Huberman's 'Energy x Identity'
The beta is unbearable
I gather, at this point, most of you know the name Andrew Huberman. He’s a going concern. He’s found his way into your feeds and your ears. He has a nice voice, a paradoxical look (people like that) and a rather large audience. Our brains don’t work the same way, but I think we can - at the very same time - admire someone we’re cautious of.
I’m generally of the opinion that the beta is unbearable right now. The hyper-productivity, Brian Johnson-esque, here's what millionaires do before 7:00am, genre is a uniquely modern brand of insanity. There are folks out there - who pay to be thrust upon us as advertisements - who sincerely believe that they have 21 days per week, where as you - mere mortal - only have 7. Who believe that they’re more powerful than millions of years of evolution. Who believe we are outside of nature, and that it’s ours to control. I can’t help but wonder if this particular cohort might just be the most unhappy among us.
Forgive me for being so judgemental. I’m human and thus my flaws are clear and often on display. Whatever way you slice it, if I see another young man who hasn’t had the time on earth to do much of anything tell me how to 10x my something before I can watch a YouTube video, I might leap from a very great height.
“People are selling stuff all the time - what they’re selling you is ‘follow me,’ ‘buy this thing’ or whatever…and you get a pass.” - Stutz
The problem with these folks is they think they can fix something that isn’t fixable. They try to sell you something that is going to make your life on earth as smooth as sailing on flat water. Nonsense. Not possible. Never going to happen. We’re on a rotating ball of molten rock hurling through infinity - you’re on this ride forever pal. There is no easy. There is no way to avoid the reality of life because the reality of life is all around you, all the time. And you know what? That’s just beautiful.
Much more productive, perhaps, is to come to love this fact. That life happens in events, and events are constant. Forward motion (not a bad definition of change) is the natural law and so accept that and get on with it as best you can. There are tools that you can use along the way - not to fix yourself or whatever these people claim is wrong with you - but to enjoy the passage of time, and to be in constant relationship with the natural world, and with other people (the very thing these people seem to forget most).
Mr. Huberman does have an idea that I think is very observant, and he laid it out on a podcast with another man that I admire, Jocko Willink (not for the faint of heart). It’s about the fascinating intersection of energy and identity. What do we lose if we can’t generate the Life Force to create energy, and is our perception of ourselves directly related? What happens to us if we lose ourselves in the maze?
Let’s find out.
“The most important things enter the world through the smallest things.” - Rudolf Steiner
All we need is a point of view, a set of tools, and a lot of time. I hope that in this post you discover a new tool to create and maintain energy, and to learn to use that energy to forge your identity and do your work. At the end of the post - we’re going to go out on a rather long limb. I hope you’ll stick with it, and join me in the experiment.
Energy x Identity
In our last post I said that we live in a culture that is perpetually dissatisfied. We’re dissatisfied because we're disconnected from the very things that would allow us to make meaning - community, family, mentors and apprenticeship, physical pursuits, and meaningful work.
This - if you’re paying attention - is an almost extreme paradox. We hustle and bustle, to and fro, doing endless things on endless lists - productive in a chaotic sort of way. We’re not only dissatisfied - we’re exhausted. What are we getting in return for fulfilling all that the to-do lists are asking of us?
Exhaustion leads to languishing and languishing is like a void of unspoken confusion. What do we do next? Where do we go from here? Do I even have the energy to make a change?
“Most people suspect that they could live a completely different life from the one they’re now living.” - Stutz
This suspicion is mysterious, but it’s very real. What is the force - we could say energy - that compels people to do things, or not do things. To go out into the world and make stuff - to be a creator - or to retreat into the void of infinite dopamine and isolation.
“What they suspect is true. This energy is real and it has the power to change lives. We call it the Life Force…unstoppable, endlessly creative.” - Stutz
In a chapter called The Vortex, Stutz writes with a ridiculous level of clarity - very New York. He tells the story of Beth and Eileen, sisters who run a catering company. Beth is experiencing exhaustion that feels like a black-hole, even though she is naturally gifted. Eileen experiences the life force daily - expressing it clearly by being able to generate energy throughout the day - even though she had to work very hard throughout most of her life.
“Eileen expected life to put obstacles in her path and was willing to struggle through them, When their mother died, Eileen stayed connected to friends and relatives, got a part-time job, and sought out mentors.” - Stutz
Apparently, in neuroscience and psychology, the idea of the generator appears as a common archetype - balanced by the other archetype of the projector. The world of our instincts - the product of hundreds of thousands of years - and the world of evidence-based are colliding.
“The future is created right now, but only if you have the energy to create it.” - Stutz
Many of you reading this post will inevitably feel more like Beth than Eileen. That’s a sign of our times, and no one is exempt from their time. The difficulty here is that our culture finds retreating into a cave of isolation, reality TV, and junk food, perfectly acceptable. Nay - it encourages it. ‘Self-care,’ we call it. It is nothing of the sort.
“If you’re not in forward motion, you rest to escape from the world. This rest is immediate gratification; it’s not preparation for the next step because there is no next step. It leaves you with less energy than when you started.” - Stutz
We’re told that retreating is recharging our batteries - but in this state, the things we humans need most disappear over the horizon, out of view and out of reach.
“Beth didn't realize that the amount of energy you have depends on your relationship with the world. You create energy when you engage with the world, and you destroy energy when you withdraw from the world.”- Stutz
Eileen, on the other hand, welcomed work and her connection to the outer world - even in the hardest of times.
“When their mother died, Eileen stayed connected to friends and relatives, got a part-time job, and sought out mentors…When engaged with the world you feel more alive; and with that awakened Life Force comes energy…This “energy engagement” is stimulated by the demands of the world around you.” - Stutz
Stutz lays out 3 rules for the energy of engagement:
Engagement is a process that you work over time. The rhythms, structures, and discipline that you move through throughout the day become a ‘way of being.’
Engagement isn’t given - you have to act first.
Energy from engagement comes from the actions you take that are meaningful to you. The endless, obscure, unnecessary to-do list won’t cut it.
Heart on Fire
Allow me a diversion into my own life experience. I’m hoping we find something useful there.
In this era of the newsletter - let’s call it our apprenticeship era - you may be getting tired of Phil Stutz. It’s a moment I’m in, and I’m loving it here. I’m working my way through the archives and I’m continually floored by what I discover. It’s like a mythical confluence of Robert Greene, Howard Gardner, and Oliver Burkeman, all rolled into one.
On the Armchair Expert podcast, Phil talks about how the energy transition happens around the age of 27. You either become a generator, or you succumb to modern exhaustion and you begin your slow, yet seemingly inevitable, retreat.
Paradoxically - or perhaps exactly on time - two weeks after my 28th birthday, I found myself in a hospital bed, with my heart on fire. It wasn't quite that dramatic (or maybe it was I just don’t want to believe it) - but the sack around my heart had become inflamed and, being the genius that it is, the body was recruiting fluid (an emergency fire hose) to the area and it causes a gang of problems for everything other than on-your-back-rest. I needed care and I needed it on the double.
In that moment - unbeknownst to me - I had a decision to make, and I made exactly the wrong one. Feeling shame, self-consciousness, and fear, I made my retreat. I burrowed into a hole of safety on the cardiac ward for 4 days and 5 nights, and then slowly emerged during recovery. Very slowly. I avoided some of my most meaningful relationships and community spaces because I didn’t want to be seen in such a state. I was seen as young and vital - and then all of a sudden I wasn't. My identity was tied up in how others saw me. How foolish.
It took some time - and an awful lot of growing up - to realize the severity of that mistake. Alone is no good. Alone is very hard to come back from. Alone is unnatural. Alone incubates disease. Chimps are only alone when they walk off into the forest to die, and we are not so dissimilar from our ancestors. When we’re chronically alone, we’re out of balance.
In the end, it was the University of Suffering - a gift, by any measure.
It made me:
Slow down
Take a look around
Make a call and move forward
It taught me to choose life and only deal in what is real. It gave me the tools I needed to grow up, and use my energy wisely. Some days I feel like I’ve forgotten everything I’ve learned, but I know it’s in there - if I remember to constantly come back to the tools in my toolbox.
“Infinity is unhurried. It moves and creates with a slow, gentle calmness. To access the infinite, you have to move the same way it does. That’s a problem for most people - they lack the patience…That attitude won’t get you to your goal any faster. In fact, it slows you down because it destroys the harmony between you and the infinite. If you insist on marching to the beat of your own drum, you’ll end up in a one-person-orchestra.” - Stutz
Psychosomatic Autoimmunity
Okay, we’re about to go out on a rather long limb. The limb is narrow - there are likely cracks. There are crocodiles below. We’re going to take baby-steps to cross the limb, and leap to the next trunk. I hope we find something interesting there. I encourage you to consider this idea in the most practical way possible.
I don’t know where this question first occurred to me, and so I don't know how to source it properly. Perhaps someone in this community can pinpoint who coined the term and suggested the thing I’m about to suggest. Michael Ammons is one source of inspiration - a good man indeed.
I’ll come right out with it - is it possible that autoimmunity is caused by a lack of energy, and no clear identity?
You’re an artist - you should be doing art - but you were convinced that security was the highest oder of importance and so now you’re a mid-level accountant at a giant firm that couldn’t rationally care about the individual.
The days go by - ceaselessly, as time does - and you get sicker and sicker. You have no energy (at the metabolic level) and so you don’t do much of anything, except your accounting. You stare into a blue-light-abyss all day long and, after a time, the life force disappears.
You tell your friends and family at dinner parties that you’re an accountant - but your soul is screaming I’M AN ARTIST! Psychosomatic autoimmunity. Your body attacks itself because it doesn’t recognize the person you’ve become. You have unmet needs of the soul and so your body gets sick. The body says no.
I know. We’re out there now. There is no safety here - but bear with me.
I’ll try to make this as practical as I can:
We were designed in a communal environment. We need each other to know ourselves. Contributing to the whole means finding meaningful work, building discipline, and being consistent over a long period of time. That seems to be how we find satisfaction in our lives, and if we don’t have relationships, community, mentors, physical pursuits, and meaningful work, we get sick. We’re unrecognizable, even to ourselves. This seems to be the way of things - our nature.
All we need is a point of view, a set of tools, and a lot of time.
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” - Pablo Picasso
Onward.
See you on the path.
-MG