Daniel Quinn

Stand out in a different way.

There's a book by Daniel Quinn that might help lock that principle into people's memories.

If they give you lined paper, write sideways.

I

It doesn't matter.

Uh, this book is, uh, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.

And, uh, are you guys into Libby? Do, so-

Libby app?

But not every book is good for me.

Right.

And so, um, this, I don't know if Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, which it's a, it's a trilogy, so it's Ishmael, the Story of B, and My Ishmael.

I don't know if I would've loved it if I read it today for the first time.

Our grandparents, great-grandparents, they did that.

Have you read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn? Yeah.

Long time ago.

That was another book for me where I'd have to put it down and I was like, there was this buzzing in my ears, like a lightning bolt moment.

These are the texts that rip the roof off your house, pull you out of your daily routine, and force you to stare up at the cosmos

And the first concept to rip the roof off is from Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, published in 1992.

Now, the setup of this book is wild

Very unconventional

It's called identity protective cognition.

When you present someone with facts that contradict their core identity, their brain perceives it as a literal threat to their survival, and they reject the facts

But Daniel Quinn bypasses this completely

By using the Socratic method.

If you really want to understand the world and the problems we face philosophically, ecologically, scientifically, you can really understand almost everything you need about the world when it comes down to food.

And we're all fans of Daniel Quinn and so much of the core of his book.

One of the ultimate theses of his books is we live in a world under which food is under lock and key.

And if you want to know what's the problem with the world, look at that.

I've never created an episode like this, but I woke up one morning and I just had this intuition that I should go for a walk and record a voice memo.

Sometimes I'll come up with notes for an episode on that, but...

I walked for like an hour and I just was talking into my phone on this morning walk, listening to birds and walking around my neighborhood and trying to kind of piece together ideas that are certainly inspired by reading Daniel Quinn, specifically his book Tales of Adam, which is this.

great like kids book but beyond you know book for everyone about a father and son hunter gatherer Adam is bringing his kid Abel along and teaching Abel not only just like you know how you'd think that like what what's the most important thing a hunter father's teaching his son it's like how to catch the animals but actually it's an entire worldview, ideology, philosophy that emerges from being a hunter-gatherer, which Daniel Quinn wasn't just pulling out of his butt.