Alain de Botton: How To Fall In Love Again

29:47I'm divorced. I got divorced a couple of years ago. How long had you been married? I'd been married 20 years. So I was exactly the same. Seven years ago, I got divorced. I'd been married for 18 years. Which is, by the way, anyone who's come through something like that, it's an enormous thing. It's a really complicated thing. And we, of course, live in a very romantic culture that associates happiness with a partner. And not just a partner, a partner who understands you, who reads your soul, who's on the same page as you over small things and large, et cetera, et cetera. And on and on it goes. And our demands of relationships are beautiful, but they're very exigent.

30:23They're very, very high and they get us into trouble. And so I think a lot of people are walking through the world with the following view. Love is incredibly important. And for me, love hasn't quite gone right. Maybe they're in a relationship and it's not, it's a bit scratchy or they're out of a relationship and they can't find the one. They're not, they're not able to find. Do you? Well, you know, I'm very compassionate towards the longing for the one. I'm not averse to thinking about the one. The question is just, what do we want that one to be? What are our criteria for the one? What's really important?

31:03What's important to you? Well, for me, it is connection, the capacity to connect. I mean, the enemy of love is loneliness. The opposite of love is loneliness. So what we're really saying is, what stops people feeling lonely? So it is possible to be in a marriage and be lonely. Totally, of course. And to be in company and to be lonely. But I'd also want to say, I just want to add in a little stoic. Remember my analogy about being a book and wanting to be read by someone and not knowing what your worth is until there is a reader of you who reads you exactly how you want to be read. Otherwise, you panic.

31:39I think people who are in the dating world or looking for a partner or maybe exiting a relationship, etc., there can be that feeling of I need somebody who gets me totally. Otherwise, I don't exist. Otherwise, I can't be until someone sees me absolutely. I get that. It's a very difficult position to walk through the world with, to want to be understood absolutely. I think it's best to start like this. My advice to myself and people out there is to say, I understand myself well. I'm committed to understanding myself. I'm the ultimate judge of my own worth. If somebody else comes along and wants to join in that project, read a few lines of the page of me, fine, that's great.

32:24If they don't get it or it's not for them, that doesn't have to be the end of me. That's not an absolute tragedy. Because, you know, I have a lot of friends who are on the dating scene. I've been on the dating scene. And what happens is people come back from dates and they are devastated. They're like, that date went wrong. That person did not promise to be the one who could read me, who could understand. And you want to, again, add a little bit of stoic philosophy here and say your worth is not – don't surrender the whole of you to an outside arbiter. So, you know, to come back to the theme of love, of course love is important.

32:58Of course a companion who sees you, who understands you, who can interpret you, et cetera. Beautiful. I've written tons about this. It's fantastic. But it's also important to recognize that life can be led outside of that, that we are not totally at the mercy of another person. it's to surrender too much power to give somebody else total control over your sense of worth and I think there are those who are cheerfully single and those who are catastrophically single you might say. The cheerfully single think I might meet somebody it'd be great if I did, they would really add to my life, be lovely, they might come in one year, two years, five years, 25 years or never I can bear it, I can bear it because my life can be bearable and then there are the catastrophically single who remember the day that their last relationship ended it was the you know 12th of february at 1903 and it's engraved on their heart and since then the only thing they're doing is trying to find that other person and if they don't find the other person their life hasn't their life is on hold it has no meaning and we want to take these people and i know those people because they have been a part of me um and say you're giving up too much control here that something is going wrong here You can't give other people that much power.

34:14I also kind of am thinking about friends of mine that go on dates and they'll be, they get the ick about something and you think that's such a nondescript and funny thing to get the ick about or the old red flag about something. and you think, not sure that that is necessarily a red flag. That might just be a misgiving. And I think that one date, you know, a dinner, a two-hour dinner, you can't do it. You've got to go back for a second one at least. I agree. And also, you know, it's a big theme for me to constantly, I constantly harp on this point, so let me harp on it about it here. We think that people are interested in love and we think we live in a romantic culture.

35:02or we're able to die into gender relationships and be loved. Half the story at best. The true story is that there is an incredible terror of love and that people are as assiduous in running away from love as they are apparently devoted to running towards love. A lot of the time what people are doing is finding reasons why love is not going to be for them and is not going to work. Why? Why, yes. Because love places us in an incredibly vulnerable position. Yes. And if love has burnt you before, maybe in childhood, when children are loved by their parents or should be loved, and often they get their hearts broken.

35:36Little children have heartache and heartbreak. They don't know it. We don't recognize it as such. But, you know, if you're a child and mommy and daddy doesn't quite love you, you are broken inside, right? And you take that breakage into adult life. And it means that when an adult, you know, pitches up and says, here I am, I'm ready to love you, you go, oh, on one hand, that's wonderful. On the other hand, I feel a bit sick. Oh, I just realized that, you know, you look like playing golf or you are wearing the right T-shirt or whatever it is. You try and reach for some reason why this most beautiful but also appalling and terrifying specter, which is to be loved, is not possible.

36:15Brief analogy on prison camps. Let's imagine you've been brought up in a prison camp. You've been restricted in your diet. You've had a very calorie-restricted diet. Your stomach has shrunk. You have not been able to absorb the nutrients that you needed. Suddenly, the prison gates are opened. You can go out into the world and eat anything. You're invited to a banquet, beautiful grapes, fruits, etc., on the table. What do you do? You can't absorb it. You are sickened by it. It is too rich. It's too much too soon. And I think that some of what goes on when people hit the dating world is someone comes along and goes, I like you.

36:50I want to understand you. I'm on your side. I'm whatever. And it's both beautiful and you want to scream with horror because you think this is the most unfamiliar, strange and appallingly terrifying thing that's ever happened to me. And I think dating would become easier or love would become easier if we were able to admit how frightening love and tenderness actually are when we're confronted with them. So everybody moans, oh, it's so difficult to find love, etc. et cetera. You know, count your blessings sometimes that you haven't found the love you say you like because your lovelessness may be protecting you from a vulnerability and a terror of vulnerability that you are not on top of yet.

37:32That's what I would say to people. You are never too old to learn something new. I used to be so terrified of tech, but I started using Adobe Express, which is the quick and easy create anything app. And it's one of our sponsors too and I use it to tell my story my way. It's about impact. Havina? Yes? Did you mean to export this poster of Michael to such a large size? Yes. As I was saying, it's never been easier to bring your ideas to life. Yes. Just checking, these stickers that say Ready to Wave, they're also for you too? Yes, those are for me. merchandising is an important revenue stream. I work with Stephen Bartlett.

38:18You know, I'm an entrepreneur. Look, whatever your business, side hustle or random, oh, I've got an idea moment is, Adobe Express gives you everything that you need to design it, share it and make it real. So head to adobe.ly slash Davina to get started. Did she really use the generative AI to turn the cats into DJs? She loves Adobe. be i um i actually cried when you talked about um give little you a hug for coming up with all these brilliant strategies to handle the way your life was going yeah and these strategies carry on into later life and manifest in the weirdest ways this is you know this is the basic thing i'm a psychotherapist i trained in psychotherapies late in life thing but you know one of the things that you learn in therapy school, and it's a very basic thing.

39:11Lots of your viewers will know it. Listeners will know it. But it's really the idea that if you look at most of the crazy stuff that people are doing as adults, drinking too much, being too superficial, being too deep, sabotaging themselves, all the crazy psychological stuff they're doing, almost always you can trace a line back to those behaviours and a version of those identical behaviours in early childhood that served a person well. You know, somebody disassociated in early childhood. That could be a really great thing if your father's an alcoholic and your mother's depressive. The ability to cut yourself off from your emotions, brilliant.

39:44You know, you worked that out at five. At five, you worked out that not feeling is a good strategy. You're a genius, literally genius. This is genius level. Problem is, as so often is the case, something that got you through from zero to 10 then continues from 10 to 20, 30, 40, 50, and you're still doing it. So you're pitching up at 40 in a relationship and you are disassociated. fantastic back then now disaster your marriage is going to collapse etc and so it's really you know really important question to ask yourself is what's the stuff you're doing now that you probably recognize a bit is a bit destructive rather than lashing yourself and thinking i'm a bad person have a lot of compassion and think probably this was a genius move on the part of the younger you what was that let's say let's say you're scared all the time you're not an idiot you're not sissy Why are you scared all the time?

40:35Maybe because being scared all the time was really clever if you were in an environment where fear was an early warning system for something seriously dangerous. So if you were terrified all the time, well, you know, that's probably because there was something there that was very scary. Let's imagine you're a bit superficial and plastic and you constantly crack jokes and you can't go deep and you're optimistic in a plastic way. And people go, well, why are you like this? You're getting feedback from people that you're a bit fake. And all right, rather than go, oh my God, there's something wrong with me.

41:04I'm thinking, how did I get to be that way? Children of depressive or angry parents often become comedians because it's so difficult around them. What do you do? You learn to make jokes, to appease, to get people, you know, to be on your side, et cetera. And that's fantastic. You know, you become the playful kid and that's great. Age seven, eight, nine gets you through it. By the time you're 40 and every time there's a serious moment or possibility of seriousness, You have to crack a superficial joke. You're missing out on the marrow of living. And people around you are going to drift away from you because they're sensing, I can't get through to this person.

41:39So always look, what's the problem in your life now? How might that problem have been related to a solution that you had worked out as a child? Sounds simple. I mean, it's the work of a lifetime. Yeah, but I feel like that's part of the joy of living is working yourself out. I know. Isn't it terrible? When I think about my life and other people, you think, what did you learn from 30 to 40, 40, 50? You can put it on a postage stamp. I learned not to give too much advantage to other people. I learned to say no to people, etc. And that sums up a decade. I learned to say no to people. And you think, why didn't I learn that sooner?

42:18Yeah, it's so funny. There are just, I mean, again, we need to laugh. We are incredibly dumb creatures. We're beautifully dumb creatures. And we just, like a cow that's just led patiently through an obstacle course, it just, yeah, we don't learn fast. It's unbelievably slow. You just talked about saying no. Saying no is one of the greatest lessons I've ever learned. I mean, it sits, you know, it sits on such a rich area, this saying no, because saying no is also linked to saying yes. What it really means is having an accurate sense of what you feel, which is not... See, little children don't know what they feel very easily.

42:59They're very dependent on the outside world. I was on holiday recently, and there was a kid bawling its eyes out. And the kid was saying, I want to go home. I want to go home. I don't like it here. And the mother said, but you're happy here. We've just come to Greece, and we're on holiday, and we spent a lot of money to be here. you're having a nice time and the kids stopped crying and i thought oh gosh i mean you know everybody was trying to be a good person but there was something quite complicated going on here which was a narrative you know sometimes you hear a parent saying to children but you are happy it's your birthday and the kids going i'm miserable it's my birthday and the ability to unspool that learning from childhood and to go okay all sorts of layers have been added on to me about what i like about who i am about you know what i want etc someone else's and stuff there's somebody else's stuff and and you go you know um there's a lovely quote from the american essayist ralph waldo emerson where he says in the minds of geniuses we find our own neglected thoughts in the minds of geniuses we find our own neglected thoughts in other words when you read a poem or a book or a prose poem by a so-called really clever person, a genius.

44:17What you'll often find is something you think yourself, your own but neglected thoughts. You're like, oh, that's a bit of me that I'm just finding in somebody else. Now, why? How come we've ended up in a situation where your own thoughts, you're no longer in control of them and somebody else tells you them? Why? That's because we are alienated very often from our own truest thoughts. We're not aware of what we really want, what we really feel, what really brings us joy. And then we're reliant. That's what I'm trying to do now in my life. Right. So we're then reliant on other people, clever other people, to come along and say, I'm going to help you.

44:56But we should be, this is the work of the later part of life. Well, it's the work of all life, but it's the work particularly of the second part of life, I think, to get a more accurate hold on the actual nature of your thoughts and feelings. I mean, that is basically, who are you? Who am I? You know, this is my big question. Yeah. And who am I, by the way? Let's be pretty sympathetic. You know when you go to a restaurant and you look at a menu and you think, what do I want to eat? Now, in some moods, you think, oh, I know, obviously, it's the spinach and the this, whatever, and you just know.

45:30Sometimes you think, I'm not sure. I'm looking at these words and I can't get a reading of what my appetite is in relation to this list of options. That's much more accurate to what most of us feel in relation to many of the questions of life. When people go, what do you want to do with your life? You're like, not getting any, I'm not sure. So what do you need to do? One of the things you need to do is to become a more accurate reader of your deeper self. And the deeper self is shy. The deeper self doesn't shout, I want to be an accountant or I want to marry this person. It's confused. And what we need to do is to be a bit more like archaeologists who are passing over the ground with a metal detector.

46:11And every now and then, the metal detector lets out a faint, very faint beep. A tiny beep here. And then you go over there and say, oh, a little beep here. And these beeps are little beeps of interest, of liveliness, of engagement. But they're a bit sporadic. They're a bit like, you know, there was one over there, one over here, one on a Monday, one on a Wednesday. And it's not like a burning thing of like, this is your mission, son. Oh, my God, this is so right. And what you need to do is to take these little fragments, like a careful archaeologist and assemble them in the back room of your mind into something that will be a plausible mission.

46:45Like, oh, okay, I've been studying myself for a long while, and now I'm getting a sense that from all these bits that I see, maybe my next career move should be that. That's not a burning, like, I've known from the beginning that it's that. It's a slow assemblage of things. And in other areas too, I mean, even pleasure. Think of holidays are fascinating because holidays i wrote a book called the art of travel which was all about how people go on holiday and travel and one of the fascinating things is that travel is one of the main things that we do for fun and for pleasure and boy oh boy do we get it wrong in fascinating ways because it's really difficult to know what it you know you've got two weeks you've got 10 days of holiday you've got a bit of money and it's so that that time is so valuable so valuable and also you're bombarded with suggestions from other people and very rarely have we do we sit down with ourselves enough and go, okay, it's your time.

47:37What do you really want to do with it? If you could really, do you really want to go skiing? Do you want to go down a slope? And you might think, not really. And if you properly followed your interests, again, I love a weird person. And you know those people who stand by the edge of runways, plane spotters, and they're in anoraks, right? And take what it means. I love an aeroplane. And I have actually stood at the end of a runway and looked at things, not as assiduously as I should. And it's good to have children because you can blame it on them. But I loved it. And it's quite odd to think what I really like doing is not going to the Tate or the Tate Modern or the National Gallery or any of this elite institution.

48:22I want to go to Heathrow and I want to see an Airbus A380 before it touches down when it's about 20 metres from the earth. And just hearing that roar, that's what I like. right or you know i'm interested in electricity substations that's what i do not me that's not mine but you know i could have you know and and and you learn to become a fetishist if i can use a word you know fetish is fetish is the word we give to slightly weird sexual interests that are a bit sort of odd we're all fetishists but we don't we need to come out of the closet about our fetishes and those fetishes include things like you're embarrassed yeah the fetishes might include things like i really like a hot bath and having a hot bath is the big thing and that's what i want to do all the time or i want to eat a certain kind of food that no one thinks is great or i want to go to a certain place be as weird as you actually are that's surely you know talk about gifting that's a gift you can give yourself to be as odd as you are and by the way we were talking about relationships and dating when you arrive on a date you know there can be a terrific impasse to go oh i'm normal are you normal too yes we're both very normal but it was two wonderfully normal people.

49:29Great. Have a lovely time. Ultimately, what you want is not a chance to be so-called normal. You want a chance to make your weird meet somebody else's weird. So yes, take people into the slightly odder parts of you because that ultimately is what a friendship or relationship should be about. And if you stay on the threshold of normality always, you'll never get anywhere. It's exhausting if you are a bit weird to try and kind of contain that for too long and it's so tiring and the thing is we're all weird which is why little children are so interesting because they're not interested in being normal and that's why every little child is a fascinating i mean there's no boring little child but there's a lot of boring adults a lot and what makes an adult boring we're always asked at school life what makes someone interesting um be as weird as you actually are right um that is the route to being you know take a reading of who you are and show that to another person you will be interesting people often say things like just when they're getting interesting people go oh i'm sure that's going to bore you oh i don't want to bore you with that stuff and you want to go no no no no that's the interesting bit no you're about you've been talking nonsense or the i don't want to hear about your new sofa this is this is the this is the lively bit this is the bit there's some life here carry on you know what i mean that stuff i am i'm kind of thinking a lot about people and their gorgeous weirdness and also where that comes from I think you can be gloriously weird when you feel safe for me a huge part of getting older and feeling good I'm also in a really good healthy relationship but we'd known we'd been friends for 20 years so I think that was a big grounding you know when I think of people that are trying to make a decision about a relationship from one date.

51:22I think that's so difficult. I had 20 years. I knew the very bones of this man. Like I know the way he thinks, everything about him. But I've been on an amazing journey to feeling safe in myself. Yeah. And I didn't feel safe as a kid. Yeah. and um but what has really helped me every now and again is having so i can only be my true weird self when i feel safe yeah um and when i don't feel safe i feel like i have to lock that bit of me away because i need to conform to be with everywhere like everyone else because i don't feel safe and i think it's a really important part of being safe sometimes to know that at other times you're not safe.

52:09And it sounds a bit weird because that phrase, feeling safe, you know, we can mock it, et cetera. Some people do, because we're not talking here about somebody who's going to murder you or whatever, although it can be that. But most of the time, we're talking about emotional safety, right? And, you know, there are people around whom you feel safe. And I think, for example, the people I feel safe around with, I think you're not going to lose your temper arbitrarily. You're going to receive what I say with tolerance and imagination, etc. And there are other people around whom you constantly have to walk on eggshells.

52:43And, you know, they've got crosses to bear. They've got problems, blah, blah, blah. It's challenging to be around someone that you constantly feel. If I put my foot here, there may be an explosion here. That's quite taxing. And a good bit of advice for people, try not to be that person. You know, Try not to be the person who is so reactive that anything that somebody else says to you, well-meaning thing, is going to lead to an explosion. And I think our best friends are always people that we think, I'm going to be able to say more or less anything to them and they'll be able to meet me with it.

53:19They're not going to be alarmed. They're just going to meet it. And that, again, feels so safe, so wonderful. We're going to give these people a medal. I mean, I also, I think with a best friend, I always feel that I can be 100 % honest. So I can tell them something. How many best friends do you have? One. Yeah, I've got two. Yeah. And it's important to remember. I mean, you know hundreds of people. I know hundreds of people. I mean, my partner, I would probably say, is a best friend. But I think that they're also a partner and that's quite a heavy load. We've given them a different load. It's quite a heavy load to carry.

53:49Best friend and partner. And by the way, I do think there should be a national best friend day. um i agree and and and you know because if i think of my two best friends they've got me through hell yeah and you know they know who they are and they need medals um and they really do they do need medals i owe them my life um and i think that some people haven't do not have those people and that's an emergency for them and i want to help them let's let's go out and find that best friend for them um also people feel guilty that they don't have many best friends um you know that and that's why it's important that you say i have one best friend you davina who's you know yes if you have only one best friend that's good that's really nice to hear for people because that's a sign that normalizes in a really useful way the fact that these people don't grow on trees and don't have hundreds of them that's fine that's fine you've already have one partner one best It's fine.

54:47I mean, I was very, very lucky, and I quite like to talk about therapy and the value of that, because I had my first bit of therapy when I was 15. Yeah. And my parents felt that it would help me to talk to a third person that wasn't connected to the family. And actually, it was amazing for me. It was a very good experience. but I have one person now who I met when I was 50 and I spoke to for a year when trying to understand divorce and how I was going to handle that and I've stayed in touch with her and she's been brilliant and so I could contact her and go, I've come up against a wall with something, please could you see if you've got an appointment in the next couple of weeks it's not urgent see other people that are urgent but I would love to unpick something with you and I think it will take one session and I can speak to her on the phone and we can literally crack out a solution but what I'm what I'm trying to ask you is for many people they might go and see someone and they go I didn't like them yeah I didn't like therapy I'm not going to do it yeah And actually, it's so difficult to find your person in therapy.

56:12I'm glad you say that. I'm glad you say that because it's so important for people to know that there are many bad therapists out there and that there are many therapists who are maybe good, but not for them. But those are two categories. Yes. Because otherwise, the alternative is that people think there's something wrong with me and I'm not made for therapy, which is almost always not the case. So a lot of bad therapists, a lot of therapists who are not for you. So keep that in mind. Shop around in the same way that you wouldn't marry the first person you date. So you should not ever feel. Because sometimes therapists are a bit wily.

56:45They go, you know, at the end of the first session, so when are we meeting again? Rather than what they should say is, why don't you go away, think about it, see how you feel and whether you want to come back. Maybe you don't. Lots of other people. And I quite understand if you, you know, you should not be inducted into immediately following one kind of therapist. It's a very personal kind of relationship. It's got to fit. I've had several therapists who did not work for me and some who did. And that's absolutely the way it should be, can be, must be. But, you know, at its best, why do we need a therapist?

57:20Therapists are trained to be with you through your own exploration of your mind. They are following you on your journey into your own mind and giving you a little bit of assistance. Some of that assistance means sometimes being really quiet, not saying anything. Sometimes it means being encouraging. Sometimes it means laughing because you said something funny. Sometimes it means not laughing because even though you said something that sounded maybe like it was a joke, actually it hides a lot of pain. And maybe it's quite useful at that point for the therapist to go, oh, I wonder how come that feels quite sad to me, etc.

57:58So they're doing a very subtle bit of footwork around your own gentle exploration of your mind. Also, it provides a concentrated, normally 50-minute session during the week when it's about you and your mind. And you can cement declarations, moves a little bit more easily in the presence of a witness. You go, I've had enough of X and being heard to have had enough of X or I want more Y. that can really help you to cement change that's so true saying something out loud in the presence of somebody else gives it weight absolutely because yeah we are social that yeah we are social creatures and i think that being witnessed for our desires to evolve is really important it's odd it shouldn't be that way but somehow it is and so let's just work with that one of the things that I love about you is the way you're always getting me to think.

58:57And we talk a lot about looking at yourself, looking at that we've talked earlier about finding the tiny weeny little thing down here and how do you feel and collating them. But you can only find those bits of yourself if you listen and are aware and we can't do that at the moment, I feel. So many people are like, but I can't do that. I keep listening. But we can't do it because there's so much noise everywhere. Which is, you know, look, humans have been aware of this ever since we invented monasteries and nunneries. What were monasteries and nunneries? I mean, take away the sort of heavy religious bit of it.

59:41It's really born from the insight that if you're in a city, I mean a city as a metaphor, a busy place full of humans, you will not be able to direct your thoughts inwards. So the people who built the great monasteries wanted people to leave, some people to leave at certain points and go into a community that is quiet, that promotes introspection, that gives structured moments in which you can look inside. And we need to remember that tradition because it gives us a sense of the kind of efforts we might need to make in order to go inside ourselves. We might need, as it were, metaphorically, to go to a monastery, which might mean clearing Sunday evening of all distraction and lying in a bath or in bed with a notebook beside you and thinking, right, I'm going to try and make sense of this relationship or this career hurdle or this not with my friend or whatever it is.

1:00:38I'm going to try and make sense of it. And to be aware that there are two parts of you, an observer self, a conscious self, and an unconscious self. The unconscious self is vast and the observer self is tiny. I can sometimes compare it to, you know, a person with a little flashlight and they're like looking around inside a vast library. That library has got volumes in which is inscribed everything you've ever thought, every image you've ever seen, every person you've ever met. And most of these books are sunk in darkness. and you need to go into the stacks, into those library stacks and pick out the volumes of yourself in order to try and read key passages that hold a clue as to what you should do next.

1:01:20And that takes time. We can't do that if we're always busy. Let's also remember that the reason why we don't do this is not because we're lazy, but because we're scared. Yes, fear. It's fear. It's not laziness. It's not laziness. We are addicted to our phones, etc., to scrolling, because we are afraid of what we might need to confront. Imagine if I had to go inside myself and realise that I'd messed up my last relationship, that I felt really guilty about someone, that there was someone I wanted to contact, but I was afraid of contacting them, that there was some massive regret around my career.

1:01:52So no wonder we get terrified. We don't want to do that work of thinking. But the price you're going to pay for not acknowledging that pain is massive. It's going to mess up the future. It really is. So, you know, gird yourself to undergo that pain in the name of a more clear and sort of authentic future. And I wish I had. It would be regret, I feel like, is one of the worst. You know, if you're not going to do it, then just think, well, I'm just not going to do it and making a decision. Don't let it become a regret later in life. Let's also hear it for regret. I think we've got this model. Of not wanting to regret.

1:02:28Of not wanting to regret. You want to hear it for regret. Yes. I love that. I want to hear the fact that though, of course, we must do everything to minimize our regrets. And we really must. We must do everything. Listen to your show and, you know, do everything and do the work and go to therapy and all that. Of course, of course. But once we've done everything we can, and it may not be very much because depending on where our second life is, but once we've done everything we can, we have to accept that to have regrets is human. We would not be properly human if we reach our deathbeds without regrets.

1:02:59Of course, you've got regrets. And that's not some weird anomaly and a sign of failure. It's a sign of imagination. Regret occupies that zone between what you've done and what could be possible. And of course, there will be so many things that could have been possible that you will not have done. You know, there will be people you never spoke to. There will be places you didn't go to. There will be moves you didn't make. There will be thoughts you didn't have. Of course. and you have to be, it's not just being kind on yourself. You've got to be realistic. This is what it is to be a human being.

1:03:33So don't miss the fundamental nature of being human. It's like saying, I mean, people who say, it's like people who say, I've got no, I'm not jealous. I'm not jealous of anyone. You want to go, hang on. Either you're seriously out of touch with your feelings, which is not really the case, or you're in heavy denial, which is not really the case. So a bit of both. But of course, you're envious. We're all envious how bizarre you would be to look upon the rich good fortune of others and not feel it, of course. Envy is such an interesting one because it is seen as the greatest sin of all, isn't it?

1:04:07It's like it's a kind of toxic evil trait that you could possibly be envious of somebody else. And I think it's quite interesting that because everybody feels it. And also you wouldn't be, you know, the old should envy the young. There's also pity the young and vice versa. You know, the rich envy the poor, the poor envy the... You know, there's envy across all barriers. Parents envy their children. Of course they do. They actually, you know, and we're like, oh, no, no, that doesn't exist. Of course it exists. To envy is merely to recognize something good. The existence of something good, it could be in an unexpected place.

1:04:40But it's to acknowledge, honestly, that you have spotted something good that you don't have. And that should be happening to you every day. If you're alive and in touch with reality, you'll be thinking, hang on a minute, why don't I have... That pair of shoes, that relationship, that money, that house, that thing, because life is very, you know, we know about political inequality. But my goodness, there's inequality across all things, across so many other different playing fields that don't have political parties associated with them. But think of the massive inequality of satisfaction in life.

1:05:13Think of the lottery of health, of beauty, of intelligence. These are all things in which are radically, unequally distributed through society. And we've got this thing called politics, which aims to look at financial inequality. Fine, that's fine. Lots of struggles over that financial bit. But think of all the other massive areas of inequality for which ultimately there isn't political restitution most of the time. You can't found a political party to rectify the maldistribution of intelligence or something. So there's unfortunately going to be endemic disparities in levels of satisfaction, therefore envy, therefore regret.

1:05:50I think one of the other really kind of toxic feelings that I wouldn't want to die with would be resentment or anger towards somebody and this idea of forgiveness. I remember when I was estranged from my mother in the end, and she was living in South Africa. And she was dying in South Africa, and I'd made a choice to not go to her. and it felt like in my own head and my heart I'd let go of the, I think it was anger. But it felt nice to do that. But in a way, she wouldn't have received it. In my head, she received it. and I guess a regret possibly of mine is that she knew how I felt. That's interesting.

1:07:02I've never said that out loud. It's such tricky territory because I know, I wonder how it lands with you, but I know that we're supposed to forgive and yet I think a lot of us know behaviours, maybe in a parent, maybe in an ex, maybe someone who came across, that we think that's just endemically shitty. It's really difficult. And what do we do with that? I think it's too Hollywood to go, I love you anyway, or it's beautiful or whatever. You know, it's like, no. Because actually they are awful, like, or it was awful. It was awful. And it's kind of no excuse. So then there's the question of, right, what do we do with that?

1:07:48I mean, there is a way in which, of course, it chews up your life. That's what I mean. Right. How do you stop it? How can you die without it ruining your life? Yeah. And I do think then you require a dose of salutary pessimism of going, they were my parent. And I carry it as a wound forever that that parent who should have been there for me did not act as they should. I can't reinvent my notion of children and parents. I can't pretend that something was that wasn't or wasn't that was. I don't want to twist my sense of it. I've got to stay loyal to my feeling that something went really badly wrong here.

1:08:32And I can't just give a Hollywood ending to this. The question is, yeah, how does one act next? And I do think there's then a way of looking away, just saying, okay, I refuse to keep looking at that. I'm just going to look at others. I know it. I've seen it. I've wept. I've done the work. Now, onto something else. Because life is short, and there are other people who do not have this issue, I let it go. There is a certain dignity in sometimes just saying, something awful here, just park it, just move away. I don't forgive it. I understand it. I'm not naive about it. I'm just going elsewhere, thanks very much, to protect yourself.

1:09:11But of course, at some point, everybody reaches that stage known as adulthood, where whatever tragedy they suffered, you think, okay, you had the power that is in an adult to take responsibility, to change, to not pass it on. So huge compassion for what you went through. But did you really need to do that thing? and then and then did you really need to over many years maybe not say sorry not properly acknowledge not probably go into it is that is that forgivable maybe not maybe not you know alan i i just got to say like i knew i mean i feel like i know your work but in a really um comfortable and eye-opening way you've made me look at

1:10:09lots of things differently I particularly will be enjoying my silences over the next few weeks and ruminating oh can we just finish I'd like to round up on dawn let's think about when the light of the new day comes and what that brings for you? That we are creatures of cycles and moods and we forget it about ourselves. We tend to think that what we think is fixed and fixed forever. And that hurts particularly when what we're thinking is quite dark. We think that's forever. No, it's not. It's a mood. It's a weather. There's weather. Constantly weather. And so though it looks rigid, though it looks like it will never shift, it will.

1:10:54It's shifted before and it will shift again. And when you're in a very happy mood, think, yeah, there'll be some dark weather too. It's just the mobile nature. We're made of water. Most of us is water. We're viscous. We think of ourselves as like something fixed and rigid. We're not. We're constantly mobile. We change. And there's beauty in that too, an acceptance of, you know, just as the weather's constantly got patterns of shifting ups and downs, so too the human mood is. And if we can accept that about ourselves and others, we'll be somehow lighter about the changes we keep needing to go through.

1:11:28And if anybody is experiencing a very, very dark moment, I'd just like to say if you're living in the UK that we are heading into autumn and then into winter and dawn comes at an acceptable time at this time of year. You know, actually to experience a dawn and watch it happen is a time of great hope. And that there is renewal again with we're going into another season. So the seasonal nature of existence is something we need to, you know, there's a giant metaphor in the idea that there is summer, autumn, winter, and then spring, that there is a springtime. Every day, there is a springtime, we're constantly experiencing springs, we're constantly experiencing autumns.

1:12:13And I think one of the things about despair is a sense of stasis, like we're fixed now, what is will always be. and I think anyone who's in that mood just think there will be a new mood you don't even know what it will be like you don't know think about despair is it's based on an assumption that you know what's coming and you don't you actually don't for better and for worse you do not know what's coming and you don't know how you're going to feel so surrender sometimes to thinking you know when you've tried everything else and you can't make progress think I don't I don't know where to go next but I'm just going to ride this rapid I don't know where I'm going to wind up I'm just going to keep going today don't know how I'll feel this evening I'm just going to keep going and tomorrow and the next day I don't know where this is heading but I'm just I'm just going to keep on going on this journey and see where I'll wind up without any prediction and that is just keep on keeping on that's a really nice expression in anonymous fellowships of just for today absolutely that we just keep it in one day absolutely and so there's always an end to this day and tomorrow there's a new dawn a new day new potential yeah let's see what that brings so beautiful so true thank you alan i'm gonna come over are you a hugger um i wasn't for ages and now i've become a full hugger i'm coming i'm coming in i'm gonna yeah like this oh good

1:13:45Thank you.