Most Replayed Moment: Alain de Botton - Individualism Is Making Us Miserable!

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

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Steven Bartlett (0:34)

You got me thinking about this concept of happiness as you're speaking, and whether it's a natural thing for our species to be aiming at, or whether it's a new, more modern thing that we've decided to focus upon. And are we causing ourself immense distress in this pursuit of this thing that maybe our ancestors didn't ever think about? We think about self-actualization, and they were probably thinking about survival and reproduction more.

Alain de Botton (0:59)

Look, these all belong to the sort of paradoxes of modern times. Modern times have obviously brought us enormous advantages, but they've also brought us particular complexities that I think would be wise to realise. And one of them is the disappearance of religion. I mean, we are still among the first generations in many parts of the world to be trying to live good lives without the support of religion. Think of our religion's structure time and human experience in time. As a religious person, you immediately feel that the present moment is not as important as 100, 200, 2,000 million year history that has come before and that will continue after. The present moment is a speck in time, and there's a whole narrative of which you're part of. That immediately diminishes you in scale. Now, nowadays, all of us want to be rather large, don't we? We want to be big people. We want to make a big impression. But arguably, this is a fast route to mental illness because the graceful acceptance of your miniscule position in the cosmos is the gateway to calm and harmony. And when people say, you know, I went into this hotel, the person made me feel small. That's a bad way of being made to feel small, but there's a good way of being made to feel small. Pick up an ancient text, read words that were written by someone in a foreign tongue 3,000 years ago. That'll make you feel small. Go into the desert. Notice the age of the rocks inscribed in, you know, time inscribed in sand. That'll put you in your place. Spend time with an animal that has no concern for your status, your sense of importance, your foiled narrative of your own success. All these things that drive modern humans mad, these are not present in an older kind of religious sphere. And as I say, what religions do is they tell us, you're part of a bigger story. They also tell us, many faiths tell us that life and you particular are imperfect. You know, think of Catholicism and its notion of original sin. Now, lots of bad stuff associated with original sin. I'm not a huge fan of many aspects, but let's look at the good side, right? What Catholicism tells us is that everybody's broken. Everybody is flawed. It's quite a helpful starting point, right?

Because if you think, well, all right, I'm a bit broken, but so is somebody else, so is somebody else. So we're all doing our best. That's the gateway to vulnerability, to friendship, if you like.

Steven Bartlett (3:31)

Lower expectations.

Alain de Botton (3:32)

Lower expectations, but also to connection with others. So often people who become successful find it really hard to make friends. Why? Because they associate success with invulnerability, and the more successful they get, the harder it is for them to admit to the real truth about being human, which is that we're all helpless children, some of the time, at least frightened, helpless children. And it becomes harder to make, to keep up the contact with that, let alone admit that to somebody else. So again, religions handily reduce our expectations and our sense of ourselves. We are merely flawed humans. There is a perfect world. It doesn't exist in Beverly Hills. It doesn't exist in the fancy parts of Singapore or Sydney. It exists up there in another world. In other words, the human realm is inherently imperfect. Quite a good starting point. I mean, even if you went on a date, right? Imagine two characters you might go on a date with, right? First one tells you, yeah, I'm kind of perfect, and I'm achieving, I'm aiming to achieve total perfection. Think, wow, good for them, but slightly scary. Next is somebody else who goes, I'm kind of flawed, but I'm sort of managing my flaws, and I'm interested in how to get to know my flaws and work with them. Instantly one thinks, life might be easier around such a person. There's something about the pursuit of perfection, which makes day-to-day life extremely hard, and religions, slightly by the by, tick that box. They were able to reduce us in our own eyes, while raising us in the eyes of a divine being.