. And just radiates warmth and intelligence. And, you know, it's inspiring, that kind of stuff. So during 2017, up until COVID, while the rest of the country was all depressed, I was like, I'm having a great time. I'm getting to be around these people.

And their stories I find to be so inspiring. And when I was reading about the Weavers, you know, I was reminded of, reminded of the fact that I actually know somebody who's an incredibly powerful Weaver and that's my wife, Alice. In her own way, and in her own beautiful way, she looks around her and sees where there's a need for a community and then builds it. She does that in the building that we live in. She does that for our school community. She does that in our circle of friends in ways that I often don't make enough time to do myself, but I deeply admire when I see her doing it. And I'm reminded that this is a good way to live. You know, she's with the kind of moral purpose that you're talking about, and she sees the fruits of that in these beautiful interactions that she's able to bring together with a sense of feeling valued or belonging that's inspired in the person she connects with. You know, you and I have talked a lot about how loneliness is a crisis in our country right now. It's a crisis. We have Weavers. Tell us about what the gap is here. Do we need more Weavers, do we need to support the Weavers we have? How do we build that moment, that movement of local connectors into a movement that truly scales and lifts up the whole country?

Yeah, I wish I could answer that question, but Weave was an attempt to do that. And we're doing well, but we're not, we haven't solved the problem by any stretch. You know, I do think we need more Weavers. And you don't have to run a nonprofit. Some of what your wife does in the building is probably just life. Mm hmm. And I have a friend who says I practice aggressive friendship. Mm hmm. So I'm the one who's inviting people over. I'm the one hosting the barbecue. I'm the one who's organizing the block party. You don't have to have a big some foundation behind you just to be that person. Yeah. And those people have a technology of convening some way to get people together. Mm hmm. Some lady I know just put a picnic table in the front yard. Hmm. And invites people over. I used to be part of a community here in D.C. with about 40 young adults or older teenagers. And we just had dinner every Thursday night. Hmm. And it was just, that was our ritual. And so, you know, I think it's the failure to make that a norm. Mm hmm. And so, you know, I we ran into a lady in Florida who helps kids in the elementary school cross the street after school. And we asked her, do you have time to volunteer in your neighborhood? And she said, No, I have no time. And we asked, well, are you getting paid for this? She said, No, I just help the kids across the street. And what are you doing the rest of the day? Well, on Thursdays, I bring food to the hospital so they can have homemade food. Mm hmm. And we said you have time to volunteer. She said, No, I have no time to volunteer. And we to her, that was just being a neighbor. It wasn't volunteering. It was just what you do. Yeah. And so I think relationships take a while to develop, and it's hard to scale them. Mm hmm. But norms scale. If you can get an idea in their head of what a normal person does every day. Mm hmm. And shift that. You can have big change real fast. And so we've had a shift in norms in this country over smoking. And smoking rates have radically declined. When I was a kid, it was acceptable to litter. Mm hmm. And we've had a shift in norms about, you know, littering is not really good. And so there's a lot less littering. And so I think our attempt was to try to shift norms. Mm hmm.

And I think the point you're making around norms, because at some level, it feels like norms are grounded in values, Right? We don't litter because, you know, a fundamental value is that we recognize that we've got to be considerate toward others and that this land is also our land as well. We have a responsibility to it. You know, I think there's some parallels you can draw here with smoking, too. If we want to build norms and strengthen norms, expand norms in our country around relationships, around our responsibility, not just to ourselves, but to one another, how do we do that, learning from the past?

Yeah, well, I'd say one of the things we just declare… movements thrive when they find something and declare it disgraceful. Mm hmm. And so the MeToo movement. Sexual harassment is disgraceful. We're not going to tolerate that anymore. The abolitionist movement. Slavery is disgraceful. We do not tolerate that anymore. And so by naming a wrong and getting people to see a wrong. Mm hmm. And then there's the business of slowly moving people with you. Mm hmm. And that's a much harder process. Mm hmm. But I think you and to some extent, me and others have highlighted the the loneliness problem. And so I think it's way more talked about now than it was ten years ago. Mm hmm. And so I think whether we've found all the solutions. No, definitely not. But I do think there has been a raised awareness and a lot of people have been motivated to leap into the void. Mm hmm. And so now there are books, not just books, but they're like books on my shelf, if you go to my book shelf, you know, your book, Crisis of this book called Crisis of Connection, The Lonely Century, there are all these books and there are a lot of people reading the books and figuring out what can do, I can do about it. I have a friend named Niobe Way who edited this book called The Crisis of Connection, and teaches at NYU, but has a school in New York, a charter school for eighth grade boys, and she teaches them how to ask questions. Hmm. And she teaches about friendship. Mm hmm. Though she would tell you that boys, a eight year old boys don't need lessons in friendships. They're phenomenal at it. Yes. It's only later that they need lessons of friendship. And so I just think there are a lot of activists out there who are you know, I have a friend who also lives not far from where we're talking, who says we like our friends to be “lingerablel”. Hmm. And what she meant by that is we like them to be the kind of people you just want to hang around after dinner and just keep talking. Yeah. And it's a great trait to be lingerable. Mm hmm. And so she's taught me to try to be that.

I love that…lingerable. Because when I think about the dinner, you know, engagements I've enjoyed the most, it's been those where you go over to someone's house, there's no agenda. You're just there to talk. And after dessert, you just you're just hanging out and you're not in a rush to get back and clear out your inbox or to prep for the interview the next day. You're just there to enjoy human company, and that is okay as an end in and of itself, that it doesn't need to serve some other purpose. It’s not somebody you're trying to build a relationship with to get something. It's not about the utility. The purpose, the meaning is in the connection itself. And I'll be honest, I miss those to some extent because while I have some of that in my life now, one of the hard realizations I made during the pandemic was that I had not sufficiently prioritized people enough in my life and had allowed much of my life to be directed by and overrun in some ways by work. You know, telling myself all the way that, hey, that work is serving a purpose. It's good. It's for a contribution. A lot of it was service, but at the end of the day, I wasn't recognizing that the fuel that sustained me, that I think to sustain all of us to some extent are our connections with one another. And when that fuel runs low, it impacts our ability to do everything in the world. When you think about your own life and how you've approached friendship over the years, what's different now than 20 years ago?

Well, first, as you're talking, I'm reminded of all the vows I made during COVID to never return to the lifestyle I had before COVID. Mm hmm. And how I've generally not kept those vows. Like to really pace myself better and not get overcommitted. Mm hmm. I think one thing that also occurred to me as you're speaking is that I find in my circle of friends about 20 or 30% of people are hosters. And a lot are not. Mm hmm. And I think the people who don't host dinner parties don't invite you over to hang out. I think a lot of them, they're busy. They're tired. And I think sometimes maybe insecure about their ability to be good hosts. Yeah. And, you know, the lesson is, don't worry about it. You don't have to be great if you have people having food, crackers, cheese, wine. That beer, that pretty much does it. And if you can be a superlative host, great. But the basics are generally good enough. And then I also find in my when I'm hanging around, especially this town, DC, about 20% of the people you meet at a party or something are question askers. Mm hmm. And about 70 or 80% are not, just not. They're nice people. They just don't center their conversational style on asking questions. Mm hmm. And the quality of conversation is going to be determined by the quality of the questions. And so shifting in these two ways have struck me as important. I've learned to ask bigger questions than is socially normal around here. Mm hmm. And so I'll ask people about their childhoods because I want them to start telling me the story of their lives. Mm hmm. Good questions are things like, What crossroads are you at? Mm hmm. We're probably all at a crossroad of some sort. And a question like that gets people to step back. And I was at a party. It could have been a normal dinner with four people. And there was an 80 year old guy who said, What should I do with the rest of my life? And so the big question and it was like, what should old age look like? What does he have left to give? And it was just a good question. I asked the question, my my wife makes fun of me for this question, but it's How do your ancestors show up in your life? Like, we're all formed by the culture we come from. Yeah, whatever. And so how does that manifest in your life? And I once asked that question at a dinner party, and we had a great conversation. Hmm. Yeah, I think it's, you know, those little things that can that open up sort of the big encounters. And then I'll say one final thing, which is I'm friends with a guy named Nick Epley who is a psychologist at The University of Chicago. You may know his work. Yeah. Yeah. And so he was riding he commutes to campus and he was on a train. And as a psychologist, he knows the thing that people like most is meeting each other and having good conversations. We’re a social species. And he looks around the train car, and nobody, everybody's on their screens. Hmm. So he he he wants to research, Why do we not do the thing that will make us happy? And so then another. He does an experiment. He pays people to go talk to a stranger on the train, interviews them afterwards, and they all said that was a better ride than I ever have alone with my screen. That was more fun. And so I think his research has concluded that we we vastly underestimate how much people want to talk. How much will enjoy talking, how deep people want to go. And so I've shifted a little, not all the time, but when I'm on a train or a plane. Mm hmm. I won’t put in my headphones and maybe I'll start a conversation with whoever the stranger is next to me. Uh huh. And I've had a lot of very memorable episodes, and I can name a few conversations with some really strange people. If I had just stuck to whatever book or work I was doing, I wouldn't be able to remember it, Yeah, but I remember those conversations.

That is so powerful. And I think it's speaks to just how hardwired we are to connect with one another with sometimes even just a very brief few seconds even or minutes of interaction with a stranger can leave us feeling perceptibly different and can open up our thinking in powerful ways.

I got to say, when you were talking about hosting, I thought about myself because, and not in a good way, because I realized I have been one of those people who's been reluctant to host over the years. When I was younger, I would host all the time. I was hosting parties and get togethers in school and residency all the time. But then the last 15 years of my life, not so much. And I realized I had all of these things that I had told myself, like, Oh, you know, I’d have to spend a lot of time cleaning up to have people over. I don't know exactly what everyone likes to eat. It’s going to take a long time to organize. So many excuses, you know, in my head to not have people over. And finally, one day, a few months ago, my wife and I just said, you know, let's just have these friends over. Let’s just have them over? It doesn't matter. And I, I remember calling them and saying, hey, look, we have two small kids. Our house is a total mess. If you don't mind being in chaos and eating like just the same super simple stuff that we eat on weekends and just come over, we'll just just hang out like no planning. Just come over. And I'll tell you, it was two of the best hours that we spent, you know, that that entire week. I had realized that this story I told myself about why I couldn't host was not true. And so as I listen to you, I'm I'm inclined to think that. And for everyone listening out here, if you're one of those people who, you know, has wanted to have people over more but maybe felt like your place was too small or you didn't have the skill to organize a get together just, keeping it really simple, actually planning less, asking more in terms of questions and listening deeply. These feel like just beautiful lessons that you shared with us today. They can help make it and gathering meaningful and can bring rich connection into our life without a whole lot of planning and certainly without a whole lot of expense.

Yeah. And for most societies, it was the default. Mm hmm. Yeah, Of course, you were like, going to you you were sharing with the neighbors. Yeah. And you go back through human history, people would cook, the tribe would cook in common. And so that's 10 or 15 or 50,000 years of human history. And now we've invented the microwave. That's right.

David, I want to, you know, as we as we come to the end of our conversation, I want to ask you a couple of more things just about society and relationships, which is when I talk to people in different parts of the country, one of the things that they say to me is they feel it's harder to have conversations with other people, especially with strangers or particularly with people of a different point of view, because they're worried about conflict. They're worried that we have lost our ability to talk to one another, especially when we disagree. I'm curious, what's your assessment there of what's the state of our dialog and what do you think we need to do to get to a place where we truly can talk to people, especially those who maybe have different backgrounds or life experiences than we do?

Well, sometimes it's awkward and but I found, you know, Well, sometimes it's awkward and but I found, you know, when you write for a newspaper, you get a lot of angry mail. And I find if you write back to people who insulted you the most viciously and show a level of respect and just like, tell me what you're thinking, their tone changes 180 degrees right away. That as soon as you show I'm a human being and I'm curious about you, it changes. And so I read a phrase from a very fine book on the subject called Crucial Conversations. And it's about how to have conversations when there's power inequality out of conversations across difference. And one of the sentences in the book is respect is like air. When it's present nobody thinks about it. When it's absent, it's all anybody can think about. Mm hmm. And so and they have a bit of advice that has helped me. And one of them is you have to understand that every conversation has two levels. What we're officially talking about, whether it's politics or sports, and then the emotional undercurrents. Hmm. Are we showing each other respect? Did what you just say make me feel honored or less honored? More safe or less safe. Hmm. And so it’s emotional undercurrents that really matter. And I learned from that book that sometimes if you're in a relationship of unequal power, that people will complain to you and you're going to your mood is to get defensive. Mm hmm. Is to say, no, I'm part of solution or, you know, I've got my own problems. Hmm. And that's a way of showing disrespect and what you want to do, this book says, is stand in their standpoint is say, okay, what am I missing here about your situation? And even that show of if they're saying, I've been marginalized, you're privileged, you're you if you at least say, well, what am I missing here? Tell me about your experience. Then at least I may not fully understand the experience because, you know, everybody has their own experience, but at least I'll be showing respect and curiosity. Mm hmm. And so you rest in that. And if somebody tells you about a time they feel excluded, then that's an important moment. It's like there are some moments, I learned this last night. I had a dinner meeting one on one with a guy who's in government, and he made a confession to me about a feeling of vulnerability he had in his post. Mm hmm. And so that's a crucial moment in conversation. And when you have a crucial moment, recognize the moment. Stop and ask about the moment. Don't let the conversation just ramble forth. And I foolishly did not recognize the moment till later after dinner. And so just those ability to, like, stop in the moment and say, okay, I'm going to stand in your standpoint. Yeah. And that's the only way to really learn. But it's hard because there are all these tensions in relationships across difference. So, you know, I'm a pretty strong critic of President Trump and I'm around Trump supporters and it's good. The conversations are great until they ask me where I work. And then I say the New York Times and suddenly all sorts of associations get wrapped up in their minds and it becomes tense. And then but then if I can say, yes, I work at The New York Times. I do disagree with you about Donald Trump, but I can still be curious about your life. You know, I do believe that we can never get wholly into each other's points of view. We can get part of the way and have enough to feel, so they feel heard and understood. Yeah.

You know, it's beautifully put, and these tensions that you you raise. I think it strikes me that part of what we have to, I think, come to to truly feel and believe inside is that we are each more than our public associations and affiliations. We’re more than the worst mistake we've ever made. We're more than where we went to school or the color of our skin or the faith that we practice, that there are other elements and dimensions to us. And I love the word curiosity that you've used a few times here, because I think that's an incredibly powerful force in helping us to engage with others in ways that can be respect and to do what you're talking about. I think it doesn't, I think, come naturally to everyone or no one gets it right the first time, but it feels like it requires both practice and presence. And the second one I think about a lot because like many people, I find that my attention feels like it's fragmented, especially since I got a smartphone some years ago, and I find myself often thinking about what emails just buzzed, you know, in my device, in my pocket. And when message and or alert is is up. And it's been a real effort, a conscious effort I've had to make over the years to try to really be present with other people. But it strikes me that both practice and presence, if we can bring those to this work that you're talking about, of being curious, of asking and talking to people, trying to know who they are beyond, you know, the surface conversation, I think that could be really powerful. Yeah. David, as we close, I just want to ask you on a personal note, we talked began this conversation talking about the despair that so many people feel in the country right now and and the worry they have that the future may not be better than than the, you know, than where we are right now. And things may actually get worse. What gives you hope when you think about the future? Where do you reach for it in those moments where you feel like you're despairing?

Well, first, being around weavers has given me a great deal of hope because they really are, their mood is affirmative. Hmm. There are problems in my society. But I'm taking care of them, taking care of my little patch, what I can best I can. Yeah. And so I find them just tremendously inspiring. And then I think we've people in my business, the media, have vastly overplayed what's wrong with society. Mm hmm. And, you know, as we mentioned earlier, our job is to get clicks and negativity and fear are the way to do that. And so the number of headlines denoting fear has increased by something like 170% in the last decade. And but when you look at the underlying statistics.

It's really staggering number. Can you just underscore that 170% increase in fear denoting headlines.

And a similar number in anger denoting headlines. And so we're enveloped. So, you know, if you ask people, are you satisfied with your life? Mm hmm. 85% say yes. So that's the part they know immediately. Hmm. Are is the country on the right track? Mm hmm. 80% say wrong track. That's the part of reality they see through the media. Mm hmm. And so we're too negative. And so if I look around the country, I see a country that's income inequality is going down, poverty rates going down. We're the second most innovative society on Earth. Mm. Health. We basically lengthen everybody's life lifespans by a decade in the last few decades. Like, health is so much better. That's a lot of time to do something fun and productive on this earth. Mm hmm. And so I have a friend who says, Take all the problems in society and make a list on one side of a piece of paper and then write a few words on the other on the other column. And those words are America has more talent than ever before. Huh? And his point is column B is more important than column A. Hmm. And I fervently believe that. I mean, we we lived in a society where if you weren't a white male, your talents were not being utilized fully. Hmm. Now, we're not perfect, but we're doing a lot better at utilizing a lot more people's talents. Mm hmm. We've unleashed a lot. A lot of people were, you know, stuck doing drudgery work on the farm. Now, thanks to technology, some people are farmers, but they're not doing drudgery work. They're doing highly sophisticated work. And a lot of people have a lot more time to do a lot more creative stuff. Mm hmm. And so I think you can not only look around the country and see inspiring people, but you can find a lot of data suggest we're not in decline. Mm hmm. That we're advancing as a society. We’re healthier. We’re richer. And we just have this social and relational problem, which is an important problem which you and I devote a lot of time to. But it's not like we're the Roman Empire, right? And so I fervently believe that. Mm hmm.

Is are you a person who has a faith tradition in your life?

Yeah. My problem is I have too many. Yeah. I grew up Jewish now, and I'm, I go to church, so it's, I've got a lot of faith in my life.

And is that a source of inspiration and hope for you as well?

Yeah, Not as much as you think. I have a friend of mine, Christian Wiman, wrote a beautiful book called My Bright Abyss about what faith is like. Mm hmm. And he writes in there, You know, I can tell you, some people say faith as the opiate of the masses. Faith gives you solace. I can tell you if it's supposed to do all that, it's not working for me because, you know, he is a man of deep faith. But sometimes faith, you know, you feel the absence of God. Sometimes there's dryness. Sometimes, you know why is God letting this happen? Mm hmm. And so another hero of mine, a rabbi, Joseph Soloveitchik, who wrote a beautiful book called The Only Man of Faith, said Sometimes faith is like going down the rapids in a river. Hmm. It's filled with turmoil. And so, yeah, I don't find faith to be the calming balm that some people say it is. I find it to be, it gives you some great sense of beauty to aspire to. Mm hmm. But it doesn't necessarily lead you down the primrose paths to calm, happiness and joy all the time. But you know what joy looks like. Let's put it that way.

And that, and that's important. Yeah. Well, I must say, David, this conversation has filled me with a sense of hope and energy and inspiration. And I feel like despite all the challenges that we're dealing with, you've you pointed out some really important points here that I, I will keep with me. You know, one of them is that the power of that moral foundation and the importance of the process of moral formation and thinking about how we do that not just as a society, but as individuals. I'm thinking about how do I do that for my children, my son and my daughter? I don't know that I have all the answers to that, but I know that I want it to be a priority in my life. You're also just reaffirming something you I deeply care about, which is is the value of those human connections. And in a time where the problems we face can be so much bigger, than it feels like we have the ability to solve, we can derive great solace and great comfort and support and care, the beautiful word you used, from our relationships. And finally, I do think that the things that we're talking about today are widely felt and their and the needs that we're talking about are also just ones that are very urgent. I think building that moral foundation, building a connection in our lives and shifting norms, as you said, to where we actually value kindness and generosity, where service is something to aspire to, as opposed to building the kind of hustle culture that, you know, those young kids in L.A. spoke to me about and said was really draining them of their time and their energy. So I know that this is a broader movement that we are building. I know that to me, this is a process of a moral awakening that we have to all be a part of in America, not just in America, but around the world, because this feels like a challenge that's not uniquely American, but a challenge that many other countries in modern society are facing. So I'm grateful to you for everything you do, for inspiring me over the years and for being here for this conversation. Thank you so much.

Thank you. You know, long before we met or even had a chance to email or text each other, I considered you a comrade in arms in, in this struggle and just admire the public service that you've put on this uniform twice now. And it's, you know, I've. For people out there who are cynical about government, I would point to your example. I'm friends with a woman named Samantha Power over a USAID, just people who are really passionately concerned for the public good and government at all levels, not just at the top of these organizations. I think people outside Washington would be surprised how many people are really driven at all levels of in this building, and buildings around Washington, D.C. They're in it because they love their country and they want to serve it.

Well, thank you. That's very kind of you, David, I really appreciate that. That concludes our conversation with David Brooks. Join me for the next episode of House Calls with Dr. Vivek Murthy. Wishing you all health and happiness.