The Path to Long-term Happiness: A New Theory on Mental Health and Neurodiversity

Adam:

Hey there and welcome to This Anthro Life, where we dive into what it means to be human from a cultural, biological, archaeological, and linguistic perspective. I'm your host Adam Gamwell. Now today we're joined by Ryan Bush, who is a potent blend of philosopher, coach, and writer, and he's here to challenge the way that we think about mental health. Now you might be surprised to learn that these solutions to anxiety and depression aren't always what we've been told. Ryan's deep dive into ancient philosophy and modern psychology have led him to develop a theory that's turning heads. But what could Aristotle and virtue ethics have to do with the modern mind? It turns out, quite a lot. Today we're delving into the core concepts of virtue self-signaling theory, the idea that Ryan developed in his new book, Become Who You Are. We'll be looking at everything from the idea of cultivating strengths to how we apply virtue in our lives so we can strive towards becoming who we are and finding a deeper sense of happiness and fulfillment in life. We'll also be discussing Ryan's personal journey and his views on neurodiversity and the transformative power of a seemingly simplistic concept, self-approval. So don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss another episode or short form of This Anthro Life. And let's jump on in and traverse the uncharted territory between philosophy, psychology, and self-improvement. When I was first looking at this book, you were opening up this new theory of mental health, which is really interesting. How do we rethink that and why do we need to rethink that? Two of the major prevalent issues that a lot of folks are facing today, anxiety and depression, I think are areas that I'm glad we're seeing to get more attention in media and conversations medically. But you've brought this whole new way of thinking about this idea of how do we rethink approaching these kinds of questions?

Ryan: 

It goes back quite a long way. I've been studying a lot of these different disciplines that I think you've been very interested in as well. I got very interested into an ancient philosophy, like Stoicism, Buddhism, this kind of thing. you know, increasingly interested in modern psychology, clinical psychotherapy, and evolutionary psychology. And I started, you know, finding connections between all these fields, you know, connections that I, at the time, I couldn't quite piece together, but I had sort of been working on it for years. And then, you know, combined with some of my own experiences, a lot of these things sort of click together. And so one of the questions is like, why do these things happen in our minds? Why do we have self-esteem? Why do we have these things that we value across cultures? Why do we have this, what seems to be an overarching scale of wellbeing that goes all the way up to like being deeply satisfied beyond just simple pleasure and all the way down to clinical depression? And the why question is not one of those questions that you hear about a lot in psychology. Normally we're just looking at how the mind works, what we observe, what we see in neuroscience on the sort of physical correlates. But ultimately, we have to be able to make sense of these mental phenomena in a hunter-gatherer society, in a tribal world. And so I'm kind of asking a lot of these questions about, okay, why does self-esteem exist and why do we care so much about it? That's not necessarily a given. right? Why do we have these moods? And why would depression exist when it seems to be, you know, crippling from a genetic or a social standpoint? A lot of things just don't seem to add up. And then looking at clinical therapy, when we when we see that people who are you know, deeply depressed, very often have a very low opinion of themselves. And the most effective treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy often work by, you know, essentially boosting that view of yourself and clearing any distortions that may be in your way to a clear and positive sense of self. And so connecting a lot of these dots together led me to what I've called virtue self-signaling theory, which is sort of a synthesis of findings within all of these different fields into what you might call a psychological theory of everything kind of thing.

Adam:

Psychological theory of everything. I like that too. But I think it's a really compelling argument that you've put together too. And one level too, because I think one of the things that I was struggling with thinking through as kind of going through the book, and I think it's an interesting idea, is that on the one hand, we have kind of the biomedical definition of depression, right? It's kind of a chemical imbalance and that's something that like, tilts us in one direction. And I think you also, uh, interestingly pointed out that, that oftentimes if we're trying to medicalize something or add medicine to it, like that may get at a symptom, but rarely can get at the cause itself. Right. And so I think what's interesting there too, like, as you just mentioned that kind of CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy, and even dialectical behavioral therapy to kind of came to mind is things that we actually have to do. Right. And so like taking medicine is an action shore, but there's, there's more to it than just like popping a pill, right? There's something about actually shifting the way that we act in the world. And it's interesting because, you know, as you noted too, like that's in this challenging conversation that we as Homo sapiens and as a species that has evolved in like, or that we're kind of this, this way that we are for the past 200 plus thousand years, we have these kinds of like vestiges or these kinds of areas of parts of ourselves that may or may not be super helpful today. You know, obviously we've changed in a, we have not changed, but the world has changed very rapidly in the past 500 and then 150 and then 50 years. And so all these, like we're really struggling on some level to kind of keep up with the changes that we ourselves invented. But at the same time, like there's value in kind of understanding both where we came from and how that, that can understand like what works and what doesn't work. And so I want to kind of think about this idea too, in terms of from like the evolutionary psychology perspective that you talk about in the book too, I thought was really interesting is how, how do we kind of think about and both be okay with, but then learn to kind of work with and maybe pass some time, some of those vestiges of like, again, What is self-esteem doing for us? Like, you know, why do we have it back? What does it do for us back in the day? And like, why is it. A little bit differently today or how does the world make it, I guess, come out differently in our, in our ways. And how do we, how do we kind of think about that?

Ryan: 

Yeah, so here's kind of the view of self-esteem that I've gradually developed and some of the influences that have led to that. So I sort of start out introducing this theory with this idea of the peacock's tail, which Darwin famously said that the sight of a peacock's tail makes him sick, because it took a long time to sort of understand why these things that don't seem to aid our survival would exist. we've got things like these birds of paradise with these extremely elaborate colors and songs and dances. And, you know, it took a while to realize that in many ways, the reason why these traits have been selected and preserved is specifically because they didn't aid the survival of that organism, because that indicated a degree of fitness that became attractive to social allies and mates and these things. And so, What Jeffrey Miller argues in his book, The Mating Mind, is essentially that human virtues, these mental traits that we have, like generosity and creativity, essentially evolved in the same way that the peacock's tail did. These are basically fitness indicators that while they don't directly serve our survival, they allow us to navigate the social space. or at least in our sort of ancient tribal world, they allowed us to navigate the social space there and sort of contend with it. And so the idea becomes, well, okay, these traits that we have are extremely important from a just evolutionary standpoint, if these are what are sort of being selected. And if that's the case, it would make sense that we would have a mechanism in our brains for monitoring how we're doing, right? And so this ties into what's called the sociometer theory of self-esteem, which to me is the most sort of compelling theory on self-esteem that takes our evolutionary sort of origins into account. And so this says that basically the reason why self-esteem can fluctuate is because it is there to simulate our social world. It's there to simulate our social standing, our social status. And as a result, you know, it's not necessarily a malfunction when our self-esteem goes down. That gives us some kind of indication that we need to change something about our social presentation and about these traits, these virtues, I call them, and that they've been called for quite some time through the history of philosophy. These traits are essentially what this mechanism in our mind is monitoring and trying to get us to improve and optimize. And so I'll kind of get into how this ties into what you're saying about the chemical imbalance theory, because a lot of people have this notion that they just have a serotonin deficiency if they are depressed, if they have kind of a chronically low mood. But kind of looking back at this question of, okay, well, why would so many people have a serotonin deficiency? right, when our brains have been carefully optimized over the course of thousands, millions, you could say, years. And I have come to the conclusion that, well, Our brains are dynamic feedback systems. They are taking into account lots of things in our environment. They're taking into account our own behaviors. They're taking into account the social landscape and the way other people react to us. And they are regulating chemicals in our brains accordingly, right? They are raising our mood when it would be advantageous and bring about positive behaviors and lowering our mood when that's advantageous. And so it sort of brings us to this idea that it is this simulator in our brains that's actually elevating and lowering our overall sense of well-being. It's this social simulator in our brain that is responsible for depression. And that's why I say that depression is caused by identity failure. It's very unlikely to be this chemical imbalance thing. The numbers are really bleak if you look at the sort of success rates of pharmaceuticals intending to simply raise chemicals based on a deficiency model.

Adam: 

Yeah. I think that's a really interesting point too. I mean, at the one level also, because we think about us as people, right, or as humans, It's, I think, difficult to reduce us to chemical processes only, right? That it's kind of like, are we really just a bunch of singular parts that then can be added up to be the whole, it's kind of like, or is there more, more happening, you know, in us to, to kind of create that self. And so I think that's, I think a really compelling stance that you're seeing and kind of putting forth there too, that it's, you know, we see depression as linked to this form of identity value, which I thought was, you know, also this really interesting idea that you, you explore. And obviously identity is a sense of who I have, who I am. Right. But then, you know, since we're thinking about this kind of in a sociometer perspective, that it is also in terms of it's my social simulator of how do I think other people are conceiving of me, like the kind of person that I am. I think that's really interesting to tease out and think about this idea that as we want to get a sense of basically the opposite of identity failure, identity success, I suppose, right? Is this idea of getting a sense of what are the successful traits or virtues that I want to cultivate in myself. And so let's kind of open up that side of it too. And thinking about this, this notion, if we're thinking about that, there's kind of identity failure that I'm, I guess maybe we should say it this way too, that what I hear you saying here too, is that depression is pointing us towards this idea that I'm not being the kind of person that I want to be, or I'm not exhibiting the kind of traits that I think I should be doing or things like that. And I think that's a, the interesting notion that, you know, when I've talked to the folks that have had severe depression, I mean, I mean, I think I, many of us probably had, have had depressive episodes in our lives. Right. And there's something that, that, that, that resonates where it's this idea that like, I'm just, I don't either feel like I have the motivation or capacity to do things. You know, I don't want to kind of either get out of the bed or not, not kind of acting in the ways that I think would be good. But I think that that's an interesting way to kind of look at this too, is that it's, seeing something a little bit off in our kind of sociometer that we're not being the kind of person that we want to be in that, I guess where my brain is going with this is that, is there a causal relationship, I guess is what I'm trying to think about here. Like, or do you see a causal relationship that, that depression can cause identity failure or that identity failure can cause depression or, I mean, or can it be a two way street? Like, how do you see that playing out?

Ryan: 

Yeah, so it's it's definitely a two way street in a sense, right? All these changes in our brains have consequences for our lifestyle and our behaviors. And that then comes back to have an influence on our brains. But what I've sort of concluded through this is that really, you could think of self esteem, like kind of a fuel gauge in your car. And you could think of social esteem as the actual fuel tank. And so, the tank is what really matters to the car, of course, and in many ways our social esteem is what matters to our genes and to our brains that we're sort of wired to preserve them, but as we've sort of developed this fuel gauge that is our self esteem. And the sort of low fuel light that comes on at the bottom is depression. So in other words, when your view of yourself gets low enough, when you are not seeing evidence of these admirable traits that we evolved to monitor ourselves for, that's when we start getting dangerously close to depression. And the reason why this happens, I believe, is because our brains are essentially trying to put us into a mood state that will not cause damage to our social status. So if we don't approve ourselves if we don't see evidence of these approvable traits, it's very likely that our tribe, which, you know, would have been of course 150 people who we've known for our whole life, and who has great implications for our survival and success in life. If they are not likely to approve of us, our brain is saying, stop whatever you're doing. It puts on the red light, has us socially withdraw, has us become socially risk averse, not take any behaviors that would risk really putting us out there and potentially putting our traits or lack thereof of approvable traits out there on display. The kind of cruel byproduct of that is this vicious cycle that we call clinical depression today. And so what tends to happen with people is that their mood goes down, which of course makes them not feel motivated to do things. They end up withdrawing and staying home, staying in bed in some cases. That causes them not to see evidence of their own approvable, admirable traits, which then causes their own self-approval not to have anything to go off of. And so that lowers their mood further. And it sort of continues this vicious cycle that people get trapped in. But ultimately, I think what's important is that it's really our brain observing our own behavior that is sort of regulating these mood states. And so I don't think that it's simply that depression causes us to have negative views of ourselves. I think that the negative views of ourselves bring about this mood state that, while it's good for our genes potentially, or would have been in the past, it's very much not good for us in the modern world.

Adam: 

Yeah, well said. And that's, I think, an interesting point of how we have to kind of contend with that. And so I think that's a nice kind of coverage to then move us to this idea of virtual self-signaling theory that you've put together in terms of how do we think about as a kind of modern architecture To help deal with this, this kind of feedback loop that we kind of get ourselves stuck in soft. And so for folks that are unfamiliar with this, this idea, like, let's break this down a little bit in terms of, um, we've, we've been talking a bit about virtues, right? So like on one hand, let's talk a bit about, I guess we'll start there. Like what, when you think about virtues. In a broad sense, like, you know, what, what I'm, I'm taking from this is that there, there are kinds of behaviors, activities, characteristics that I, that I do, that I, that I approve of, or that I think that are things that I would admire either in myself and, and, or others is that, is that kind of the right way to think about that?

Ryan: 

Yeah, exactly. So a lot of people have a very sort of stuffy, outdated connotation of virtue and that word and sort of conjures like moral purity to it. And I think the ancient Greeks actually had a much more sort of colorful view of virtue. And I think that maps on much better to the reality of these traits that we tend to approve of or disapprove of. So I say, when you think virtue, don't think the colorless mandates of morality, think the colorful plumage of exotic birds, because that's kind of what we're talking about in the brain. And so anything that you tend to approve of, and that cross-culturally humans tend to approve of, things like creativity and courage and compassion and charisma, these are the traits that our brains are looking for in us, and that we are the same reasons that we admire other people. Our brains are looking for reasons to admire us, ourselves. And so maximizing these virtues and making sure that our brain is getting the signal of these virtues through our behaviors is really what is pulling the strings of our well-being.

Adam: 

Yeah, I think that's really interesting in that. So this is the, it's one thing I was reflecting on as I was reading the book too, is this idea that we do kind of have this in the Western world, like this kind of challenge or we kind of think about, we think about thinking about the self is like selfish as a no-no, right? I think it's very puritanical in its roots in terms of like, you must always kind of be both outside the self. try to show virtue as, I like the, what did you say? I would think this kind of gray, boring ideal, right? Just like being good for the sake of being good. But I like this idea of we can hearken back to the useful forms of philosophy, right? Ancient Greek. I mean, also, I know you pull from Martin Seligman and Nietzsche and a bunch of other really, really interesting thinkers too, in terms of how do we put together the, a more kind of colorful theory of what virtue can mean. So I think part of it too, is like, do you find that people run into the, the discomfort of trying to say, how do I focus more on me? Um, this is, I mean, something that, that I, you know, both from a yogic and meditative practice have both learned and also like, is that like, we've, you know, you have to get over the selfishness as being a bad thing. Cause it's not about like saying, it's just me, I'm the best. It's more just like, I have to take care of this system. If I'm to do anything else in the world. Right. And, and, um, I guess I do find, do, do, do people, do people get stuck on that? I guess, like when you're saying be more selfish on some level, do you find folks get, get, get kind of caught up in that? Or is that something that it seems easier to kind of get over? I don't know.

Ryan: 

No, I think there are a lot of different angles that sort of attack this idea of taking care of yourself in a lot of ways. We do have these sort of guilt of sacrifice yourself, do things for others, put others first. But we also have this Eastern notion that this self and the ego in your mind is your enemy. And essentially, the key to happiness is to get rid of that sense of self and to transcend your ego entirely to the point where you don't have any of these self-referential thoughts or feelings or anything like that. And so I think there are a lot of barriers to sort of embracing this idea that The self and self approval is really intimately tied to our own well being. And if we don't have that fundamental well being if we get depressed. Well, then it doesn't matter because we were not very, we're not going to be very effective at helping others anyway right if our if we're in a crippling mood state ourselves. And so I've sort of concluded that altruism is very much something that overflows out of self-actualization and self-becoming. If you are working to maximize your virtues and sort of scale up your ability to exercise them and bring them out into the world, you're going to be doing good things for other people. That's going to be flowing out of you. And so really, really accepting this idea I think can be very liberating that there's an actual mechanism in our brain that is monitoring us, and in some ways rewarding us for doing things that traditionally would have been called, you know, selfless I mean if you come across a wallet, for example, and you're thinking about taking the money and you know there's not going to be consequences, you're not going to be caught. Well, ultimately, if there is this system in our brains that's regulating our mood according to our own self-approval, there very much is a consequence for doing something that is selfish in a narrow sense. And so it's almost like, get rid of this distinction between selfish and selfless and replace it instead with a very short-term and narrow selfishness and a very wiser sort of long-term selfishness. And that's the one we want to pay attention to.

Adam:

 So it's part of it too, is also echoing the need for, on a more global scale too, for us to stop thinking in quarters as business people and then to kind of think, let's actually We can think in quarters, but we also need to think in a long-term perspective as well. And not just in terms of what's going to happen in the next three months, but what's the next few generations of what we're producing. And it's interesting to kind of put the self in a similar framework of understanding that we have to, on one level, kind of work on multiple timelines. But I like the idea of cultivation as part of that too, because it's like this kind of work takes time also. You don't just change a virtue in oneself. You're like, oh, I got it. I uploaded XP, and I got enough points, and now I can download bravery or something. But I like this, the point of working towards it, I think is important. Something else that stood out to me in the book is this idea, when it comes to things like anxiety, it's easier for me to think about this in anxiety versus depression, but either way, it's like, we want to avoid it. We want to kind of say that I I'm anxious about a meeting I have tomorrow or something so I don't want to think about it or whatever, or I'm afraid to kind of go towards it but it's like, you know, we find that when we actually do the thing, it actually is much better for us right we feel better and like so there is there's a, an importance part of kind of approaching the challenge there. But something else you said that I want to put that in conversation with this other idea that you talk about in the book that suffering isn't good just by itself. The point is not to do something that makes you anxious because you're going to suffer, therefore you're going to build character. That's not the right idea. So how do we think about the idea of we do need to actually put in the work to make this happen, this, you know, to kind of cultivate both to understand our virtues and then to begin to cultivate them. But it's hard to do that, you know, but I guess the point is like, it's not about like going headfirst into suffering now. So how do we kind of keep people from, I guess, approaching it that way of like, well, this is just like suffering itself is virtuous, you know?

Ryan: 

Yeah, so the whole part one of the book is really providing this sort of dimensional framework that I think can give people a better map for navigating their own well-being. The middle part is very much kind of the theory behind it, but I want to actually make this intuitive map for people to use. And so I sort of introduced this idea that there's, you know, you can picture a chessboard in front of you. There's a y-axis and an x-axis, and these sort of represent pleasure and pain and loss and gain. And so this is the sort of narrow, two-dimensional way of navigating your life. It's basically trying to maximize either short-term pleasure or long-term gain in your circumstances, right, and avoid loss and pain. And so What I argue is no pleasure is bad. We should endure pain and suffering just for the sake of it, or that loss is somehow good. The point is that this whole two-dimensional map is inadequate. It misses the point, and it's not actually what our well-being corresponds to. And so if you imagine sort of extruding mountains and valleys off of this chessboard, so it's now kind of a topographical chessboard, right? These mountains and valleys are meant to represent this dimension of virtue. And so the goal is really to maximize your position on these mountains of virtue and to use pleasure, pain, loss, and gain, use your circumstances essentially as instruments for moving up in this third dimension. Yeah, you can think of these things like pleasure and circumstantial gain as being beside the point in that they don't move you up in that dimension, but they can be used as tools for that. So you can think about the domains in your life. I call them virtue domains that enable you to bring out and exercise your strengths, right? So your work would likely be one. Certain relationships will be one. You know, the animal shelter you volunteer at is one. but thinking about your life in terms of how do I elevate my virtue activation, right? Instead of just saying, you know, how do I get that job or like, you know, which job has the better salary and make the decision off of that, saying, okay, those things are potentially beside the point unless they serve this third dimension of virtue. So how do I move up? How do I climb these mountains? Regardless of whether it's maybe a little more painful for now, or maybe it's, you know, not as much of a gain on paper, And this is the real question to be asking. And I think this scales all the way from, if you're in the lows of potentially clinical depression all the way up to, I'm fine, I'm content in my life, but I don't really know where to go. I feel lost. This is the map that I propose we should all sort of switch over to

.

Adam:

 I think it's nice. And I'm not sure if you're familiar with Paul Miller's work, he wrote The Pathless Path relatively recently, but it was an interesting work because it's a bit about like a career development thinking pathway. But I mean, it's also just more like for many of us, you know, including yourself included that we have found ourselves a bit on the pathless path in terms of like entrepreneurship as a not defined career role. But the importance that he kind of talks about there too, and what I'm hearing an echo of is that So often we kind of go on a default path, which is like, we're told to get this job, get those relationships, we're supposed to go, you know, get this degree, get that car, get that house, whatever it is. And a lot of people kind of unreflexively follow that path. Right. And one of the tricks is that for some people that's fine. But for many of us, it's not the most fulfilling at the end of the day, especially because a lot of the markers on that path are supposedly supposed to be done by the time we're 30 or 35. We live a lot longer than that now. And so I think even these ideas in terms of like, I guess what I'm saying is like why I find the idea of like virtue domains really compelling is because it gives us, they're not fixed points that we typically have on a pathway of like, get this relationship, get that job by the time you're whatever, have this much saved by the time you're 28. But actually we can think about other areas that help us move towards the sense of self-actualization or that I feel like this is the kind of person that I want to be. You know, the animal shelter is a great example that you said there too. that is helpful where it's like they can happen at any different point. Thinking of my aunt who's retired, but she likes to volunteer at animal shelter. She didn't do that when she was 20, but she's doing it now. It's like these ideas that we can find these certain places that speak to the kinds of virtues that we want to cultivate in ourselves of kindness, caring at any point. So I think that's interesting also. So I guess as you think about this too, Do you find it helpful to think about a time dimension for virtue domains or is it kind of that they can, in this case, kind of pop up as we see them or basically is it we just kind of want to be in tune with ourselves as we find them?

Ryan: 

Yeah, so a few things on that. I mean, I think for one, what you're talking about with the pathless path, I think that's actually a really important idea. Because in some ways, until I was in my mid-20s, I kind of followed a conventional sort of path for my life, which is not the worst thing you can do from a virtue standpoint. You could do a lot worse than following the straight and narrow, but I think you hit a point where you find yourself limited by that and your ability to take that next step up. And so this is kind of where I found myself at when I started experiencing a little bit of depression several years ago. I was sort of felt trapped in this job where I was you know, grinding away on engineering, drafting drawings and, you know, not finding much expression for my creative and analytical strengths. And I was finding other, you know, domains in my life sort of shut down at the same general time. And in many ways, asking myself, okay, what are the things I've always been really good at? What have I always thrived at? What do I love doing? sort of creating a new vessel that there's no roadmap for, which, you know, ended up being designing the mind and this whole sort of business, whatever it is, right? It is the most perfect combination of my personal strengths that I could imagine. And so really deviating off of that path and moving toward something that was basically a unique expression of what I've always thrived at has been the most rewarding thing that I could think to do in my life. I mean, it's something I encourage people to do if they're at a decent place and aren't sure where to move further. It's like, how could you, I mean, feel free to go crazy on this, like how could you piece together all these different strengths from all these different areas into a coherent whole? and give yourself this new vessel for bringing out your strengths. And I think that's what I've done and what far too few people are able to find a way to do, I think.

Adam:

No, I think that's, I think that's right on too. It is. I think that's why it's important with the train of thought and like in through your work and your writing and the, you know, the courses and service that you offer too. I think it is really important. Cause it seems that more and more people are asking questions in terms of like, what does fulfillment mean? Like, what does it, like, how do I find that kind of life that's worth living? You know what I mean? Making the good life. Right. It's like, it's funny. It's, it's been one of the questions that we've asked. ever since we started asking questions. And we both have the answer to and always struggle to find it at the same time. And it's just one of these kind of interesting, these paradoxes, that's always the tension between being satisfied with what you have and then also looking a little bit over the horizon of what else might be around there. But I think it's interesting to think about that kind of tension that we all wrestle with in the idea of What does it mean to make a life that I feel is worth living? And I think that the question of meaning I think is really interesting too, that is a bit kind of infused throughout this work as well that you're looking at, because as we think about what's the kind of person that I want to be and what virtues do I want to be able to cultivate and see in myself through my behaviors, I guess I'm thinking about how do we think about the relationship between that and meaning? And the reason I'm asking this is because And perhaps you find some of this in working with folks in your coaching services and coursework, and that as people are thinking about their jobs, as this used to be something that folks in the boomer generation and before us would work at the same place for 40, 50 years. And that doesn't necessarily mean there's meaning in that, but there's something about the idea of having a solid sense of identity in that regard. better for worse in different areas. But now it's not uncommon for folks that are under 40 to change their job 10 times in their lifetime. And there's more entrepreneurs than ever also. So I'm wondering in terms of how do we think about building a meaningful life as part of this also, and how virtues can help us do that? I guess it sounds like an obvious question, but I'm not going to say the answer is obvious. How do we connect those two dots together?

Ryan:

 No, I don't think I'm going to give an obvious answer at all. I tend to think meaning is kind of a red herring in terms of all this. Meaning, I call it a philosophical mystery meat sometimes, because it just sounds good to say, no, you should do what's meaningful. That's the right answer. But everyone has a different idea of what exactly meaningful is. And it's kind of just this vague, sound good kind of thing to say. But I also, you know, I look at some of my own experiences and I say, okay, well, when I was in college, I was pretty happy, pretty fulfilled, right? I had a lot of things going on. I was loving the work I was doing. It was pushing me to my creative limits. I had social community around me. That was a good time. Was it meaningful? Well, I didn't know what I wanted to do yet for a lot of that time. I didn't have like a clear sense of purpose. I wasn't necessarily contributing beyond myself and it was still really good. So does that mean that it doesn't need to be meaningful? You could imagine the opposite scenario where you know, someone is doing something that's really serving a greater purpose beyond them, but it's not giving them much expression for their unique strengths, right? Maybe they're not even really particularly good at what they're doing, and they can't have a life outside of their work. And, you know, they might say, this is really meaningful work I'm doing, but I'm miserable. And so I don't know that there's this necessarily this really close relationship. In general, I feel like The fact that what I'm doing feels meaningful to me today is kind of like the cherry on top of the sundae of what makes it enjoyable. But I think this virtue framework maps on much more nicely to when we actually feel like we're at a good place in our life and when we don't. If you ask, how can I bring out more of my strengths in my life, whether that's work strengths or interpersonal strengths, like my sense of humor, whatever it is, if you ask how you can bring more of those out, the inevitable sort of byproduct is that bringing out more of your virtues is going to serve more people, right? Being able to share those strengths beyond yourself is going to do something that you would end up calling meaningful. And so I think while it's a good checkbox to have, I don't think meaning is as important to pay attention to as virtue is.

Adam: 

That was good. That was a non-obvious answer. That was nice. But I think it's interesting because a lot of psychology self-help keeps pointing us towards that question, but I think you articulate that well, that meaning can be a byproduct in many areas, especially if we're focusing on the idea of cultivating strength that we can have that ultimately can, I think, attach themselves to some semblance of meaning. But I guess it is also this, it might be a circular logic argument too, where in terms of we feel like we get a sense of meaning because we're doing a thing that we're strong at, and then it feels like it feels good to do it. It's kind of like, I remember in sixth grade, I've always been bad at math and the kids that were good in math in the class would always be like, I like math because I'm good at it. I'm like, yeah, okay, I guess that makes sense.

Ryan:

 And you're good at it because you like it and you practice it a lot.

Adam:

 Yeah. Right. And so, I mean, maybe actually the middle point is that it's like practice, right? It's like, I mean, to come back to the B of behavior, CBT, right? It's like, it is about behavior that we have to do it. So let's, I do want to give some some appropriate attention to the behavior of it too. I mean, that is a huge piece in terms of the application part of the book. It's like, how do you do the work, right? The theory is, I think, incredibly interesting. But then of course, theory without application is just theory, right? So let's put that in Go time. And so you spend a significant portion of the book helping us kind of get in our heads. How do we bring this theory into action? How do we put this into play? And so what I guess, you know, in a broad sense, like some of the strategies that stand out, like after putting the book together and thinking about it, like what sticks with you as people ask, like, how do I make sure I can put into place or into play behaviors that helped me do that. I mean, for some reason, or some of the things I liked is, I mean, you talked about, that's like, it's actually as simple as like taking time to write down what virtues you like, and then getting a sense of, you know, if I think about these and other people, what do I admire from them? And then how do I cultivate those in myself? And I think, I think you literally say at some point is actually as simple as that, but like the tell me, walk me through that a little bit in like this process of like, is it, is it, is it that simple?

Ryan:

 Simple, but not easy. Yeah. I mean, one of the simplest exercises, it's almost like you don't even want to like try it because it seems too simple to work. But if you are experiencing like depression and you are struggling with these things, you're very low on this sort of well-being scale. One of the most effective things you can do is called behavioral activation, which is literally just creating a daily schedule of activities that you're going to do. Making sure you actually do things so that your brain is able to see evidence of these traits is really important. And so even if you're at the very bottom of the scale and you're struggling to get out of bed every day, just making yourself get out of bed, take a shower, just putting something like that on your daily activity schedule is going to lift you up a little bit and pull you out of that cycle. to the point where eventually you'll be able to add, okay, go on a walk every day, read a book, call a friend, and you sort of can climb your way out by doing this because you're gradually showing your brain more of that virtue, you're elevating your self-esteem, and your mood is rising along with it. And so this is one of the most helpful things you can do and proven to be one of the most effective things you can do if you are pretty low on that scale and you are struggling with depression. Now, if you're a little higher up, you can you can kind of go back to the drawing board and you can look at some of the people you have admired in your life. You can look at people in your actual life, you can look at historical figures, fictional characters, whatever it is that you find something that you admire in. And writing down that list and being very careful to write down which traits specifically you admire about these people. And what will happen if you do this in a very comprehensive way, you'll essentially have a map for who you need to become, right? These are these impulses of evaluation that are sort of built into our brains, like this blueprint of self becoming. And so if we use this as a map to actually navigate Where do I go next? Who do I try to become next? Trying to become the ultimate admired individual of your own values is kind of the perfect compass to use. There are a lot of distractions to this ultimate thing. There are a lot of people telling you what a person of your group or culture or whatever is supposed to do. And if you just focus on this internal compass of what would enable me to admire myself the most, I think that that is the most direct path to what you should be doing. I also think you should be asking what you are good at already because many cases doubling down on your strengths is more effective than trying to pull all of your weaknesses up to just adequate. And so asking yourself, there are a lot of quizzes you can take. Martin Seligman has a great survey on your signature strengths. You can also just ask people in your life, you know, what have you always thought I was good at, right? Just asking this can tell you the things to really double down on and say, okay, my creativity, my wisdom, you know, these are the things that I pride myself on the most. I'm going to really try to amplify these. in the sort of vessels that I build in my life. And so the strategies kind of evolve as they go up, but it's the same fundamental idea. And this is something that I don't think cognitive behavioral therapy, as effective as it is, has really pieced together, that this is not just a treatment for an illness. This is a prescription for enhancing your well-being all the way up the scale.

Adam: 

That's really interesting too. And I think that, yeah, I had not conceived of it that way, but that's an interesting point in terms of like, what is, like, basically how are we defining why CBT is necessary? Right. And I think you're right where it's like, it's treating an illness or a point of imbalance. Whereas I think you're right that it's, you know, we can actually approach the idea of understanding and kind of designing our domains as it were, right. As a way to kind of help build that sense of becoming like the idea of the hierarchy of becoming Um, it's an interesting idea, right? And so even this, even this point, I like what you're saying there too, because I was actually looking at, uh, uh, one of the quotes that you have from Martin Seligman talking about this idea of like, if your strength is creativity, you can choose to set aside two hours to begin working on a screenplay. If you identify hope and optimism as your strength, you can write a column in local newspaper, right? We expressed hope about the future for a space program, which sounds nice. You can, you know, self-control the strength, you know, you can, you can choose to work out at the gym rather than watching TV. Like, I think it was really helpful about this too, is, is to that point that like it, you can see how it can, it can easily scale up and be in. require different kinds of behaviors, but it's like also pointing out that there are everyday things that we can do with it. And that's really important too. And it's like kind of cultivating the good life. And I think about cultivate is like similar to farming. You actually have to work the dirt and you do that daily. Right. And it's like, not this thing that you like throw a seed and say, all right, cool. Hopefully it'll show, you know, later on.

Ryan:

Yeah.

Adam:

Yeah. Yeah. But it's not like so alien to us that it's like, how do I, how do I even do this? Right. It's like, you know, we, we all have strengths. And part of it is like, kind of, I think also just becoming okay, saying what am I good at? Right. Like, I think part of it too, is like, there's been a lot of this, this kind of culture, I think, and I'm curious about this too, like that I'm not blaming. Therapy or psychology, because these are helpful tools for understanding ourselves, but like when we medicalize and, you know, like the, the DMDSM DSM five is right now the diagnostic and statistical manual in psychology, you know, is. as continually medicalizing more types of things and showing the problematization of them. And I'm by no means anti-medicalizing things as we need to, but I wonder, to your point here, you said that We can, I think, help CBT also kind of recognize it's it's prescriptive capacity to help us also live a good life, right? It's not just about correcting something. And so I guess, you know, is this something, this, this perspective that came out of doing this book, something that you've kind of seen across your, your own life, or how'd you find yourself coming to this stance and, and, you know, how else can we apply it? Cause I think it's a great, it's a great idea of like, let's, let's look towards wellness, not just correcting something that that's off.

Ryan: 

Yeah, so I've long reflected on the medicalization of mental health. I mean, just saying that phrase, it sounds very sterile and serious. And it's like, okay, well, let's look at the equivalent in the physical health world. We've got physical therapy, obviously, which if you get injured, you hurt a muscle or something, then yeah, you need to go to physical therapy. right? But you also can go and exercise. You can do CrossFit and yoga or whatever, even if you're not hurt. Well, where is the mental equivalent of CrossFit, right? Or whatever it is. And it's kind of like there's almost not one. And so that's what is behind psychitecture and that whole sort of discipline that I coined in my first book. And then, you know, MindForm is my version of a mental health gym, essentially. It is about moving up that scale of well-being, even if you don't have an illness or a neurosis. It's asking, how can I get higher and build a stronger, healthier mind? In terms of this book, it kind of fit in nicely when this all clicked together, because I realized, yeah, the best times in my life have been the times when I approved of myself the most highly. And the worst times in the lives of clinical depression patients, they are highly disapproving of themselves, often believing that they are incompetent, unlovable, and worthless. And so it meshes nicely with that idea that it is a continuum, and we don't just need to focus on treating an ailment. We need to focus on just moving up, on elevating our minds from wherever they're at.

Adam: 

Yeah, no, I think that's a great point. I mean, I love the idea of the kind of the mental fitness gym, you know, it's like, it's, you know, you don't just go to the gym, because you you have a physical issue. I mean, you usually wouldn't go to the gym at that point. So it's kind of like, let's, let's, let's be good to kind of go there in the first place. I think that's, that's an important piece. And I think also something else that this is, I don't know if it's tangentially related or not, but there's something else that stood out to me that was really interesting. I think it's in the middle part of the book, but around the idea of neurodiversity in terms of the evolutionary strengths and challenges there. Because I think as we're seeing more and more folks either be diagnosed with this again. So it's part medicalization, I think, but then also, actually, this is actually what, sorry, my brain's saying this is why this is related now. Yes. Because we diagnose and say we medicalize neurodiversity. But I think you're asking something interesting that when it comes to evolutionary strengths, that there's something about both neurodiversity, but the rarity of them versus the typicality. And that's like, I don't know, let's toss that in the pot and see how that stirs in there too. Because it's an interesting piece to play with.

Ryan: 

Yeah, well, part of what inspired thinking about the neurodiversity stuff is that part of my struggle with a period of depression was grappling with the diagnosis of my own autism, right? And deciding that I was autistic, basically, and having a lot of friends who are also like, who have ADHD and other kinds of neurodivergence. And a lot didn't add up to me about the fact that these are purely disorders, because these individuals very often seem to have unique strengths in certain areas, even if they struggle in others. I started looking at other animal species throughout the animal kingdom and seeing examples of what's called frequency-dependent selection, where basically certain combinations of traits are selected in a small percentage of the population specifically because they are rare and this makes them sort of admirable and coveted. So you can see in guppies like a certain really colorful combination of, you know, scales will occasionally come about and it's preserved Basically, because if it becomes common enough in the population that it's typical, it's no longer really appreciated or highly selected by mates, and so the costs outweigh the benefits. But if it is rare, then it's worth it and it justifies the costs. because mates will say, oh, that's rare. That's like a coveted trait. So I started looking at neurotypes from this standpoint, that these are actually evolutionary adaptations. That's why they exist. That's why they've been preserved, even though they are treated like a purely negative disorder. And that's also why we see that very often a rare combination of strengths come along with some of these difficulties with either social, you know, social interaction or cognitive function. Some of these things, particularly the difficulties I think get amplified in the modern world, but I fundamentally think that these basically came about because they come along with rare, admirable traits.

Adam: 

Yeah, that really spoke to me. I've been diagnosed with adult ADHD only a few years ago, and it took me a while to also kind of recognize what that means and what does that mean for myself and how I operate in the world and why certain things seem to be getting harder as I got older. And then it's like, oh, that gave me some definition, but it was also this important point of like, not getting down on myself or not getting down on the idea of like it as a diagnosis. Right. And so I think that it's even cooler to add this extra layer of, in terms of like frequency dependent selection in terms of like the evolutionarily about the role they play. And it's like, cause I was thinking of like a, the, a correlative like, you know, I vision, right. If I need, if I need glasses, that's become much more of an important issue in the modern world because we read tiny texts all the time. Right. Like, but you know, for the vast majority of human history, we're not reading books. And obviously reading has become a fundamentally and massively important part of, of how we be in the world today. And so it's an interesting idea that like, that's also been normalized, like, like in terms of that. And we don't even, we don't even like think about that. Almost, I guess, like we don't like the medical side of needing glasses. It's just so common that people have it. Right. So it is, it's like not seen as cool or maybe different. I, I, people, I say reading is sexy. Maybe glasses make you look smarter or something. But it's not seen as unique as the sets of conversations we're seeing around neurodiversity. And not that they're necessarily going to do the same thing as needing glasses, but it's an interesting question of where we see the connections between what we tend to medicalize, what we see as rare advantageous traits, and then what gets normalized. And so I guess part of it too, as I'm coming away with this, all these things in terms of ourselves and senses of identity can change and they can change radically. Obviously, if we get a diagnosis or something changes in our physical world, either way, it's like then that gives us a moment to reflect on what strengths we do have, right? To come back to the virtue piece too. I think there's a strong thread kind of across your work here is that we can kind of, as a way to both stabilize ourselves and then also bounce back when things get kind of knocked off keel. Right. We can kind of say, what strengths can I go back, go back to? I think that's like a really helpful, really helpful piece. The one word I'd add there too, we haven't said, I don't think we've said the E word yet. Eudaimonia, if I can say that right. Yeah. And so as, as just kind of the cherry here to kind of put that, and we've talked about the idea of like, you know, kind of getting to the actualization piece of ourselves, but so eudaimonia is an important part of obviously of how you're, how we're thinking about how do we become who we are, um, both in terms of a philosophical underpinning, but then also what that can look like in our lives. So I guess just as, as one piece there too, like, how do we kind of add that idea in here? Like when you're trying to say like, what is it that I'm trying to understand that I'm doing is eudaimonia a goal or is it the kind of like the, the ultimate point or like what, what is, what role, I guess, well, what is it? say that first, and then what are we trying to get to when it comes to it?

Ryan: 

Yeah. So eudaimonia is a very old word. It comes from ancient Greek philosophy, and it basically means the good life, but it refers to a very specific kind of happiness. And it is pretty much universally argued in these ancient philosophies that virtue and eudaimonia have a very tight knit relationship, that basically the more virtue that you exhibit in your life, the closer you get to this ultimate state of well-being called eudaimonia. And so what I sort of propose in this book is sort of a modernization of this idea and actually saying, yeah, they were onto something, right? Their intuition told them 2000 years ago that I get happier And I'm of a better mood in general when I am acting in a way that I highly approve of. And so they started talking about virtues that long ago and how it's important, if not the only thing that matters to the good life, is that we are demonstrating virtue. the Stoics took a particularly extreme stance. They said, you can literally be locked up in a war camp and still be just as happy as someone else if you are basically acting in as virtuous a way as you can, given those constraints. So if you're still demonstrating courage and justice and wisdom, you can achieve the same level of happiness as someone who's living in a mansion, right? You know, Aristotle took a bit more nuanced of a view and said, you know, your circumstances affect your ability to bring out these virtues and approach this state of eudaimonia. But ultimately, they were kind of in agreement on this. And I think that it actually maps on to our mental health studies today. I mean, I think eudaimonia is essentially the opposite of depression. It's at the top end of this mood scale, whereas clinical depression is at the bottom. And so I think this is a very real state of, you know, deep well-being and great self-approval that comes when you do the opposite of what brains about depression, which is demonstrate traits that you yourself highly approve of, that cause you to admire yourself and then you're going to be in a great mood and you're going to be active and feel like doing things as opposed to, you know, feeling kind of crippled by your mood.

Adam: 

That's cool. And I think what's nice about it too, is that it gives us a philosophical anchor to a psychological argument. I think this is nice too, because another thing I appreciate about how you approach both psychotecture and becoming a UR and your work in general is that you do a good job of helping bring the practical side of philosophy into play. And so it's like, as an anthropologist, which is like, some people say we're the philosophical science, Um, you know, it's like, I appreciate that. Like we, we have to defend the practicality of sometimes of, of like, let's think through these, these ideas, like, what does it mean to be human? And what does it mean to be well in the world? Right. And so, so anyway, I just want to give kudos. I appreciate that you, you're like, you, you stick, you, you stick to the practical philosophy piece and you say, this is what it actually looks like. Um, and demonstrate that. And I think that's, that's good because I'm always, we need more philosophers in the world, I think, but, um, you know, especially philosophers that do stuff, you know, it's, it's a, it's a key thing that we need today. You know, thinking, thinking more thinking is good.

Ryan: 

Yes. The sort of academic philosophy has sort of neglected a lot of these practical philosophers, but they were very much onto something and it's every bit as relevant today as it was back then. The human mind hasn't fundamentally changed. And so these insights about achieving the good life and cultivating deep wellbeing are very much still applicable to us today. And I think modernizing them and adding some research behind them is a great way to kind of amplify that and build on what they did.

Adam: 

Right on, right on. So, uh, I guess this is a wrap up question. Thank you. I mean, this has been, this has been really great to chat with you so far and I appreciate you taking the time. Like what's, what's next on the docket here? You know, we've got Become Who You Are coming out. I'm excited to get that into the hands, ears, and eyes of, of the audience and our community. But, um, you know, what are you hoping to, what are you hoping to build next or, or what's on the, uh, on the radar?

Ryan: 

Oh, very exciting question. Yeah, we've got some big stuff built, especially if things go really well with this launch of this book. So I've got MindForm software that I want to develop that will sort of give people a way to track and optimize these traits and mental habits and make corrections to their distorted beliefs and enhance their emotions. I also, you know, when I said I wanted MindForm to become kind of a mental fitness gym, I have ambitions of creating physical, like brick and mortar sort of mental fitness gyms, essentially, in places where people can gather and explore these ideas. And so that one's a little further down the road, but these are big things I want to do next. Right now, very much focused on this launch of this book. So if anyone's interested, it should hopefully be available for pre-order by the time that this airs. And so I'm excited to share Become Who You Are with everyone.

Adam: 

Awesome. Cool. No, same, same. So thank you so much for putting it out in the world and I'm excited to get post reactions and we'll be happy to share those as I hear from folks as well. But it's been great to talk with you, Ryan, again, really admire your work and all that you're doing in the world. So thanks for, thanks for getting it out there and putting it out there and then all the great stuff that you're doing.

Ryan: 

Yeah, thanks so much, Adam. Really enjoyed it.

Adam: 

Wow. That certainly was a deep dive into ourselves, wasn't it? So a huge thank you to Ryan Bush today for joining me on this Anthro Life and discussing the importance of self-exploration and the process of becoming who you are. So as we depart, I want to leave you with a question and maybe a little homework in the nicest way possible. I'm inviting you to think about what kinds of virtues that you might want to cultivate in your own self. And you can see a list of these in Ryan's book, as well as some of the show notes that we'll have below. If you're interested in topics like these, like mental health, happiness, success, and wellness, I encourage you to check out other episodes of This Anthro Life as we continue to dive into the Shwin experience. If you want to go even deeper, go ahead and look at the Anthro Curious sub stack. It's also linked in our show notes. You can find blogs from myself, as well as other authors, guests, and folks around the Anthro Curious community. there we delve into the vast worlds of anthropology, culture, life, and everything that makes us human. So, until next time, I hope you stay curious, stay compassionate, and keep asking what it means to be human. You've been engaging with This Anthro Life, and I'm your host Adam Gamwell. We'll see you next time.