Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Wolfgang Hammer
[00:00:00] S0: I'd love to sort of redo an exercise that you've done on me before because I think it's translatable for everyone listening. You asked me some question which was something that rhymed with: what is the version of your story that is so big that it terrifies you? Can you unpack that? Very powerful question. [00:00:00] S1: The mind obviously is very good at projecting into the future and can imagine really anything. And in many ways, what is possible, even emanating from our own subconscious, is so much bigger than what the left hemisphere brain, the rational analytical brain, can handle. So I think there is a fear of the bigness of the world. That fear of the bigness of the world is also reflected in the inner world. So much of story is actually an inner transformation. When you have infinite potential in the outer world, this potential is probably also inside of you, and it's overwhelming. So fear is present, but it's a fear of potential, of all that could be. [00:00:00] S0: So you think fearing greatness is the ultimate fear?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Wolfgang Hammer
[00:00:00] S0: So you think fearing greatness is the ultimate fear? [00:00:00] S1: I think fearing greatness, as long as we define greatness as a manifold flourishing of life, so in all its forms, not just a great engineer or a great company builder—if we believe, as I do, that storytelling, especially through the course from Gilgamesh all the way to now, is thousands of years of storytelling and myth-making that we have thoroughly enjoyed—people realizing potential in the world, that there is an inner drive to reach one's potential. I do think there's probably a fear of reaching one's own potential because it might be too big. [00:00:00] S0: What about inner conflict, like a character who wants two opposing things?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Wolfgang Hammer
[00:00:00] S0: What about inner conflict, like a character who wants two opposing things? [00:00:00] S1: That's the definition of story. This is a Faulkner quote, but great conflict is the heart in conflict with itself. That's a great story. So you want two conflicting things at the same time. You're very invested in your fear. You create situations in the original state where this investment in your fear pays off. And at the same time, there's a part of you, mostly subconscious but can be conscious, that has a dream of greatness. And those are absolutely in conflict because the fear wants to dominate and the greatness wants to come out and do its thing. And it's through the story itself that this gets worked out. And I always think this: when someone takes on the position of a leader and how relieved everyone else is not to have to do that, people love to just disappear and amass and be relieved of the burden of individuality. But this is possible because someone has a will to power and steps up and says, I will do it. [00:00:00] S0: Why do you think that is? Should we all be leaders in some way?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Wolfgang Hammer
[00:00:00] S0: Why do you think that is? Should we all be leaders in some way? [00:00:00] S1: In some way, I think. Emphasis on "in some way." I think we have a very narrow definition of leaders: business or political leader, and that's sort of the end of it. I think actually, if you invert that and you just simply say you have a predicate understanding of yourself at that point in time based on reflection, and you act according to this predicate understanding as best as you can at that point in time, you are already a leader simply because you're guided by a philosophical worldview that feels absolutely true to you at that moment. [00:00:00] S0: Back to this exercise of a version of a story that's so big it terrifies you. It sounds like the model is: raw potential is so big, but the mind can't figure it out. And so the process is figuring out how to get something that's subconscious out, let it free. How does one do that?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Wolfgang Hammer
[00:00:00] S0: Back to this exercise of a version of a story that's so big it terrifies you. It sounds like the model is: raw potential is so big, but the mind can't figure it out. And so the process is figuring out how to get something that's subconscious out, let it free. How does one do that? [00:00:00] S1: Character in action, through action. This is the great discovery of the pragmatists, which I think is a huge reason for why the American experiment has been so successful, is that people do a lot of doing happening. You cannot have a good narrative without an active character. There's no one who sits around and thinks their way through problems. I think it's a combination of having a dominant worldview to fight against, of having a personal worldview to espouse, and a willingness to, through action—and I think also through quiet reflection—that those voices that perhaps are in the subconscious safely come to the surface and see where it goes without having a specific outcome in mind over time. Narrative is fear made conscious and conquered through action. [00:00:00] S0: If I go back to the beginning and take everything we've talked about and ask you to give a sort of grand unified theory of everything that you've been searching for, what's your best attempt at that?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Wolfgang Hammer
[00:00:00] S0: If I go back to the beginning and take everything we've talked about and ask you to give a sort of grand unified theory of everything that you've been searching for, what's your best attempt at that? [00:00:00] S1: I think it's a technology that is able to, through consilience, so through pulling from all strands of knowledge, to communicate an ultimate concern, so an absolute truth in the story universe, in such a way that the individual can understand it on an emotional, personal level, which is kind of also what philosophy has been trying to do, and it's also what religion has been trying to do. So in that sense, it's a technology layer of arranging situations and character in such a way that enables this transmission. So in that sense, storytelling is soteriological and has as its concern a form of salvation—not the form of salvation, a form of salvation. Maybe the answer to the question, am I worthy of love? The answer is yes, very often comes back to that on the emotional level. And then very often: is it safe to die? And the answer is, in most cases, yes. [00:00:00] S0: Why is the answer to both yes? [00:00:00] S1: Because it's better than the alternative. [00:00:00] S0: You mentioned a guy named Don Rosenthal to me one time. [00:00:00] S1: Yes. [00:00:00] S0: What did he teach you, and how did he teach it to you? [00:00:00] S1: That it's safe to die and that you're worthy of love. [00:00:00] S0: How did he teach it to you?