Ben Greenfield on What Happens When the Pursuit of More Stops Being Enough

Yeah, you're so spot on with your comment about perfection because in the realm that you and I operate in and have been in for a while, the pursuit of perfection is kind of lauded.

You know, it's noble.

noble pursuit, and at the end of the day, and this is really the thrust of the film, an empty pursuit if that's where your identity lies, because at the end of the day, at some point, no offense to your podcast title or mine, which is boundless, we will break, right? At some point, The outer shell will fade away and our muscles will be stringy beef jerky and our bones will be porous and our brains will have plaque.

And everything that so many people nowadays, myself leading that movement for so long, put a lot of energy into... is pretty finite, right? And so if that's the mountain you're climbing and that's where you think happiness and fulfillment lies, right, in whatever, how many Ironmans you've done or the veins in your abs or the perfect diet or, you know, the modern obsession now with like the perfect blood and biomarker panel and, you know, your five-hour elaborate morning routine, you will have like little pockets of fulfillment and little rushes of dopamine along the way But at the end of the day, if you're trying to dump a bunch of finite, eventually fading...

If you're trying to put a bunch of energy into a finite, eventually fading goal, then you're going to be unhappy at some point.

The opposite of that is...

You know, something that I discovered after nearly being driven to divorce and losing my family and realizing that I'd put a lot of energy into the wrong areas of life.

But the opposite, that would be like community, relationships, faith.

Your spouse, if you have one, your children, your parents.

These are the things in life that are much more important.

These are the things in life that are like infinite, that are eternal.

And yes, health can be a pursuit sometimes.

to, um, like if you're a man, be able to provide, be able to protect, be prepared, um, be able to make impact with whatever purpose that God has put you on this planet to accomplish.

But, um, there's, there's a fine line that you can cross.

I've crossed that line.

Many people in the, you know, biohacking fitness looks maxing, you name it, community have crossed that line.

And, um, um, And then before you know it, your entire identity is wrapped up in that pursuit of perfection that you alluded to, and it winds up causing a lot of damage to relationships and to really the state that you're in, mentally and spiritually.

Right, right, right.

Ultimately...

I'm thinking about even the Eastern tradition of Buddhism says that identification with the outer world, and I'm paraphrasing, identification with the externalities to include your body is the cause of suffering.

So the hacker slash peak performance version of that is to be so obsessed with refining the personality and measuring it and tracking it and not really, and then like you said, wrapping your total identity up with that becoming better.

And that takes you away from your essential nature, which is is perfect the way it needs to be right here and right now.

Yeah, and it's not like that means that you just throw it all away and go eat fried Twinkies on the couch.

It's a shift in perception and a shift in identity.

My worth to the world lies in how my body looks, or what I've accomplished, or how fast I can run, or how many marathons I've done, or whatever.