17__transcript.txt

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Welcome to
the Huberman Lab podcast,
where we discuss science
and science-based tools
for everyday life.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm Andrew Huberman,
and I'm a professor
of neurobiology
and ophthalmology,
at Stanford School of Medicine.
Today, my guest is Rick Rubin.
Rick Rubin is
credited with being
one of the most creative
and prolific music
producers of all time.
The range of artists with whom
he's worked with and discovered
is absolutely
staggering, ranging
from artists such as LL Cool
J, Public Enemy, Minor Threat,
Fugazi, Beastie Boys, Jesus
and Mary Chain, Jay-Z, Red Hot
Chili Peppers, Metallica,
Green Day, Tom Petty, System
of a Down, Joe Strummer, Kanye
West, Johnny Cash, Adele,
and many, many more.
Not surprisingly,
therefore, Rick
is considered
somewhat of an enigma.
That is, people want to know
how it is that one individual is
able to extract the best
creative artistry from so
many different people in so
many different genres of music.
Well, as today's
discussion reveals,
Rick's expertise in
the creative process
extends well beyond music.
In fact, our
conversation takes us
into the realm of what
the creative process is
specifically and generally
across domains, including
music, of course, but also
writing, film, science,
and essentially, all domains
in which new, original thought,
ideas, and production of
anything becomes important.
Our conversation ventures
from abstract themes,
such as what is
creativity, and where
does it stem from,
to the more concrete,
everyday, tool-based
approaches to creativity,
including those that
Rick himself uses
and that he's seen other
people use to great success.
That took us down some
incredible avenues,
ranging from a discussion
about the subconscious,
to how the
subconscious interacts
with our conscious mind,
and how the subconscious
and conscious mind interact with
nature around us and within us.
Indeed, our conversation got
rather scientific at times,
but all with an eye and an
ear toward understanding
the practical tools
that any and all of us
can use in order to access
the creative process.
We also spent some time talking
about Rick's new book, which
is all about creativity and
ways to access creativity.
The title of the book is The
Creative Act: A Way of Being,
by Rick Rubin.
This is a book
that I've now read
three times from cover
to cover, and I'm now
reading it a fourth time.
Because it is so rich with
wisdom and information
that I'm applying in
multiple domains of my life,
not just my work but
my everyday life.
I cannot recommend
it highly enough.
Rick has an incredible ability
to translate his understanding
of the creative process in a way
that is meaningful for anybody.
So if you're in music,
if you're a musician,
it will certainly be
meaningful for you,
but it is not about music.
It is about the
creative process.
And so whether or not you
consider yourself somebody
creative or not, or
whether or not you
seek to be more creative, Rick's
book and today's conversation
sheds light on what I believe
to be the fundamental features
of what makes us human beings.
That is what allows us,
unlike other animals,
to look out on the
landscape around us,
to examine our inner
landscape, and to come up
with truly novel
ideas that thrill us,
entertain us,
entertain other people,
scare us, make us
laugh, make us cry.
All the things
that make life rich
are essentially contained
in the creative process.
And to be able to sit down
and learn from the Rick Rubin
how the creative
process emerges in him
and his observations about how
we can best emerge in others
is and was truly a gift.
So I'm excited to share his
knowledge with you today.
One thing that
you'll quickly come
to notice about
today's conversation
is that Rick is incredibly
generous with his knowledge
about the creative process.
In fact, he very graciously,
and spontaneously I
should add, offered to
answer your questions
about creativity.
So if you have questions about
the creative process for Rick,
please, put those in the
Comment section on YouTube.
And in order to make those
questions a bit easier
for me to find, please, put
"Question for Rick Rubin"
in capitals, then colon or
dash, whichever you choose,
and then put your
question there.
I do ask that you keep the
questions relatively short,
so that I can ask Rick as many
of those questions as possible.
We will record
that conversation,
and we will post it as a clip on
the Huberman Lab Clips channel.
Before we begin, I'd
like to emphasize
that this podcast is separate
from my teaching and research
roles at Stanford.
It is, however, part
of my desire and effort
to bring zero cost to
consumer information
about science and
science-related tools
to the general public.
In keeping with
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And now for my discussion
with Rick Rubin.
Great to have you
here today, Rick.
RICK RUBIN: Thank
you for having me.
It's a pleasure.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So of
all the topics in science,
and in particular
in neuroscience,
I confess that creativity is the
most difficult one to capture.
Because you can find
papers, scientific studies
that is, on convergent thinking
versus divergent thinking,
and there are
definitions to these,
and they take on
different forms.
But in a strict
definition form, it
seems that creativity
has something
to do with either
rearranging existing elements
or coming up with new elements.
But as I went into your
book, which I've done twice.
I've read it twice,
and by the way,
I feel so blessed
and honored to have
gotten an early copy from you,
or a final copy early that is.
But having gone
through it twice,
I'm now convinced that
there may not actually
be an internal source
of creativity that
exists on its own right.
And the example that you
give that, for me, really
is serving as an anchor, and
tell me if I'm wrong here,
is this idea that
ideas and creativity
are a little bit like a cloud.
If you look at it
at one moment, you
might think that it looks
like one thing, where it has
a certain shape and texture.
But then you look at it a moment
later, it could be quite a bit
different.
And if you look at
it an hour later,
it very well could be gone.
And the reason I
think that serves
as such a powerful hook for
me to think about creativity
and why I think neuroscientists
and scientists in general
have never actually
captured a way to even talk
about creativity
stems from somebody
that you knew in person but,
as you know, I greatly admire.
I don't have many
heroes, but I would
put Joe Strummer among the short
list of heroes that I have.
And I remember once an interview
with him fairly disjointed.
He was off in different
tangents that I couldn't follow.
But at one point,
he just blurted out
that, if you have an idea,
you have to write it down.
And you may end up throwing
it away, but if you wait,
it will be gone.
And I remember that,
and as a consequence,
I have a whole system that I
use to try and capture ideas.
But what are your
thoughts on what
Joe said, this cloud
idea that comes up in one
form in one area of the book?
But then I think it's
thread throughout the book
in different ways.
How did that come
to you, and how
does it serve you in trying to--
I don't want to say
extract-- but trying
to access creativity?
RICK RUBIN: I think
the best way to think
about it is like a dream.
It's like, if you think
about your dreams,
they don't necessarily
make sense.
When you wake up, you
might remember part but not
the whole thing.
Then, if you start writing
them down, they'll come back,
and they may not
make sense to you.
There'll be a series
of abstract images,
and maybe, someday
in the future,
you'll be able to look back
and understand what they mean,
and maybe not.
And that's how the art
making process works
is like we're making
things, and we're looking
for feeling in ourselves.
And it could be a feeling
of excitement or enthusiasm,
a feeling of interest,
a feeling of curiosity--
I want to know more--
a feeling of leaning forward.
And we're following that
energy in our body, when
we feel there's something here.
There's something here.
I want to know more.
I want to know more.
I want to know more.
I'll say, it's not an
intellectual process.
It's a different thing.
That's why it's hard
even to talk about it,
because it's so elusive.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Recently, I was listening
to a podcast by our
friend Lex Fridman.
I think it was an episode
with Balaji Srinivasan,
where Balaji, who's
an investor-type guy,
thinker-type guy--
this is like an
eight-hour episode.
He says something
at the beginning
that I'd love your thoughts on.
He said, look, we
can train a rat
to lever press every
other time or to expect
reward on every
even number press
or every odd number press or
even every fifth number press.
But a human and a
rat can't do that
for like prime number presses.
You can't actually train that.
And then you think about the
reward systems and the way
that we follow life, from when
we get up until we go to sleep,
and what he said is the fact
that we can't do that means
that we may not actually
be in touch with the best
schedules of doing things.
Like every time I'm
thirsty, I take a sip.
I assume that's the
right way to do it,
but it might not be optimal,
for whatever purpose.
When I was reading your book,
I was thinking about there's
a set of things
to follow, things
to pay attention to-- you talk
about this-- things to access,
that none of the
creative process
comes from just within us.
It can, but it's always being
fed by things outside of it.
And so what I started to
do is, the second time
I read through the book, was
think about it through the lens
of what Balaji was saying
was that there may not even
be a language for
this thing that we
call accessing creativity.
There's a process, but that
language in the form of words
is a little bit like trying
to use even numbers to try
and access prime numbers.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Like the
math becomes so convoluted
that we end up in a
conversation like this,
where I'm confident we can
get to the kernels of it.
Because what's remarkable
about the book is that you do.
You show and inform the process.
But there may not be a
English or any other language
for saying, do this, then
this, then this, then this,
and you'll have something
of creative value.
Does that capture it?
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
I think language is insufficient
to drill down on creativity.
It's closer to magic
than it is science.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So when
kids come into the world,
do you think that
they have better
access to this creative
process than we do as adults?
Because we start to impart
rule plays and books.
Like will it get likes?
Will people like it?
But also all the things
that are available to us
that we're not paying
attention to, like the texture
of this table, we're discarding
things, systematically.
We get, quote, unquote,
set in our ways.
Do you think kids are, just
by definition and by design,
more creative than adults?
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
Kids, they're open, and
they have no baggage.
They don't have
any belief system.
They don't know how things
are supposed to work.
They just see what is, and if
we pay attention to what is,
we learn much more than if we--
Most of us select from an
endless number of data points
available to us to,
well, as a species,
to make sure that we
don't die and to procreate
and to feed ourselves
are probably
the primary functions first.
And then we learn things about
what's right and what's wrong,
and we learn things about
how to do certain things.
Or we're inspired by someone
who makes something we love,
and we want to do it
the way they do it.
And all of those things
undermine the purity
of the creative process.
They can be tools to
build your skill set
to be able to do it yourself.
Like if you're a
singer, you might
imitate a singer you really like
for a while to get good at it
and then eventually come
to find your own voice.
It doesn't always start
with your own voice.
But if you're three years
old or five years old,
and you try singing, you're
not singing like anyone else.
You're singing with
your own voice.
And when you make
something, you're
making it based on not knowing.
And I think I had the
advantage, early in my career,
of starting making music
without any experience, which
was helpful, because I didn't
know what rules I was breaking.
And so it wasn't intentional
breaking of rules.
I just did what
seemed right to me,
but I didn't realize
that I was doing things
that other people wouldn't do.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
There is this idea
that there are no new ideas.
I disagree, because
every once in a while,
I'll see or hear something
that at least seems
different enough.
RICK RUBIN: I think
it's a combination of--
a new combination of existing
ideas presented in a new way.
I think that's how it works.
I don't know.
But I will say, it does
seem like the things that
are most interesting to me have
a series of familiar elements
joined together in a way
that it's creating something
that I've never seen before.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: You mentioned
that when you are close to
or you see hints of creativity
that is of real value
that it's a feeling, and I
also believe that the body is
a great source of information.
Which once people will realize
that the brain, of course,
is in the skull, but the nervous
system extends everywhere
in the body, the whole
mind-body thing just falls away.
Philosophers have argued
about this forever,
but it's a silly argument.
It's also true
that, God forbid, I
were to amputate all my
limbs, have them amputated,
I'd fundamentally still be me.
Right?
The same is not
true if we took out
a big enough chunk of my
brain, and I still survived.
I would be a fundamentally
different human being.
I'd still have the same name
and identity and social security
number, but I would
behave very differently.
Who knows, maybe better?
The signals from the body we
know, or at least we assume,
are pretty generic.
Like I can think of 50
different ways or 100 ways
that we could talk
about creativity today.
And we could define it and
redefine it and carve it up
and serve it up like sushi
in a bunch of different ways.
But the body sends signals
that most of us are--
we have a course
understanding of.
It's like, oh, my stomach
hurts, or my stomach feels good,
or I'm not sensing my stomach.
Or oh, that feels good.
It feels warm.
It feels cold.
Like most of us aren't
trained in understanding
how to interpret those signals.
So it's almost like you have
a few vowels, a few syllables,
and there isn't a lot more.
Whereas, we talk about our
thoughts and our experiences,
depending on how hyper
verbal somebody is
and how much emphasis they
put on different sounds,
it's near infinite.
Not infinite, but near infinite.
So for you personally,
when you know
that you're on the end of
a thread of creativity--
maybe you're listening
to an artist,
or you're hearing something.
And you're like there
and the your antennae
start to deflect
in a certain way.
Right?
Do you feel that in your body
as a recognizable sensation,
or is it a thought
and a sensation?
RICK RUBIN: It's a
feeling in my body.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Is it localized?
RICK RUBIN: No.
It's a feeling of--
I would say it's like
a surge of energy.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Do you
remember the first time
you experienced that?
RICK RUBIN: Probably
hearing the Beatles, when
I was three or four years old.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Three
or four years old?
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Wow.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Is there
something wrong with me
that the Beatles have
never done it for me?
RICK RUBIN: No.
Maybe you just weren't
exposed at the right time
in the right way.
There's no right or
wrong way, and everyone--
I can love the Beatles, and you
can not, and we're both right.
There's not--
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'm glad
we can still be friends.
I was a little concerned.
I was a little scared to
ask you that question.
I know my taste in
music is a little bit
obscure and
fragmentary, but good.
I've always felt
like, gosh, there
must be something wrong with me.
I like their songs,
but they don't--
there's no juice for me there.
RICK RUBIN: I think
maybe we'll watch--
there was an eight-part series
called The Beatles Anthology,
which is out of print.
But I can try to
find it somewhere,
and we can watch that
together, and maybe that'll
make the case for the Beatles.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.
Nothing against them, it's
just I'm always bothering you
for a story, but like Ramones.
I saw that, and I was like,
wow, like jeans, aviators,
everyone had to
change their last name
to Ramone, a lot of
them hated each other.
There's so much drama in
there, and three chords
and just-- but to me,
it just was like, wow,
like kids from New
York, that energy.
So I think different things
for different people.
Right?
RICK RUBIN: Absolutely.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
So that brings me
to a question of when something
feels creatively right,
and you're sensing
it, and you're there,
let's say in the studio
or maybe even you're
listening to something
that somebody sent you,
how do you translate that,
given the absence of language?
How do you translate that into
a conversation with the artist?
And again, this could be about
writing or comedy or science
or podcasting, for that matter.
How do you say that,
keep going that way,
when they might not even
recognize that they did it?
And I'm guessing a lot
of times, they don't.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
Sometimes, they don't.
It depends.
When we're in the--
I'll try to be in
a setting where,
as we're talking
about it, we can
engage with it in that moment.
So it's not much good.
Let's say I was producing
your new record,
and you played me something, and
I had some thoughts about it.
It wouldn't be so helpful for
me to tell you what those were.
It'd be better for us to
wait till we were in a place
where we could try things
and see where it goes.
So the first thing is I wouldn't
rely on language to do it.
It would be more of making a
suggestion of something that's
actionable.
We try it, and then
we have more data.
And either we're moving
in a good direction,
or we're moving away from--
we're moving towards it or away
from it, and we never know.
And so it's always
an experiment.
And maybe a simple way to
talk about it would be like,
if I gave you two
dishes of food and asked
you to taste them and tell
me which one you like better.
Usually, it's pretty
straightforward,
when you have two choices,
which you like better,
and I think most creativity
can be boiled down to that.
That's very different
than I wonder
how this is going to perform on
certain social media platforms?
That's different
than what is it--
when I'm tasting these two
things, which is the one I
want to finish eating?
And if I were to say,
I like this one better,
but it needs a little salt, and
then put a little salt on it.
It's like, maybe I
put too much salt,
and you know when you taste it.
It's like it's that simple.
Being in tune enough
with ourselves
to really know how we feel
in the face of knowing
that other people might
feel very differently,
which is part of the challenge.
It's like, if everyone
tells you A, A, A, A, A, A,
and you listen, and you're
like that's B, as an artist,
it's important to be able
to say, to me, it's B.
And it's a disconnect,
because so much of,
when we go to school, it's to
get us to follow the rules.
And in art, it's different,
because the rules are there
as a scaffolding to be
chipped away, as need be.
Sometimes, they're helpful.
Sometimes, they're not,
and sometimes, we'll
even impose our own rules
to give something its shape.
So we can decide to make a--
we're going to make a
painting, but we're only
going to use green and
red are the only colors
we're allowed to use.
We decide that in
advance, and then how
do we solve the problem knowing
all we have is green and red?
It can-- because
otherwise, if there's
an infinite number of choices,
anything can be anything.
It's like, sometimes more
choices is not better.
So limiting your palate
to something manageable
forces you to solve
problems in a different way.
Now, in our digital
age music-wise,
you can make anything digitally.
There's no-- there
was a time when,
if you didn't have a
guitar in the studio,
you couldn't record guitar.
Or if you couldn't
hire an orchestra,
there couldn't be orchestra
on your recording.
Now, you can just call
any of those things up.
So there's infinite choices,
and infinite choices
don't necessarily lead to
better compositions or better
final works.
Understanding how you feel
in the face of other voices,
without second
guessing yourself,
is probably the single
most important thing
to practice as an artist.
Or a skill set to develop as
an artist is to I know how you
feel, and own your feelings.
And the key to
that is not I know,
so I know what's right for you.
It doesn't work that way.
It's just I know for me, and the
reason I chose to be an artist
is to demonstrate
this is how I see it.
If I'm undermining my taste
for some commercial idea,
it defeats the whole
purpose of doing this.
That's not what this
process is about.
This process is I'm doing me,
and I'm showing you who I am.
And you can like it or
not, but either way, this
is still how I see it.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I love
that, because in science,
having trained graduate
students, having been
a graduate student,
I was very blessed
to have mentors, one of
who is a real iconoclast.
He's dead now.
Actually, all my
advisors are dead--
suicide, cancer, cancer.
The joke is you don't
want me to work for you.
So they all had a
morbid sense of humor,
so they're laughing about
this, someplace, right now.
RICK RUBIN: I thought you
were going to say they
all ate the poison mushrooms.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: No, but
the last one said to me,
you're the common
denominator, Andrew.
And I thought, oh
my goodness, and he
said, kind of just
kidding, but not really.
So it's a little bit eerie.
But in any case,
he always said--
his name was Ben--
he always said,
the one thing I
can't teach is taste,
and the one predictor I
have of the people who
will never develop it are the
ones who are perfectionists.
Because they're
filtering their--
perfectionists that
filter their perfection
through the feedback of others.
He was always looking
for the person
that was putting up a little bit
of a middle finger to feedback.
Not so much that they
would get things wrong,
because it can be
badly wrong in science.
You can be wrong for
the right reasons,
but you can also be wrong
for the wrong reasons.
But people that just had almost
a compulsion to do it their way
or to believe in
what they were doing.
And I'm hearing some
of that, or I'm hearing
that in what you're describing.
I also think that
there's something
about the human empathic process
or the emotional process,
where when we see
somebody doing something
and they seem to really
not be paying attention
to what anyone else is doing--
I guess the crazy person on the
street is one version of it,
where we go they're just
in their experience,
and it's just crazy.
But when somebody seems
to be enjoying themselves
or the emotion
seems to be real, I
think there are a good
fraction of people
who feel a gravitational
pull, and they go, yeah, that.
And the best example
I have of this
is I remember growing up
in the skateboard thing
we were the first-- we were the
first to start doing the baggy,
sagging clothes thing, and
we got teased endlessly
one year in school.
Then, there was a bunch
of hip hop that came out,
and guys were wearing sagging
their jeans or their shorts.
Next year, we come back,
and the very same people
who were making fun of
us we're all doing it,
and that's when
it clicked for me.
I was like, most people don't
actually know what they like.
RICK RUBIN: No.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
They like what they
like because of the certainty
of the people that they like.
And so the question then
is, in this landscape
of creative stuff, what's real?
What's not real?
It's almost like
whoever can create
the most convincing
story at least
captures a good number of--
a good fraction of
audiences, but that's
not what the creative
artist needs to do.
They need to actually
depart from that.
Do I have that right?
RICK RUBIN: Well they're
just two different things.
Like coming up with a story
with the purpose of pleasing
someone else is a
skill set, but it's
more of a commercial endeavor
than an artistic endeavor.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
It's like tactical.
Yeah.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I was
thinking, in your book,
you describe, again,
when you're thinking
about the creative
process as a cloud,
for me, again, it serves
as such a powerful anchor.
And then I think about the
biology, the neurobiology,
of like strategy
formation or strategy
implementation and then
almost by sheer luck,
or miraculously, I turn a few
pages later into the book,
and there's a description of
how animals that are trying
to accomplish something--
eat, mate, find
water, accomplish
the requirements of living--
it requires a
narrow visual focus.
This is something my
lab is obsessed with,
and I've been obsessed with.
And in that more
narrow visual focus,
we know that the playbook
becomes more narrow.
The rule set is more narrow.
Now, at some point,
in order to come up
with a new creative
idea, that means
that broadening vision is
essential, in some way,
or broadening thinking.
RICK RUBIN: Well,
it could either
be a broadening or a narrowing,
but it's changing the aperture
from the standard.
The reason we do this
is to present something
new that maybe you already knew
but didn't know you knew it.
And for that to be the case,
you have to be looking at it.
It's not unlike what
a comedian does.
Comedian makes you laugh.
Usually, what they're
saying, it's outrageous,
but you know that it's right.
Just no one says it
that way, or no one
has said it that way before.
But it's always the truth
in it that makes it funny.
It's like that.
It's the same idea as
recognizing something
that seems really
obvious, once you see it,
but it seems like nobody else
sees it, or no one else points
it out.
And I feel like science
is like that too,
because how much of science,
once the light flashes
over your head, it's like I
got it, it just seems like,
well, we knew that forever.
No one knew it, but do
you know what I'm saying?
It's like it's so obvious.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Absolutely.
RICK RUBIN: It's so obvious.
And I think another
superpower of artists
is this accepting we
don't know anything.
When we think we know things,
that also limits our world.
We think we know
it's only like this.
This is all that's possible,
where nice in this little box.
But in reality, who's
to say that's the case?
Who's to say any
of the-- we could
take all of what we
believe in science now
and decide to throw all of that
away and start from scratch.
And we'd probably create
a whole different one.
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In an offline
conversation one time,
you asked a good
friend of mine, who's
been a guest on this
podcast, Eddie Chang, who's
chair of neurosurgery,
and I would place him
in the top 1% of
neuroscientists.
He's pulling speech
out of people
who are completely paralyzed
with locked-in syndrome,
et cetera.
And you asked him, what
percentage of what's
contained in medical
textbooks and training--
RICK RUBIN: Today
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Today.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
If you went to
medical school today,
and you learned what was
in the textbook, what
percentage of that
information is accurate,
and what percentage is not?
And he said, maybe half.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Right, and you asked,
and what is the
consequence of that?
And he said, incalculable,
and I completely agree.
And I asked him a second
time, and he still
came up with the same answer.
So that's a good sign.
Reliability from experiment
to the next is good.
Yeah.
I think that there is this idea
that we really know things.
In science, we've observed
amazing discoveries
from chance.
We've observed
amazing discoveries
from incredible
bouts of hard work.
In both cases,
people were spending
a lot of time in the lab.
Like no one walked into the
lab, saw something one day,
and had a Nobel Prize
winning discovery
or fundamental discovery.
They were all hanging
out in lab a lot.
Just some of them
came up with something
that they didn't expect.
Others were drilling
toward an answer.
RICK RUBIN: And in
all those cases,
when the breakthroughs happen--
I'm guessing.
I don't know this--
that considering we
assume this information,
then this discovery is
true, based on everything
that came before it.
But if everything that
came before it is wrong,
then the discoveries are
probably built on a--
do you know what I'm saying?
It's like the context,
everything that happens
takes into account that the
context that it's sitting in it
fits in that context.
Maybe that context isn't right.
Who knows?
We don't know.
So I'm saying, we're too close
to most things in thinking,
when we think we things,
where there are a lot
of assumptions that go into it.
And that any new
discoveries are essentially
built on top of these
beliefs, but they're beliefs.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I remember--
of course, I listened to
the Beastie Boys growing up.
Who didn't?
I was a child of the 90s,
and they were in the--
Sabotage was an outgrowth
of a skateboarding movie,
like Spike Jones and
like the girl movies.
And those worlds, the Beastie
Boys and skateboarding
were really closely
interwoven for a while.
Some people know that.
Some people don't.
And Spike formed the
bridge, and then Spike
went off and started
making more bigger movies
that more people watch.
But let's just use
them as an example.
I heard you say once before that
you guys were joking around,
like Beastie Boys, like
these guys doing hip hop,
but it was kind of like
the hardcore scene,
in New York, punk rock
scene, and it was a joke.
There were a lot
of inside jokes.
When you were working
together, was there the thought
that people might love
it, might hate it,
or you just weren't
paying attention at all?
RICK RUBIN: Weren't
paying attention at all.
Never considered it.
There were no-- at
that point in time,
when we were making
Licensed to Ill,
hip hop music was a
tiny underground thing.
And no one making
hip hop at that time
thought it would
ever mean anything.
It was not a realistic thought.
So we were making it really
for our crazy friends,
and that's it.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So do
you think, nowadays,
the fact that one can create
something and, quote, unquote,
release it quickly.
I can put something out onto
Twitter or Instagram now.
We could do it in
10 seconds from now,
and I will get immediate
feedback, which
is external feedback,
of course, but then I
can iterate on the
basis of that feedback.
Do you think that's
problematic for the larger
opportunity for creativity?
In other words, if we were to go
back 20 years or even 15 years,
when the opportunity to create
was certainly still there,
but you really didn't know how
it was going to land until you,
quote, unquote, released it.
It seems to me there
was more opportunity
to stay in that
magical rainforest that
is the creativity itself.
RICK RUBIN: I don't think
it's wrong or right.
It's just more information that
you can use or not use and use
it in a useful way.
And you can make
something and put it out,
and people could not like it.
And you're like, oh,
they still don't get it.
I'm going to I got to go harder.
Like I got to go harder
in that direction not--
do you know what I'm saying?
It's like not to react
away from information.
It can be helpful.
It can be helpful when--
there could be different stories
that happen at the same time.
Where you're making something,
and you have an idea of what
it is.
And then other people
engage with it,
and they have a different
idea of what it is.
And they like it for
a different reason
than you did or
dislike it for a reason
different than the
reason you like it.
We can't control
any of those things.
The only part of it
that we can control
is how we relate to
the thing that we make.
And any external
information that
undermines the clarity
of that connection
is probably bad for
the art is my guess.
And again, I'm only saying
this from my experience.
I try to make things--
all I've ever tried to
make was something I like
or something that I felt
like was missing as a fan
that I wanted, and
nobody was making it.
So I'll make it, but it wasn't--
it was always in the service
of I love this thing.
I want something like this.
No one else is making one.
I have to make one.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.
It's beautiful, because the
word that keeps coming to mind
is it's almost
like a compulsion.
Like there are other
options of ways
to be and to behave and to
function and work in life.
But if something
is a compulsion,
it yanks us away from
those other opportunities,
just enough that we
have to get back to it.
You've talked before
about, and you
talk in the book, this
notion of the source.
And to me, again, I can't help
but put my neuroscientist lens
on this.
I think of the source as not
one brain area but some function
within the brain,
where we are in touch
with our bodily signals.
Like what feels
right, what doesn't?
Or like tasting the two
foods, I love that example.
And that it's a playbook
that is far more
vast than the short
term adaptive playbook,
like this how I'm going to
get from point A to point B.
And yet, when I listen
to an album or a song,
I have to assume that
there, at some point,
it becomes not strategy
development or creativity
but strategy implementation.
Like there needs
to be the songs are
going to come in
this order-- and I
don't know much about music.
My musician friends
are always laughing.
RICK RUBIN: It's not
so much about music.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right.
Well put, but the
ordering of the sequence
of the melodies, et cetera.
So at what point
does one decide, OK,
like now's the time
to get into that more
narrow focus of effort?
Like we've got it.
Let's run with this.
Because there is a component
of the creative process
that involves packaging
and finishing.
And is that part less
satisfying to you,
or is it just all part
of the same larger arc?
RICK RUBIN: It's all
part of the same.
It's nice.
There's a good feeling.
There's usually a good feeling
when something is done.
On the one hand,
it's a commitment,
because up until the time
that you say it's done,
you can keep experimenting
and changing it.
If you think, well, maybe
tomorrow I can make it better,
then it's not finished.
And you keep thinking
that for a long time,
you can do that forever
and never put out anything.
So getting to the point where
you're ready to sign off
is a good feeling,
and it allows you--
one of the things I talk about
in the book is, because it
is a difficult thing to do,
because it's fun to play,
and it's fun to maybe it's
not the best it could be yet.
To use whatever
the next project is
going to be as motivation
to finish the one
you're working on now.
Like I'm working on this.
I'm spending all of
my time on this thing.
It's really good.
I believe it can be better,
but there's this other thing
that I really want to make.
And if I keep tinkering
with this one,
I'll never get to
make the other one.
So using other
projects as an impetus
to finish something and
release it into the world
is a good one.
And you said your description of
source is something within us.
I don't know if I would
say that was accurate.
It's definitely in us too,
but it's not only in us.
And it's I think of
source as the organizing
principle of everything, and
it's how everything exists.
How the trees grow, and
why there are mountains.
And anything that we can
see in the outside world,
and every discovery
and every piece of art
and every new design
and every machine
are all outgrowths of
this source energy.
Our part of it is the
antenna that connects to it,
and maybe where the
vehicle for source
to allow things to
happen in the world.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And
thank you for that,
because I did indeed misspeak.
Because I recall very
distinctly in the book,
you described how
the physical world
is constrained by the laws of
physics and certain things.
The imagination
is unconstrained.
And I think I have
this right, that you
said the work set
somewhere between those,
it's neither of
one nor the other.
That ultimately what
feeds into all of that
are imagination and
the way, indeed,
that our brain is
a physical entity.
The nature in the
outside world provides
at least what appears
to be near infinite
if not infinite options.
And I love the example
of the color palette.
That if we restrict
me to whatever
sorts of paints or medium I
have, then it's restricted.
But in nature, there's
an infinite number
of shades and tones
and combinations.
RICK RUBIN: And even on
one, if you pick up a rock
and look at the
color of the rock
and tried to find a
paint to match that rock,
it would never match.
There's too much.
There are too many
variations in nature
within a single color
rock for us to get close.
There's too much information.
We scratch the surface.
We're only scratching
the surface.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
And we love when
we are able to peer in
at different scales,
spatial scales, time scales too,
but spatial scales, the delight
that comes from that that
these nature pictures-- seemed
like there were more
of these in the '80s,
like where you'd see
a drop of oil shot
at very high resolution.
There's beauty in a drop of oil.
And then you'd see the
Earth and the galaxy,
there's beauty in that
too, these extremes.
And of course, our
daily perception
is mostly through the filter
of these kinds of interactions,
walls, and sometimes outdoors.
There's a brilliant
neuroscientist,
and not surprisingly,
he has a Nobel.
His name is Richard Axel.
He's at Columbia University.
He's outrageous personality.
Chews Nicorette nonstop.
You guys would get along great,
not because of the Nicorette,
but because his
perspective on things
is very abstract for
a guy who's solved--
he won the Nobel for
solving a great problem
within how we smell,
perception of odors and tastes.
And he says that everything
that the brain does
is an abstraction.
Like I could take a
photograph of your face
and show it to you, and
you'd say, yeah, that's me.
Or let's say for the moment, I
call myself an abstract artist.
Let's just play a game,
because I've never been
accused of being an artist.
And I do three dots
and a squiggly line,
and I say that's you.
And you say, well, that doesn't
look like me, and I say,
but that's my
abstraction of you.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: OK.
Well, the brain essentially
does that, because
or something in between that.
Because there's no actual
photograph of you in my brain.
It's just a bunch
of neurons playing
what we call an ensemble, like
a different keys on a piano.
And we go, Rick, I
recognize you, Rick Rubin.
And so everything
is an abstraction,
and it's only once we start
tinkering with the parts--
and this is the
essence of science,
to remove and add
and manipulate.
And the best example I can
come up with would be Rothko.
And I only we come
up with this example
because I started off in
vision science and maybe
this will make the
most sense to everyone,
except the folks who've
been blind since birth,
and they can swap
something in here.
That if I show you a Rothko, and
I don't tell you it's a Rothko,
you may or may not actually
think it's that impressive.
It depends on your taste in art.
But what Rothko did,
which was amazing,
even if you don't like Rothkos--
and I happened to--
is that he removed all the
white and high contrast-y stuff.
And when you do that
you alter color space,
and so the colors
look very different.
Some people saw that
dress a few years ago,
is it orange, or is
a gold or whatever?
That was a little bit
of the same phenomenon.
I doubt-- in fact, I'd be
willing to bet my left arm
that Rothko knew nothing about
the neuroscience of color
perception.
But somehow got to
this place where,
if there was no canvas
showing and no high contrast
and the paintings
were large enough
and on the appropriate
wall, you saw them
a certain way that tapped
into something fundamental.
And this is where I think art
and science really converge,
is that, every once in a
while, we see something that
feels amazing to
enough people-- and not
just like the baggy
pants phenomenon,
not just because other
people think it's cool.
But there's something there,
and again this defies language.
And I have to imagine that in
your years of life and music
and other creative endeavors,
that every once in a while,
have you ever
encountered something
where something
fundamental keeps
showing up in different form?
Or there's something like almost
like a rule or a principle,
does that ever come about?
Because in science,
we think of this
as like this is reveals
something about our limitation
to abstract the world.
I hope I made that clear.
RICK RUBIN: Not, exactly
but I have a thought.
You talked earlier
about the drop
of oil, the photograph
of the drop of oil
and the photograph-- or we
could use, on the other side,
like Hubble telescope
images of these vast things
in high definition.
What we see every day is as
impressive as those things,
but where numb to them, because
we see them all the time.
And if we were to look
at drops of oil every day
in a microscope,
a month from now,
we would not find
wonder in that image.
So sometimes, it's the
novelty of not seeing it
from that perspective before
that's really thrilling.
And I could imagine,
and this probably
relates to the Rothko idea,
that you could see something
from a particular angle and
have this magical experience.
And then walk three
feet to the side
and see it from a different
way, and it just evaporates.
It only works-- it only triggers
this thing in us when we
look at it just the right way.
There was an experiment
I just heard about,
heard about the other day,
that sounds fascinating,
that a painting
teacher recommended.
Where instead of painting--
having a model in
the room and painting
the model, that you have
the model in the next room.
And you go into the next
room without your equipment.
You don't have your equipment,
and you can study the model
for as long as you want.
And then you go into
a different room,
where you can't see
the model, and paint
the model, instead of--
and it changes
your relationship.
We're not just
painting the lines.
We're painting what
is interesting enough
about what I saw--
what are the data points
that stuck in my mind?
And when I string those
together, what do I get?
And what do I--
how do I form it to get
as close to whatever
the experience of
that person was, which
the closest of getting
to the experience
of that person in the
painting might not
look like a photograph.
It might look more
different then more the same
to really see what you see.
If we think about the
Picasso paintings that
were inspired by African
art, where the eyes are
on different levels, they
may give us more information
than a photograph would give us.
I'm thinking about when
you were describing
the sensation of when something
takes your breath away,
and we all have that when
we see a dramatic sunset.
Anyone you know, when there's
a really dramatic sunset,
or if there's a whale, and
if anyone's on the beach,
and there's a whale,
everybody's really interested
that there's a whale.
Do you know what I'm saying?
These feelings of wonder,
we get to experience them,
depending on where we are.
Or a dragonfly or a bird
flies into your space,
these things happen.
And when they happen,
it's like we're
confronted with the
mystery of the world, when
we change the perspective.
Normally, we don't think of
whales in our backyard or birds
in our house, flying
freely, but they
do happen. these
things do happen,
and they like break
us out of our trance
when these things happen.
It's like, oh, yeah, there are
birds like this everywhere.
I'm just not paying attention.
This guy is coming in to
tap me on the shoulder.
It's like remember me?
Here I am.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So I would
say that the whale example
and what you're describing
is it's revealing to us how--
in a delightful
way-- how deficient
our perceptual
filters normally are.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
It's a little bit
like the Rothko
is revealing how--
I've never thought about it
this way until this moment--
is revealing to us how
color normally looks
is actually, first of all,
not the only way it looks.
Those colors we think are
one way, but all of color--
this gets into the
biology of color vision--
is all about contrast.
What something is next to
dictates what it looks like,
and that's the origin
of that dress meme
or whatever you call it.
I still can't figure out
exactly what a meme is.
Someone will eventually tell me.
In the same way, when you see
a whale, and it's delightful,
I think it's revealing
to us the extent to which
those whales are--
the ocean is vast.
There's a whole universe
there, and we are blind to it
all the time.
And I think the misperception--
or the misconception,
excuse me, is that we're
delighted because we
see the whale.
We might be just as
delighted because we're
getting hit with the
contrast of how little
we recognize all the
time, and in that way,
it reminds me a little
bit about comedy.
And I've been watching
more comedy lately,
and sometimes, it's the shock.
Sometimes, it's the absolute
truth that's revealed,
and then other times,
what I've noticed--
and I saw Rogen do comedy
at the Vulcan Club,
in Austin, which he does
every once in a while.
And it was small club, and
he was leading out this story
during his routine
or bit, I think.
Right?
This bit, and everyone
knew where it was going.
We all knew, and then
when he finally told us,
it was exactly where we
thought it was going,
and it was hilarious.
RICK RUBIN: And it felt good.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
And it felt amazing,
and I thought in that moment,
I was like, wait a second,
how did he pull that off?
That was masterful, because
normally, it's this thing
like you create one story.
There's like a scripting out,
almost like a courtroom lawyer.
And then they kind
of pull the curtain,
and it's something different.
And if you look at the science,
the neuroscience, and brain
imaging of laughter
and humor, which
I've looked into, to be
honest, and no disrespect
to the people in that
field, it's pretty lame.
It's lame, because
it's always the jarring
nature of a surprise.
But what he led us to was
something that, oh, no,
he's actually going there.
Oh, wait, he's
really going there,
and it was this anticipation
with a beautiful delivery
at the end.
And so I'm convinced
that, based on what
we're talking about here, that
there's something about when we
see something, we
think it's about that,
but that the
delight that we feel
could be about the other
experiences that now become,
in a subconscious way, like ha.
It's almost like laughing
at this perceptual deficit
that we have.
It's almost like laughing at
how little we actually know,
which is what you've said.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
It could be that.
It also could be the
sense of community
of when you think it's going
to go a particular way,
and it goes that way.
It's like reinforcement of you.
It's like, yeah, he's
saying it, but in a way,
we're saying it together.
I'm listening, he's saying it,
but we're in this together,
and that's a good feeling.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I have to
think about that for a second.
I was trying to think about why
certain music still can evoke
such powerful emotions in me.
And there does seem to
be something special
about the music we listen
to when we are teenagers.
From about 14 until
about 25, it seems
to get routed into our
nervous system in some way.
Maybe because that
phase of our life
is really one of
identity crisis.
You don't find too many
40-year-olds, some,
who are wondering
like who they are.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Occasionally,
but almost every young teenager
or pre-teen and
is like who am I?
You're defining personality.
So I always likened it to that.
But leaving out the
critical period biology
stuff, what do you think
it is about the music
that we hear at that time?
Are that much more
emotionally tuned?
Have we not shut down our
sensors quite as much?
Because the songs
and the artists
don't matter, because they're
very individual to me.
For other people, it will
be the Beatles or something.
Now, I just really wish the
Beatles did it for me too.
But do you think
that's important?
Because I could see how
it's really terrific.
I could also see
how it sets up one
of these what I'll
just use nerdy language
and call like a
semi-deprived filter.
Because if I'm only
looking for the way
that a Stiff Little
Fingers track made
me feel the first time I
listened to it, when I was 15,
the feeling is worthwhile.
But if I'm looking for that,
I'm missing all the other stuff.
I'm missing the Beatles.
I'm missing Fleetwood Mac, which
never did it for me either.
I'm like, I'm missing all
this stuff that people I love
and respect really love.
So I've never worried
about it, because there's
an infinite treasure trove of
other things that I do love.
But I do sometimes
wonder whether or not
my life experience
is diminished,
because I'm not allowing range.
And you've, obviously,
worked in a huge number
of different genres of music.
Punk is one thing.
Hip hop is--
Neil Diamond too.
Right?
Eminem too, Slayer too, right?
And in some sense,
as I list these off,
just think about how much in
high school, maybe nowadays
less so, but even in
college and as an adult,
societally, were asked
to constrain ourselves
to one of these groups.
I didn't know it was
OK to love Bob Dylan
and love punk rock
as much as I do,
until I heard Tim Armstrong
said he loved Bob Dylan.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
And I was like--
and recently, he told me
he loves the Grateful Dead,
and I was like, whoa.
But I remember when
you had to pick.
RICK RUBIN: Both the Ramones
and the Clash love the Beatles,
so we can--
ANDREW HUBERMAN: OK.
I got work to do.
RICK RUBIN: We'll
do it together.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: OK.
RICK RUBIN: I have
a feeling part of it
is, the reason it gets
in at that age, is it's
a time when we're
defining who we are,
and the music is part
of the definition
of how we see ourselves.
Like the music that we hear
before that might be the music
that's on the radio or our
parents' music or our older
brother or sister's music.
And then when you're
14 or 15, and you
start choosing what
you're listening to,
it's like, now
it's finally mine.
And my parents
might not like it,
and my older brothers and
sisters may or may not like it,
but this one is mine.
And it always has
that impression in us
that this is ours.
My that's my thought of
why it continues to last.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: How do you
wipe the slate clean then?
So for instance, if you're going
to go in and work with somebody
new-- and again, as
people are hearing this,
I hope that they're
transplanting this
to whatever it is that they do.
Because in the realm of
science and podcasting
and communication,
it's not music,
but there's a contour and a way.
Hopefully, this podcast
will look nothing
like it does in five years.
That's my hope, is it will
still have the core features
of the beauty and utility
of biology coming through,
but I hope it doesn't look
anything like episode two.
RICK RUBIN: And I think
it'll evolve as you evolve.
It's just, the truer it
is to what interests you,
and if you're not
interested in biology
in the same way in five years,
I would hope it's not the same.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'll be doing
psychoanalysis in real time
here.
In therapy, we'll all be
lying down on couches.
RICK RUBIN: Whatever it is.
Whatever it is.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.
We probably won't
be on psychedelics,
but we might be levitating.
You never know.
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So how do you--
let's talk a little
bit, if you would,
because I know I'm very
interested in your process.
I'll spare you the
daily routine question.
It's very cliche.
But you and I are both lovers of
sunlight, of horizons, and not
as a trivial source, as
an amazing gift of energy.
Right?
And there aren't
words for it really.
Aside from your
daily routines, when
it comes to somebody you're
going from project to project,
and you know you're going to
be doing work with somebody,
could be your own work.
And we'll talk about
the writing of this book
and its structure
which is very unique.
I've never encountered a book
with this kind of structure
before, and it's the
most facile read ever,
and yet every single page,
I underlined, took notes,
starred.
And like, as you notice, it's
very worn, very, very worn
already and only
more so over time.
Do you have a
process for removing
the functions of the day and
what you were doing last week
and what's going on in order
to get more access to this--
I'm going to think of it
now more as a receiver
inside of you.
Right?
Almost like tuning a radio,
[IMITATING STATIC] and then
it comes in.
Like the beginning of like
a Strummer Clash thing.
Right?
He love the radio.
Joe loved the radio, right?
[IMITATING STATIC] and
then it comes in clear,
and there it is.
How do you clear the static?
What are some of the
operational steps
that you think might be more
generalizable, regardless
of where somebody in Africa
is listening to this.
RICK RUBIN: I would say, when I
engage in a particular project,
whatever it is, I
dedicate all of myself
for that period of
time, whatever it is.
Whether it be 20
minutes or whether it
be five hours,
whatever it is, total
focus, and no outside
distraction whatsoever.
And when I leave that
process, I do my best
not to think about it,
when I'm away from it.
I don't bring any
materials with me.
I don't leave the studio
with works in progress
and spend time listening
to them during the day
or looking for ideas.
I stay as far away from
it, when I'm not directly
engaging in it, as possible.
And in the best of situations,
I have something else to totally
engage myself in in between.
So instead of working on
project A for five hours,
and then leaving
and doing nothing,
I'm hoping to engage
in a Project B
or B, C, and D
with all of myself
before going back to
project A again, which might
be the next day, let's say.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So this
relates to an amazing chapter
and series of
writings in your book,
that I'm not going to describe,
because I want people to find
it for themselves,
about disengaging,
about disengaging
from the process.
One question I had as
I read that chapter,
and as you're saying this
now, is even though you're
disengaged, do you believe that
your subconscious is working it
through?
RICK RUBIN: I believe so.
I believe so, and
I think in general,
to stew over a problem is not
the way to solve a problem.
I think to hold the
problems lightly--
and when I say a problem,
when we're starting a project,
there's usually
this feeling of--
there's a question mark, at
the beginning of every project.
I'm always anxious when
I start a new project,
because I have no idea
what's going to happen.
I never know.
I never-- I may have, in some
cases, a potential backup plan,
if nothing works, but I really
try not even to have that.
I prefer not to have that.
I prefer to go in maybe
to calm myself down enough
to be able to show up,
there'll be an idea of,
if nothing works, maybe we
could try something like this.
But that would only
be for my own anxiety.
It wouldn't be for
actual practical use.
But there's always a sense
of anxiety, because I know,
whatever's going to happen is
completely out of my control.
Something either interesting
or not will appear,
and then we're going to
follow that wherever it goes.
And until something
appears for us to follow,
I have a lot of anxiety, even
though it has never not come.
It has come every time, but
there's something about it--
because I also feel like there
might be expectation on me
that I'm going to
make it happen,
and I know that's not happening.
That's not how it works.
I show up ready for
it to happen and am
open to whatever we have to
do to find that first thread.
And once we find the
thread, then it's like, OK,
we have a-- and that thread
may lead us to anything.
It could lead us in a
million different directions.
But something about having
that glimmer, that we're not
looking at a blank page.
We're looking at, OK, we have
the beginnings of, I would say,
a map.
But it's a map that we don't
know where it takes us,
and it's just the beginning.
It's just like, you are here.
If you have a map, and
it says you are here,
even if you can't
see the directions,
knowing where we are feels OK.
And once we get--
and usually, again,
usually in the first day, first
couple of days, it happens.
But up until then, it's really
an anxiety-producing situation,
and then I can't remember
the original question.
So that was the beginning of
something completely different.
But do you remember
what you asked?
I don't remember.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.
Well, we were talking
about disengaging,
and is your
subconscious into it?
And then we're talking
about, I love this.
So like what is your process
of wading into this thing?
And you're revealing that now.
I think of anxiety as readiness.
I think about the characteristic
features of anxiety,
it tends to be a bit
of a constriction
of the visual field into
more of a narrow vision.
But that's appropriate,
because you
want to shed what's
going on elsewhere.
And then even when people
talk about the shakes or this
like not feeling
OK sitting still,
anxiety was designed to mobilize
us and not always to run away.
Rarely do I talk about the
work in my own laboratory,
but one of the things that--
frankly, I didn't discover but
it was done in my laboratory
but is brilliant.
Graduate student Lindsey
Salay, who's now at Caltech,
was that we can often
observe animals or humans
in very high states of
anxiety, as they move forward
toward a goal.
And we always think of moving
forward as like this calm
thing, these heroes, Rosa Parks
telling people like F you.
Like I'm not getting
off the back.
I'm not leaving the--
giving up my seat on
the bus or Muhammad Ali.
I bet you they were
experiencing tremendous anxiety,
but it was in the forward tilt.
And so I think anxiety
is at least comfortable
when we are forcing
ourselves to stand still.
So it's a activating
energy, and that
brings up a word
that I have written
in my notebook as an
extraction of a lot of themes
from within the book that you
and I have talked about before,
which is--
and here I'm going to
sound very West Coast woo.
But I mean it as
seriously as it can
be stated, that I feel like
everything is energetic.
We can do things from
a place of anger.
We can do things
from a place of joy.
We can do things from
a place of delight.
I like to think
maturing into the idea
that joy and delight and love
is the ultimate reservoir
of energy.
But a lot of the music that I
like from when I was younger
was because of
the anger that was
thread into it or the sadness.
RICK RUBIN: If you think of
your relationship to that music,
it's a relationship of love.
You didn't listen to
that to get angry.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: No.
RICK RUBIN: You listened
to it because you loved it.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And
I felt loved by it,
because it matched
where I was at the time.
RICK RUBIN: It was true to who
you were and where you were.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I know
that collaboration,
there's a wonderful
chapter on collaboration,
but it's collaboration,
as you mentioned before,
with the universe,
not with others.
But in terms of the, especially
the kind of work that you've
done and do, when it comes
to working with artists,
I do wonder--
and here I'm not looking
for any gossip or stories.
I've never been
interested in gossip.
I love stories, but I'm
not interested in gossip.
But once you see that
thread dangling there,
and you're going
to go after this.
Or you grab on to it,
and you're like, OK,
now you have a
little bit of a map
and an orientation
within that map.
I often wonder, scientists
are complicated people.
People think
they're very boring,
but they're actually
very complicated.
Because they're
often living in one
limited rule set of
the prefrontal cortex.
That's how you get
good at getting
degrees is by understanding
the rules of academia
and playing by those rules.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: People
tinker with the rules.
You get your Richard
Axels who are
very playful in how
they go about it,
but they are systematic.
He's known for
rigor, rigor, rigor.
Right?
When I think of creative
artists and musical artists,
I think of a bit
more zany or loose.
Or you watch the documentary
about the Ramones,
and you're like, wow,
there's all this chaos.
How-- because so many of
the brilliant artists,
musical artists
that are out there,
seem to have some
chaos inside them,
or their lives aren't always
structured, oftentimes.
And science too,
by the way, there
are substance abuse issues
and personal life issues.
How-- since you don't
have 100% control,
they need to play the
instruments, sing, et cetera.
How do you work with
people who have it in them
but are getting
in their own way?
Right?
And do you think that
the internal chaos
that a lot of
artists seem to have,
do you think that
sometimes is actually
an essential piece of
the creativity picture,
that you can't disentangle it?
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
I don't think it's an essential
piece in general, but certain
artists, that's how they do it.
I would say, I rarely get to
see the chaotic part of artists.
For whatever reason, they
rarely show it to me,
and most of them, like
most comedians I know,
are much more serious
about what they're
doing than what it looks like
from if you see them on stage.
There's much more
to it, and there's
much more focus on craft
going on and digging deep
than would necessarily be
obvious seeing them jump around
on stage.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'm a fan
of boxing, track and field
and boxing, the sports
nobody really cares about,
now that UFC is so popular.
And track and field is--
it's a little bit
like wrestling.
When you go, the
people that are there
are there because
they really love it.
We'll talk about
wrestling in a little bit,
professional wrestling.
But Floyd Mayweather
is obviously
a colorful character
and one of the best
records in boxing of all time.
And a few years back, I got
into watching his stuff,
and what one sees is
the cars and the money.
They literally call
themselves the money
team, and the
spending, and there's
all the outrageous stuff.
But I know someone who was in
camp with him who actually was
a sparring partner for
him, and the lore has it--
they have very closed door
sparring or clean ups.
But the lore is
that he would do--
because nowadays, it's
12, three-minute rounds
with a minute in
between, used to be 15.
But now, neuroscientists
stepped in,
and it turns out a
lot of the deaths
were occurring when it
was more than 12 rounds.
For whatever reason,
cut off at 12
really seemed to
truncate the deaths.
There are other things too.
If the dad is
apparently a cornerman--
we have someone else
here at the podcast who
knows more about this than me.
RICK RUBIN: That's fascinating.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.
The kid not wanting to
disappoint the parent
correlated with death.
I'll get some of this wrong,
and they can come after me.
But in any case, this guy
who was in Floyd's camp
said that he would
do 30 to 60 minutes
of sparring, bringing in fresh
sparring partners with no rest.
That he would run three or
four times per 24 hour cycle,
despite all the
critical need for sleep.
That his training was
unbelievably intense,
to the point where he
would just chew out,
chew up, and destroy
all training partners.
And yet the perception that we
see is it's playful for him.
So it sounds very similar.
Like what we see is often
not what goes into it,
that people are
intensely rigorous.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah, and
I think, in a way,
from a psychological
perspective,
if you knew you were fighting
someone who wasn't taking it
seriously, that would
give you some confidence,
and that would not
be a good thing,
if the person was actually
working really hard,
outworking you.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Like from a psychological
perspective,
that makes sense to me.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So what
I keep coming back to
is that I'm imagining
in my mind you
have to ends of the continuum.
One that is about fairly narrow
focus, training, training,
strategy implementation,
cultivating craft, building
craft, and then the
other side is the cloud.
It's very nebulous.
Right?
And there's this
word that I learned
from a colleague of mine, when I
was down at the Salk Institute,
when my lab was there,
because he studies this.
There's this phenomenon that
I don't want to mispronounce,
because then it sounds
like something else.
But the correct
pronunciation is pareidolia,
and pareidolia is our tendency
to look at an amorphous shape,
like a cloud or
a tree, and think
that it looks like something
else, an ice cream cone.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
The man in the moon.
RICK RUBIN: Yep.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And
that again reveals
the extent to which the brain
wants to place symbolic filters
on things, and we need this.
Right?
Because I see you walk
in the door, and Rick,
I recognize you.
In fact, we have a brain
area, called the fusiform
face gyrus, that it literally
is a face recognition area.
And you could be
at any orientation,
or I could just see your
eyes and know that it's you.
There's a phenomenon
called propasognosia,
where people can see faces.
They can describe
everything in the face,
but they don't know,
for instance, that it's
JFK or Madonna or Lex Fridman.
RICK RUBIN: It's quite the list.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Quite the
list, there you go, Lex.
Run for office, Lex.
Just kidding.
It's hard enough to get you to
respond to my texts as it is.
So we have these filters, and
so we're taking this cloud,
and we're deciding
what things are.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And
what I want to go drill
into your process a little
bit more deeply, when
you approach a project--
so everyone meets each
other, shakes hands.
Here are the engineers.
We're going to sit down.
Everyone knows what
they're doing, because you
work with professionals.
And you start going, are you
trying to be with the cloud
or in the implementation?
Like where are you
in that continuum?
And forgive me if I'm like
trying to surgically go
into your process in a way that
would disrupt it in any way.
But I trust you been
doing this for a while,
and there's no threat of that.
RICK RUBIN: I'm in the cloud,
with the exception of I'm
aware of what could go wrong on
a technical side, and I might--
like if something
good is happening,
I might look over and make
sure that we're rolling.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So that's a
leap over to here, momentarily,
but then you get back.
RICK RUBIN: Maybe.
Maybe.
If I feel like--
if I was in the moment,
I would be in the cloud.
And if something good
starts happening,
it would trigger
something in me.
Like uh-oh, I hope this is--
I hope we're really doing
this, because I don't know
if we could ever do this again.
That would be a thought of--
when the first time
the real world would
come into the picture would be
something good is happening.
Let's not lose it.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And when
that happens, do you--
never been in a studio
besides a podcast studio.
Do you say, hey, guys,
that sounded good.
More of that.
Or do you wait, you
let them continue?
Because obviously you don't
want to break their flow.
RICK RUBIN: We'd never
want to break any flow,
once it's happening.
Yeah.
Once something's happening,
just sit back and watch.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And do you
think there's resonance,
like the team of
engineers and other people
know when "It," quote,
unquote, is happening?
RICK RUBIN: If everyone's
paying attention, yes.
When everyone's
paying attention,
it's usually pretty obvious.
Sometimes, the thread
will be something
different than expected,
and maybe not everybody
would pick up on it.
And that might be
a particular-- that
might be particular based on
my taste or an artist's taste.
Or someone involvement might
say, let's listen back to that.
I think that was
better than we thought.
That can happen.
You said several
things, and it was
like you said enough for there
to be several conversations.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
I tend to do that.
Sorry.
Especially with you.
I don't get to see you nearly
as often as I would like,
and so when I do,
I confess that I'm
a little bit of a
kid in a candy shop.
RICK RUBIN: I wrote down
the brain tells us stories.
So you talked about, I walk
in, certain data points,
you recognize me, but it's a
real like looking at a cloud
shorthand.
We go through our lives
doing this all day
with everything we see, and the
short hand, in the case of me,
you know me, the shorthand
turns out to be right.
It checks out.
If it's something we
don't know and something
we're not familiar
with, something happens,
we experience something
on the street.
Something happens, and
it doesn't make sense.
Something out of the
ordinary happens.
The first thing is this
doesn't make sense.
Then, what we do is, again,
subconscious, unconsciously--
I don't know if it's
unconscious or subconsciously--
without thinking, we create a
story that explains what just
happened, a hypothetical that
makes it OK that what just
happened happened.
And oh, maybe he's running
because his dog ran away,
and he's chasing his dog.
Maybe that's why he's running.
And as soon as we have that
thought of what it might be,
we relax, because now it's
not just a guy running,
and this is weird.
But it's a guy running, oh, he's
probably running after his dog.
And now, we register that
story that we just made up,
without even knowing we were
making it up, as what happened.
And then later in the
day, if someone says,
yeah, did you see that guy
running out of the house?
It's like, yeah, he
was chasing his dog.
I saw that.
And you won't even
realize that it was maybe
hypothetical story that was the
first possible explanation that
allowed you to continue walking.
Do you know what I'm saying?
That's our whole lives.
Our whole lives are
reacting to things,
making up a story
of what we think
may have happened,
without realizing
that's what we're doing.
And then living the rest of
our lives as if that thing
that we made up really
happened, and we never know.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I
completely agree.
We confabulate from
birth until death.
There's this
well-observed phenomenon
in people who have
memory deficits.
So there's the sad
example of this and then
there's the everyday
typical not--
who knows-- sad or
not sad example.
So for instance, if somebody
has a slight memory deficit,
or someone has
Alzheimer's dementia,
they'll find themselves in
the hallway at night and say,
what are you doing here?
And they'll say, oh, I was
going to get a glass of water,
but they're walking away
from the direction that
would make sense.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: People who--
alcoholics who drink
enough develop something
called Korsakoff syndrome,
where a certain brain
area gets messed up.
And you'll ask them
a question, like oh,
what are you doing here?
And they will come up
with incredible stories,
sometimes interesting
stories, that
have no bearing on reality.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: You ask
them who their name is--
RICK RUBIN: But do they believe?
They believe that's
what happened.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: With
100% certainty, and this
actually relates to a
lot of the now better
understood controversy
around repressed memories.
You can, especially
from young people,
you can pull memories from them
of things that never happened.
This has been demonstrated
over and over again.
So courtrooms know to
be very cautious now
about this whole notion
of repressed memories.
RICK RUBIN: That's good to know.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah,
very, very complicated area
of the law, as you can imagine.
Because we tend to
want to trust victims,
for understandable reasons.
But in terms of
accuracy of details,
two people have very
different accounts
of the same experiences,
and this has
been shown over and over again.
That you can do well
in the laboratory.
It's pretty interesting.
So again, because
of this selective
filtering and
storytelling, and we are--
I think it was
Salman Rushdie, who
said we are the
storytelling species.
He probably--
RICK RUBIN: Wow.
I was going to say we're
storytelling machines,
but that's great.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.
We are story--
I would say that
the big five, if I
had to pick up a brain function,
is we are very limited filters.
The mantis shrimp sees 67
shades of red for every one
that we see.
So they have access to things
we don't have access to.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
They're not, as far
as I releasing, albums of the
Red Hot Chili Peppers caliber,
but who knows.
Maybe down there they are.
I did see something, by the way
as a relevant tangent recently,
and I don't know if it's--
look, even if it's
crazy, it's super cool.
If you take a device
that amplifies
the electrical signals
coming from cactus,
and you just translate that
into a simple rule of conversion
to two or three
pitches of sound,
the music that comes out of
it is beautiful, nothing short
of beautiful.
And when I saw that, the
teenager in me thought,
you know when we
hear whale song,
we think it's so beautiful.
Like what if they're just
like cursing at each other
the whole time?
Right?
Maybe they're in there
like a Rogen episode,
when he invites all his
comedian friends in there.
Who knows?
Maybe it's a
psychoanalytic conversation
about their childhood traumas.
I don't know.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: But we decide,
whale song is beautiful.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: We decide
cactus are just plants.
RICK RUBIN: And it's
beautiful to us,
and we're right, that
it is beautiful to us.
But it doesn't mean we
know anything about it.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: That's right.
Yeah.
So we have these filters,
perceptual filters.
We only can see and hear,
smell and taste what we can,
and then the brain likes
to work in symbols.
We tend to like to match
that person whose shoes are
messed up must be homeless.
I've had a couple
of instances in life
where I saw what I thought
was a homeless vagrant
inside a building at an
academic institution.
It turned out, it was the
most accomplished person
in the field.
That's always cool.
Yes, that happened at Berkeley.
Then, the other thing that we
do is we tend to put symbol--
so we said perception, symbol
representations, and then
our memories are
entirely confabulated,
based on already deficient
symbol and perceptual
representation.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And so I
never liked the statement
that we don't know
how the brain works.
I think we do know
how the brain works,
but that it works through
very limited filters.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So knowing
that and accepting it,
and it seems to me that this
idea of looking to nature,
looking outside
us, is so critical.
And in fact, I hope you
won't mind me sharing this,
but a few years back, I had
sent you something by text.
And I was kind of in
disbelief about something
I had seen in the media.
I was like, they
got it all wrong.
And I knew the person
involved, and it was not
a good situation for them.
And I was like, they got it
all wrong, and you wrote back.
You said, it's all lies.
Back to nature, the only truth.
RICK RUBIN: Wow.
That's wild.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And
I wrote that down.
I put it over my desk.
RICK RUBIN: Wow.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And I still--
I'd tattoo it on my forehead,
if I didn't already have
it well-committed to memory.
But I know that's true.
Right?
Nature we can look at and it's--
RICK RUBIN: When I
say it's all lies,
you just talked
about our ability
to how limited our facility to
see and understand what we see.
Yes?
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yes.
RICK RUBIN: So based on
that, that leads us to we
can't know much.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Our resolution is
so low on everything
that we're really just like
we're grasping at straws.
We have no idea.
We have no idea, and there's
great power and knowing that.
Because if you think you know
what's going on, chances are,
you're being deceived.
Not because somebody
is deceiving you,
but because they're
telling you what
they see, and they don't know.
It's all-- do you
know what I'm saying?
It's all made up.
Everything we know is made up.
Maybe, maybe it's true.
This brings us to pro wrestling.
It's the reason
that pro wrestling
is closer to reality than
anything else we can watch
or any other content.
It's we know it's made up.
We know that it's a performance.
It's storytelling, and
that's how everything
is, except we think wrestling
is fake, and the world is real.
Wrestling's real,
and the world's fake.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: You
talk about in the book--
we're definitely going
in this direction.
In the book, you talk about
this notion of entertaining
the idea of the
opposite being true.
And there are not only
emerging but established fields
of psychology that are
making great ground, I think,
into the human psyche, Byron
Katie's work and others.
Where you take a
statement, and you start
playing with that statement.
You poke at its authenticity.
And when I first heard that,
I thought, this is hokey.
Right?
It's just words.
And then I realized
how foolish I
was being, because she's
really on to something.
And there are others too,
of course, but in science,
that's exactly what you do.
You don't really ask
questions in science.
You are forced to raise
hypotheses and try
and say true or false.
Now, there are limitations
to that approach, certainly.
Pure observational
studies have been
incredible in terms of
what they've revealed
to us, especially in medicine.
A patient that has a bullet
hole through a certain area
of the brain, you don't
go in and say, oh, I
hypothesize that person will
have a deficit in seeing faces.
No.
The person wandered into
the clinic, and they go,
this person sees faces but
can't make sense of them.
And then you reverse--
you forensically arrive
at an understanding.
So but in general, we go
about things in this way,
and considering that the
opposite might be true, well,
that's a little bit, I suppose,
of like seeing the whale
at the surface of the water.
It's like, well, the
opposite of my experience,
which is all above
water, for the most part,
is maybe not the complete
experience of life.
You start seeing the
inverse all the time.
So I want to--
RICK RUBIN: Consider the
inverse all the time,
and it really relates to the way
that you described how we see
colors is based on contrast.
So maybe blue is only blue
in relation to yellow.
So if blue is our choice, if
we're not considering yellow,
blue doesn't exist.
Do you know what I'm saying?
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Absolutely.
RICK RUBIN: It's like,
we talk about night.
It's only night,
because there's day.
If there was no day,
there is no night.
In all of our cases,
it's like the yin yang.
There's the light and
the shadow always.
There's always another
side for everything,
and we focus on one aspect.
But if we look at the
other aspect, chances are,
we'll learn something too.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
The nervous system
is not just able to do this.
It's the way it does everything.
Two experiments I'll
just briefly describe.
My scientific
great grandparents,
David Hubel, Torsten
Wiesel, showed
that, if you force a
person to look at something
for a long period of time
without moving their eyes--
there's a way that you can do
this-- the image disappears.
Because normally, your eyes
are making little microsecods,
and you're comparing
what you're seeing
to what's right next to it.
Pixel by pixel, pixel by
pixel, pixel by pixel.
RICK RUBIN: Wow.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
We don't even have
to use the example of
pressing on the arm.
We're sitting in
chairs right now,
and until I said you
know what's going on
at the level of sensation
on the backs of your thighs,
you were unaware of it.
Because if you experience a
pressure or a smell in a room,
you ever walk in the smell
is either good or not good,
pretty soon, the
smell disappears.
The neurons are still firing
like sledgehammers on a bell,
but we become blind
and deaf to it.
Because the nervous
system likes to habituate
the value of that signal
when it's there often,
and it's only the stuff
that comes through
signal the noise
that kind of jolts us
into attention and awareness.
And I want to return to
attention awareness, which are
prominent themes in the book.
And I think, in an
important way, not just,
oh, attention
awareness is important,
but you also give insight into
how to pay better attention,
how to pay awareness
with the understanding
that people are going to
go about it differently,
but I do want to ask
you about wrestling.
Because when I was growing up,
I lived South of the Cow Palace,
and there was some
wrestling going on there.
I think back then it was WWF.
There was a short
stint in my childhood
where I paid attention
to, in particular,
was it Koko B. Ware, the
guy that had a Macaw?
I was obsessed with tropical
birds, and he would come in,
and he put his tropical
bird on the thing.
And then George
"The Animal" Steele,
the guy that would eat the ring.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: OK.
So and--
RICK RUBIN: I believe
he was a professor.
Seriously.
Seriously.
Seriously.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Was he really?
RICK RUBIN: In real life.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Amazing.
RICK RUBIN: He was a professor,
but he played Georgia
"The Animal" Steele
as a wrestler.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And
I loved the movie
The Wrestler, The Wrestler.
RICK RUBIN: Darren
Aronofsky movie.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: It
was Mickey Rourke.
RICK RUBIN: With Mickey Rourke.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.
One of the reasons I liked it
is I once visited Asbury Park.
Isn't that where
that was filmed?
There's a vacant-- he goes
to visit his daughter.
There's a vacant amusement park
or abandoned amusement park
scene there that
was really eerie,
still kind of haunts
me a little bit.
There's something about
the East Coast in fall.
All the places that
people normally
go just for the summer,
that we don't have out here
in the West coast,
people in the East Coast
are just tougher than we are.
It still haunts me.
Great movie.
But I remember
watching wrestling,
and it was at that age, I think
I was probably about 12, 13,
maybe 11, 12, 13, where
you're entering puberty,
and puberty is a fundamental
landmark of development.
It's the most rapid
period of aging.
It's also when we start
to change our rule set.
Like certain people and
certain kinds of interactions
take on profoundly
different meaning.
Right?
It's not just a reproductive
competence time, and when kids,
their bodies change.
The rulebook changes
fundamentally.
RICK RUBIN: Our understanding
of the world changes
in that moment.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.
The moment that a child
understands really what sex is
and how they got there and
that a lot of the stuff that we
see in the world is kind of
passively, or not so passively,
being sent through that filter,
it's like it's something.
It changes the rule
book of perception.
I view this age,
from about 11 to 13,
at least for me was a
unique transition point.
Where the gap between what
I perceived as reality
and fiction was blurry.
This is captured pretty well
in that movie "Stand By Me,"
where they're hanging around
the campfire at night.
And the kid says,
who do you think
would win in a fight between
Superman and Mighty Mouse?
And the other kid
says, like you idiot,
Mighty Mouse is a cartoon.
Of course Superman would win.
And like to me, that's being
11 and 1/2 or 12 years old.
Where your understanding
of reality as you know
it is changing, but
it's not completely
crystallized into an
adult form reality.
RICK RUBIN: That sounds
like a really healthy place
to be, to me, like that.
Not letting it crystallize,
I think there's
where the downfall happens.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So I have
a question specifically
about wrestling, but it's
really about process.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I want
to know whether or not
you watch wrestling because it
allows you to access the energy
state in your body and mind and
that mode of thinking in which
reality, as one conceives
it, is somewhat blurry.
Or is it for a number of
other reasons, which is fine.
Is that the energy you're
trying to export and bring
to the creative process
elsewhere, to life?
Is it that anything is
possible, or that we're
dealing with archetypes?
Because it doesn't matter if
it's Koko B. Ware or Randy
"Macho Man" Savage, or
George "The Animal" Steele
and the lovely Elizabeth.
I guess I did watch a
little bit of wrestling.
They are archetypes,
much like the Greek myths
or the Bible or--
no disrespect to the Bible or
to Greek myths or to wrestling,
for that matter.
Archetypes are a powerful
filter for humans,
but we know that they're
a very limited filter too,
because people aren't built
like square wave functions.
We have curves and
contours and complexity.
So what is the deal with your
relationship to wrestling?
RICK RUBIN: I think it
maintains that playfulness.
Anything is possible.
We expect the unexpected
all the time in wrestling.
And it's a way to have
a feeling of the energy
of a sport with no competition.
Everyone is working together to
put on the best show they can.
So it's more like a ballet than
it is like a sporting event,
and there's great
skill involved.
It's one of the few things
that I can watch and really
feel relaxed.
It relaxes me.
I don't feel like I
have to think about it.
I can just relax and enjoy it.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: This
brings up a topic
that is very near and
dear to my heart, which
is this notion of
dopamine schedules.
I never want to reduce
everything to dopamine,
but dopamine is the universal
currency of delight, pleasure,
motivation seeking.
There are other
chemicals involved too,
but there's a beautiful
experiment and a couple
of examples that I'll
use as a foundation
to more questions
about wrestling
and why it's powerful.
And why other people may
want to use wrestling
or some other endeavor as a
way to access creative energy
and source.
Earlier, we talked about
you can train an animal
to press a lever three
times and then get reward,
and it will learn three is
the magic number for reward,
and then it can switch.
It takes a little
bit of training,
and then they can switch.
But they can't do prime numbers.
They can't do high
abstraction schedules.
Humans either.
We're not very good at
figuring out the rule set
for optimal foraging.
We do it well enough to persist
as a species, at least for now,
but it's very likely that we
are not tapping into that system
as well as we could,
and how would we
know, if we don't know?
It's one of those you who don't
know what you don't knows.
There's a beautiful
experiment that
explored when
dopamine is released
in the context of watching
sport or watching comedy,
believe it or not.
And with the comedy
stuff, it was every time
there was a
surprise, it was kind
of that jarring like
ha-ha, and they'd measure
people's dopamine output.
They were also brain imaging.
In a game of basketball,
it's a beautiful opportunity
experimentally.
Because every time
one team gets the ball
or is shooting free
throws or something,
they're going down
court, and it's either
going to end up in the
basket, or it's not.
Might end up on the free throw
line, but it's end up or not.
So what they found is that
the schedule of anticipation
was every time there was a
switch of which team got it.
So you're waiting,
waiting, and then it's, ah.
You're waiting, waiting.
Yes.
Waiting, waiting, three-pointer.
Ah, awesome, and if
something happened
where it looked
like they were going
to make the three-pointer, but
then somebody basically swatted
the ball away, and then
went for a half court shot,
like you don't expect that very
often, bigger dopamine release.
So that's kind of how
the dopamine thing works.
When you describe
wrestling, I wonder,
because you don't
know the script,
it's not one team gets it,
then the other team gets it.
You don't know
who's going to win.
Anything could happen
is what you said.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
The availability
of that dopamine surge or drip,
which is a powerful thing,
is completely--
it's completely out of your
reach in terms of anticipation.
You don't know when
it's going to come,
but it must arrive often
enough that you return to it
11 hours a week of watching.
In many ways, the
way I'm starting
to conceptualize the creative
process is a little bit
the same.
You don't know where
those nuggets of gold
and those loose threads are,
but you have enough experience--
and in this case, I am
referring to you specifically--
to know that they are in there.
The people walking in this
room have a certain level
of ability and talent to create
that the map will form itself,
as we are going
through the voyage.
And those nuggets of--
here I'm calling them
dopamine-- but they
are out there,
and that knowledge
is enough to get you
to come back again
and again to trust the process.
So I actually think the way
you described wrestling as it's
the energy of the sport.
It's not whether or not
it's this move or that move
or who wins or who loses.
It's the energy,
and I'm guessing
it's the energy that it
creates in you as an observer.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
It's the energy creates
in me, and the reality
that it's honest in
what it is, in a world
where seemingly nothing
is honest at what it is.
And again, not because people
are lying all the time.
We have little data, we make
up a story to explain it,
and then we say
that's what happened.
And we have trusted sources
who do exactly what I just
described and who pass this
down as gospel of what we teach.
And maybe it's true,
and maybe it's not.
With wrestling, we know, maybe
it's true, maybe it's not.
We lean towards
it not being true,
but what's really
interesting about wrestling,
and maybe one of the
most fun things about it,
is that, sometimes, real life
works its way into the story.
Like two wrestlers get married.
Now--
ANDREW HUBERMAN: In real life.
RICK RUBIN: Well, we don't know.
It's like you never know.
It's like in the
storyline, they're
getting married or
getting divorced,
or best friends
turn on each other.
And it could be
part of the story,
and it could really be
happening, because they do.
Right?
Someone gets someone
breaks their leg.
So they're out, because
their leg is broken.
Did they break their leg?
We don't know.
They're out.
Do you know what I'm saying?
We're told they broke their leg.
So there's always this
like I wonder what's true?
I wonder where the line is.
We know that it's scripted
and/or predetermined.
That's how they say,
it's predetermined.
But we don't know where reality
is and isn't, and in some ways,
that's our real
experience of the world,
is this we don't really know
where reality is and isn't.
We have an idea, maybe.
I think in some
ways, wrestling's
more honest or legitimate,
because we start with the idea
that it's fixed.
When we go to a boxing match,
we don't go to a boxing match
thinking it's fixed.
Yet, it might be, and
historically, it's happened.
Or there was just something
in baseball where--
was it baseball?
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I
don't follow baseball.
I should know.
RICK RUBIN: It was
just a big sports--
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh.
RICK RUBIN: One of
the teams that--
ANDREW HUBERMAN: The
plays, basically.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Was it
the call signals of the--
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Of the catcher?
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.
You're not supposed
to deprogram the--
or deconstruct the call
signals of the other team,
and I guess maybe a team
got caught doing that.
RICK RUBIN: Yes, and
the team that won
whatever the World Series was.
So it's like, with wrestling,
that wouldn't be a scandal.
Do you know what I'm saying?
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Almost anything goes.
RICK RUBIN: Anything
goes, and that's
what the world is really like.
So in some ways,
it's comforting,
and there's still this
mystery of like, wow, I
wonder if that's true or not,
because we never really know.
If someone gets hurt, did
they really break their back,
or are they just
going on vacation?
We don't know.
We'll never know.
It's fascinating.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
It is fascinating,
and I feel like there are
certain people who show up
in a way that is surprising
in not just one direction
but in all directions.
Like it's one thing
for a celebrity
to come out and
make a statement.
That can be interesting
or not interesting,
depending on the celebrity and
the statement and the delivery.
And I'm probably going
to get this wrong,
because I'm terrible at pop
culture things, most of them
anyway.
But as I recall,
Lady Gaga showed up
to some event wearing
an outfit made of meat,
and I can't tell you
for the life of me
whether or not that
was a statement
against meat or for meat.
Maybe, it was a statement
for the carnivore diet.
Maybe, it was a
statement for veganism.
I don't know.
RICK RUBIN: Or maybe neither.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Or maybe neither,
but it was definitely
a statement
in that it broke with the norm.
And it said to me, OK, she
creates different rules
for herself or breaks boundaries
that other people had.
I never heard of anyone
doing that before.
It doesn't mean they hadn't,
but I never heard of anyone
doing it before.
But we do tend to associate
outside the current playbook
with, quote,
unquote, creativity,
unless it crosses a
line, in which case, it
becomes something else.
It becomes almost theater
for sake of theater.
But what you're telling me
is that, within the realm
of wrestling, theater is
the goal, at some level,
and everybody knows it who
goes into those arenas, who
watches it.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Everybody.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
And everyone agrees
to kind of suspend
outside reality
and say this is reality.
RICK RUBIN: Yes, and they boo
for the bad guys and cheer
for the good guys,
knowing that backstage
they're probably friends.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Except for the kids
that are 11, who think
it's really real.
RICK RUBIN: I don't know.
I don't even know if they know.
I'm not sure.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: The
only other person
I know who has vocalized their
love of professional wrestling
to the extent that you have is
Lars Frederiksen, the rhythm
guitar player for Rancid
who loves wrestling.
But his statement--
and forgive me, Lars,
if I'm getting this wrong--
is that, because he grew up
in an area of the South Bay,
where there were no teams.
Like now, there's the
San Jose Earthquakes,
but there was no football
team in San Jose.
He's from Campbell.
But there were no like good
teams, no sports teams,
but they had wrestling,
and he had it where?
On the television set.
And so if you
didn't have a-- like
I didn't grow up with any
organized sports thing.
The 49ers were up the road, but
for me, it was skateboarding,
and I love it for
the same reason.
You actually never really
know what's going to happen.
There is no rulebook.
The rulebook is made
up, but they are very--
it's a unique sport, in that--
surfing's a bit like this too--
in that, they are absolutely
maniacal about making
things look a certain way.
It's not about just doing it.
It's about doing it and
making it look good.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Smooth, catching it
with the front foot,
and the trends change.
RICK RUBIN: Styles.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Style.
RICK RUBIN: It's a style.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Style, and that style
is this like nebulous thing of
like in fashion or in sports.
Right.
Whereas with a football,
there's some amazing catches.
There's even like the catch,
which I happen to know
is a 49er-- the catch
during the Super Bowl.
But in general, it's like the
goal is get in the end zone,
win the game.
And I'm sure
football players are
like cringing as
I say this, but it
doesn't matter if you run
ugly, if you run fastest.
In skateboarding,
that would never fly.
In fact, you'd basically be
ridiculed out of the sport.
In wrestling, is it the same?
Are there style to wrestling?
RICK RUBIN: It's
all performance.
It's all the charisma
of the people involved.
There's the physical
ability, the ability
to talk and tell a story,
and how charismatic
the performers are.
Whether you want to watch them,
whether you want to see them
win, whether you want
to see them lose,
and whether you're interested
in cheering or booing for them.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I was going
to say it reminds me of opera,
but operas get released
over and over again.
You know the story
and how it ends
when you walk in, if you've
listened to it before.
So wrestling does seem
to be unique in that way.
It's real time
iteration, at least
from the perspective of the--
RICK RUBIN: And it's
real time iteration
based on because people
get hurt all the time.
They're doing really
crazy physical stuff.
So if someone gets hurt,
the story has to change.
Because in real life, they
can't show up next week
and do what was
planned in the script.
So it's very alive,
and there's a lot of--
something interesting and
unexpected is always happening.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well,
in a much more calm form,
I'll share with you
something, I'd just
like your perspective on it.
For years, I used a tool in
order to try and access ideas,
since I was a
little kid actually,
because I have a
little bit of OCD,
a little bit of a Tourette's.
When I get tired, I'll do that.
I'm very strategy
implementation oriented.
I had that when I
was a little kid,
I needed all my stuffed animals
arranged in a certain way.
LEGOs had to be--
a little neurotic or a lot.
And then science is very much
about you have to do things
with a lot of precision.
And I discovered that
the ultimate reset for me
when I was in graduate
school or a postdoc
if I couldn't make it to a
really good agnostic front
show, or like chaos.
The chaos of a punk rock
show for me was this reset.
It was to release
all this thing.
And I got energy from it.
First time I saw
Transplants play, it's was,
whoa, because you don't
know what's going to happen.
And it was scary.
And I loved it.
The other thing that
I used over time
to reset this ability to
think in a structured way
without it feeling like
it was overcoming me,
maybe even access the
same thing in some ways
that you're accessing
with wrestling
was I like to stare at aquaria.
I like to go to aquariums
or I'd build aquariums.
And I would just sit
there because you never
know which way the
fish are going to go.
You think it's going that
way, but then all of a sudden
they'll turn and
go the other way.
It's completely unpredictable.
And I love aquaria
because of the tranquility
and had them in my
lab for a long time.
I just adore aquariums because
of the non-linearity of it.
It's not A, B, C.
It's A, Z, Z, Q.
And I think this is what
some people try and access
through psychedelics, but that
didn't seem to me like a very
good way to do it
on a regular basis,
whereas with aquaria,
the tanks are there.
So in your book, you
talk about something
that I also share
a love for, which
is how the ocean and aspects of
nature like clouds and ocean,
they have a
predictability to them.
We know where they are
and where to find them.
Fortunately, the sun rises
and sets every day, at least
for now.
And we can count on them
with 100% reliability.
And yet, they are
from the perspective
of what physicists would
say, they're very chaotic.
You can't look at a wave
and know exactly how
the foam is going to roll out.
You know it's going to
roll in and roll out.
We have the tides, but when
I hear about wrestling,
I think about my
love of aquaria.
And I think about my love of
punk rock music, for instance,
or I think about the ocean.
I think in that way that we
actually have a need to source
from things that have both
a combination of structure
and no structure.
RICK RUBIN: I think
it's interesting
that there are some
places that don't change
and some places
that change a lot.
And I can remember
thinking about this.
I was walking-- there's
a beach that I walk on
in Hawaii, that I walk on
every morning when I'm there.
And if you walk on the
same beach every day,
you get a sense
of what it's like.
And I remember I was in Hawaii.
I walked on the beach
every day for a year
or however long it was.
And then I left for six
months, then I came back.
And the next time I
walked on the beach,
it was an entirely different
beach, entirely different.
And I remember
thinking in that moment
like this is an unusual
place because I pictured
the house that I
didn't even grow up in,
the house I lived in
maybe for the first seven
years of my life.
And I think about what
the backyard looked like.
And I think about a particular
old tree that was there.
And I don't know this
for sure, but my sense
is, if I were to go
back to where I grew up,
and go to that place,
and look in that yard,
it would probably
look pretty similar.
Yet, here was this
beach that I was
walking on in Hawaii that
in the course of six months
completely changed its face.
And just how interesting
both of those things are.
And that depending
on the project
we're working on, to be
able to go to a place
that we know has the
potential to change a lot
and what that would do to
our connection with the Earth
when we're experiencing that
versus going to a place that
has very little change.
And you can count on it being
the way it's always been.
That both of those
are interesting things
to be able to draw
upon depending on what
we want to open in our psyche.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I have an
almost unhealthy fascination
with New York in the
mid '80s and '90s.
RICK RUBIN: You didn't
live there, though.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: No,
but since I was a kid--
I went there when
I was a little kid.
And I was fascinated by it.
There's also a very
interesting migration
of East Coast to
West Coast creatives,
including yourself, that played
an important part in my life
just seeing things
and hearing things
that were meaningful to me.
But I, for instance,
I love the movie--
I haven't seen the documentary
about Jean-Michel Basquiat,
Basquiat, because of the
characters that are in it,
and the huge number of people in
that like Parker Posey, Dennis
Hopper, and Christopher
Wall, and on, and on.
Those images of New York at
that time are so exciting
and what was happening.
I wish I could transplant
myself to that.
If I had a time machine,
that's where I'd land first.
I hear a lot of people say, New
York isn't what it used to be.
San Francisco isn't what
it used to be, whatever.
LA isn't what-- there
does seem to be something
that feels a little bit
disruptive to people
about cities changing.
But the idea that natural
landscapes change is actually--
we even accept like, hey,
fires sweep through places.
And assuming they weren't
started by humans,
we accept that.
That change and the
reordering of landscapes
is normal and healthy.
And I always tell
myself, you have
the kids growing up in New York,
or San Francisco, or Chicago
now.
They only know it that way.
So to them, it's as
cool or as uncool
as it's ever going to be.
They either want to
get out or they're
loving every piece of it.
And this happened for all the
people that came before us.
So my question is
a very basic one.
Do you miss the New York
that you came up in?
Are you somebody who is
attached to the past?
RICK RUBIN: I'm not
attached at all.
I'm not attached to
anything in the past.
I don't look back at all.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: You don't
think about, oh, in my dorm room
at NYU, Beastie Boys, this.
I miss-- no.
Your optics are forward,
present and forward.
RICK RUBIN: Only
present and forward.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Is
there a process to that
or it just happens to
be where you default to?
RICK RUBIN: I don't know.
I'm not sure, but
that's how I do it.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Nostalgia
is not in Rick Rubin's brain.
RICK RUBIN: No.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Lucky you, man.
RICK RUBIN: No.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I say that
with genuine admiration.
So you can hear a
song that maybe you
had a role in producing or
not, something from the past.
And you're accessing
a state, presumably,
but you're not pining
for wishing how it was.
RICK RUBIN: Never.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
I'm no psychologist,
but I'm going to venture
to say that I think
that's a very unique quality.
I think a lot of people wish
for or wish that things did not
happen the way they
did, that there's
a lot of living in the past.
There's a lot of this notion
of people future trip.
I don't actually think that's
the default state of the brain.
I think a lot of people live in
emotional anchors to the past,
good and bad.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
I have none.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And
watching wrestling
is one way that you
cleanse the palate.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: When you
go to a meal and you--
they pass around this or that--
I don't know if they do
this anymore, but pass
around a little bit of
sorbet to cleanse the palate.
It turns out there's a
biological reason for that.
There's a kind of
neutralization of the taste
receptors between savory,
and sweet, et cetera.
So wrestling is your
palate neutralizer.
RICK RUBIN: I know
that if I watch
wrestling before I
go to sleep, it's
going to be a good
night's sleep.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Do you
dream about wrestling?
RICK RUBIN: No, never.
But it's just relaxing.
It's just relaxing.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Do you anticipate
when you watch it, like
here comes the dopamine hit?
RICK RUBIN: Sometimes, sometimes
when it happens it's exciting.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: He's going
up for the three-pointer.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah,
sometimes it's exciting.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
But do you enjoy--
RICK RUBIN: But even then,
it's like the stakes are low.
It's like I don't really care
what happens, which feels good.
I'm just being entertained.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Do they
actually get hurt sometimes?
You said they do.
RICK RUBIN: A lot, often.
They do.
I mean, they're
basically stunt men.
So imagine stuntmen getting
hurt doing a crazy stunt.
It happens all the time.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: When
the movie The Wrestler,
I remember he got
staples stapled into him.
And I thought that's
pretty intense.
I once went and saw--
I guess they called
it Mexican wrestling.
I don't know if they
call it that anymore,
where the guys dip their hands--
RICK RUBIN: Lucha libre.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, they
dip their hands in glass.
This was in Sacramento.
And I once saw it.
I honestly didn't
have a stomach for it.
I really didn't.
I couldn't believe it was legal.
It might not have been legal.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: But I thought--
RICK RUBIN: There's crazy
stuff in wrestling sometimes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Wow.
So before sleep,
is that typically
when you watch wrestling?
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Do you
think it's useful for people
to have some activity that
allows them to clear their mind
and create peace before
heading off to sleep?
RICK RUBIN: I think so.
And I think yoga
nidras would be good.
It's like yoga
nidra, pro wrestling,
any of those type things.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, not
watching the Dahmer thing.
I won't watch that.
RICK RUBIN: I don't watch
any horror, anything,
or I don't like violent things.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah,
I know it exists.
I know horrible things
happen in the world,
but I certainly don't want
to do that before sleep.
I think these liminal states
before and emerging from sleep
are very powerful.
When you wake up in the
morning, are your thoughts
immediately structured
or do you enjoy
the clearing of the clouds?
RICK RUBIN: It's a slow
process for me to wake up.
And I like that.
I like not engaging
too much too soon.
I usually fall asleep listening
to a lecture or something
speaking because
if I don't, I can
get caught in my own thoughts.
And listening to something
is enough of a focus point
that it stops me from
talking to myself.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I do the same.
My grandfather listened to the
radio, to sports on the radio.
And he would fall asleep.
Oftentimes, he was a smoker
with a cigarette in his mouth.
His wife's responsibility
was to stay
up later than he did to make
sure he didn't burn everything
down.
And then when you wake up,
you said it's a slow process.
Is it an hour or two before
you feel like you're--
RICK RUBIN: I would
say probably an hour.
I usually wake up and
try to get in the sun
as soon as I possibly
can and hope to spend--
hope to spend about an hour.
And then I'll
usually go for a walk
on the beach for another hour
or 90 minutes, depending.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Are
you with family members
and other people at that time?
RICK RUBIN: No, I'm
usually focused by myself.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Phone?
RICK RUBIN: I'll be
listening to something.
I don't look at the phone, but
I listen to, again, a lecture,
or podcast, or audiobook.
I like audiobooks a lot.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, I do too.
If an idea comes to mind
do you write it down?
RICK RUBIN: I may, it depends.
I like to.
I usually have-- would
do a note in my phone.
I don't usually carry pen and
paper with me when I'm walking.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Yeah, I do the same.
I do a long Sunday hike or jog.
And I will audio
script into my phone.
People sometimes
give me funny looks
because I'm talking to myself.
RICK RUBIN: That's a nice
way to do it, though.
I'd like to learn more of
the audio methods of doing it
instead of the typing methods.
Right now I type and I don't
think it's the best way.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: The voice
memos function in the iPhone
and other phones is really good.
And there are now
companies like rev.com
that will turn those
into Word docs scripts
that are fairly well
corrected, fairly inexpensive.
No, they're not a
sponsor of the podcast.
I just happen to use it.
It's great.
I actually learned that
trick from Richard Axel,
the Nicorette chewing, wild
man, Nobel Prize winner.
He writes manuscripts by walking
around his office, pacing,
and talking into his phone.
RICK RUBIN: I always think
of the Woody Allen movie
where the Alan Alda character
is talking about-- yeah,
he's speaking comedy
ideas into the phone.
It's really pretentious.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah,
I liked that movie
about Harvey Milk, that Sean
Penn played Harvey Milk,
because that all took
place before I was alive,
mostly, in the Bay Area.
But there's these
beautiful scenes of him,
as I recall, sitting there
at his kitchen table talking
into a tape recorder
at night, talking
about how he predicted that he
would be possibly assassinated,
et cetera.
And this goes back
to the Strummer thing
about writing things down.
I think that a lot of
people, including myself
feel a little bit of
egotistical guilt around,
who am I to think
that my ideas could
be worthwhile or something?
But I think over time,
I've come to realize
that the ideas about
experiments or questions
I have about health,
they don't always,
but oftentimes can lead to real
seeds that grow into big trees.
RICK RUBIN: But it's something
that's interesting to you,
it doesn't matter what
anyone else thinks.
Most of my notes are
not for anyone else's--
for anyone else's used.
Like I hear about something
that's interesting to me
and I think about, OK,
I want to learn more
about this, whatever it is.
And then, sometimes those
things work their way
into things I'm doing
because the universe seems
to work in that way, but I
rarely am learning something
with the idea of using it.
I learn things with the idea
of, this is what I want to know.
This is what's
interesting to me.
And then often those things
that are interesting to me
can find their way into other
projects just because they do.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, that's
almost like coal or kindling,
but the moment that you
think of it that way,
it sounds so extractive.
So you take this walk
and you're writing down
the occasional idea, perhaps.
And then what is the next--
the way that--
here are less than,
do this, then this, then that.
I'm interested in, where
does your mind shift to?
Does it become more
structured as the day goes on?
Does your thinking
become more structured
around projects and plans?
RICK RUBIN: I try
to deal with things
that need dealing
with after that
and in preparation
for going to work.
And then when I go to
work, it's more like free--
this free thing where I'm,
again, hoping something good
comes, welcoming something good,
paying attention, and maybe
trying to will it to
happen, but knowing I
don't have the ability
to make it happen.
I can just be present for it
and be ready if it does arrive.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Some of the
more surprising and I found
really interesting and
useful features of the book
were about dancing
with structure and lack
of structure.
So when I think of structure,
I think of deadlines.
So when you are in the
process of creating something,
obviously, deadlines are
relevant, time of day.
There's only so many
hours in the day
where one can stay in the groove
or the readiness to receive.
Have you ever found
yourself in that mode
where you're grinding
like, oh, here we are.
OK, I'm not coming
home for dinner.
It's the next-- we're going
to push, put on the coffee pot
kind of thing.
RICK RUBIN: A lot.
A lot.
Over the course of my life,
a lot, not as much now.
And one of the things
that I discovered
through working on the book
was the phases of work--
we're not required to treat
the different phases of work
in the same way,
whereas before, I did.
Before, everything was
in this state of play.
Everything had a wide
open time schedule.
It happens when it happens.
And if it takes two years or
three years, it doesn't matter.
It's not about that.
It's only about this
thing has to be great.
And what I came to realize
in working on the book
is that there are
different phases.
And the first phase is
this seed collecting phase,
which is an ongoing
part of life in general.
I do that.
I do that always whether I'm
working on something or not.
I'm always in the
seed collecting phase.
And there's no deadline or
just anything that interests
me that I think I want
to learn more about
or has potential to be
something, anything.
I hear something,
I think, uhm, I'd
like to read more
about that, or I wonder
if there's a movie about that.
Is there a movie about that?
If not, maybe there's
a movie to be made.
Again, I want-- this is
something I want in my life.
Let's see if it exists.
If it doesn't exist,
then maybe that's
something interesting to pursue.
But I know that the desire
is there because I have it.
So in the seed phase,
there's no deadlines.
It's just a wide open part.
And then the next phase is
called the experimentation
phase, where we start
experimenting to see
what the seeds want to do.
You're involved but
you're more of a--
you're not really
dictating the action.
You're setting the stage
for something to happen,
but it's not about you yet.
So it'd be like the equivalent
of you'd plant the seed.
You'd would water it.
You'd make sure
it was in the sun.
And you'd wait.
So you're involved, but
you can't make it grow.
And then when it
sprouts, and it grows,
or if it turns into a plant,
then you can look at the plants
like, OK, how does this plant--
what's the potential
of this plant?
And then that the third phase
is the crafting phase, where
it's like, OK, I
have this plant,
maybe I'm going to
trim it or maybe I'm
going to combine it
with these other plants
to make something else with it.
Now, it's like
material that you have.
And then finally is the
completion or finishing phase,
which is the final edit,
getting to the version of it--
the version of it
that's the one that you
can share with the
world if that's
something you're going to do.
And I've come to
realize that by the time
you're going into the completion
phase, you can have a deadline.
And it won't hurt the project.
In fact, it might
help the project.
And I didn't know that before.
So I've worked on projects
that have gone longer than they
necessarily needed
to and maybe not
in the best interests
of the project
because I didn't know that.
I didn't understand
the timing of that
because I am so aware
of the necessity
in the experimental phase to not
have a deadline that I assumed
that held through
the whole project.
And they're not-- it's not
a clear phase one finishes,
and then you start phase two.
Phase two finishes and
you start phase three.
You move back and
forth between them.
I'm collecting
seeds all the time.
I'm always in phase one.
And then, probably
to some degree,
there's always some version of
experimentation going on, maybe
not now, but if something's
on a list of things
I want to look at, hopefully,
I'll get to the list
and give them some
experimentation
and see what they can turn into.
And then if they do
turn into something,
then they get to the crafting
phase where it's more, OK,
now I have this thing.
What do I know about this thing?
What can I match this with?
What can I use this for?
How can I be involved
as a craftsman?
And by the end of
the crafting phase
or deep into the crafting phase,
you can start seeing the end.
You can start seeing an end.
And then you can
even dictate an end.
But I recommend, if
you do, just dictate it
for you not for anyone else
because if something comes up
where you learn-- if you set
a deadline, public deadline,
and then a new discovery
happens along the way.
And you realize, oh,
this could actually
be much better than I
thought, but I need more time,
it's harder to do that
if you set the deadline.
So I would say, have an internal
deadline to get to finish it.
That said, if an unusual
situation comes up
and it's better for everything
not to meet that deadline,
it's one of those rules that--
you set the rule
to break it if it's
what's best for the project.
But that was a new thing for me.
And it helped me a lot.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: When
did you realize that?
RICK RUBIN: In collecting
the material for the book
and thinking about it.
When I realized
that it was phases--
I didn't know any of this.
When I started
writing the book, I
didn't know hardly any of
the things in the book.
Most of it would be reverse
engineering something
that I had experienced,
a successful experience
using these methods without
knowing they were methods, just
following my instincts
got me to something good.
And then I would look back
at, why did I want to do that?
And is there a principle
at play that could
be of use outside of this case?
And how do I explain that?
And that's what
the book is, these
reverse engineered
principles that
have led to a good decision
making and try and make things.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: The
chapter on self-doubt
was really interesting to me.
RICK RUBIN: Tell me what it
says because I can't remember.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well, I'll
read the first sentence of it,
which is that self-doubt
lives in all of us.
And while we may wish it was
gone, it is there to serve us.
And it goes on to describe
how to dance with self-doubt
in not so many words.
I think there's a
saying that is actually
from the landscape of
psychology, which is generally
discussed in a pathological
context, which is, if nothing
matters, anything goes.
This is usually the phrase
used to describe people
who feel as if there's
no use in living,
so just go crazy,
often to self destruct.
But there's a light
version of this, I realize,
where in some sense the
creative process seems
to have something to do with--
if you're not paying
attention to what
outcomes are like who likes
it, who doesn't like it,
and you're just doing it for
you, you make the rule play,
I want to delight myself.
Well then, anything
goes and you have
an infinite rule set
there to extract from,
at least initially.
So as one gets better
at their craft,
you can imagine
self-doubt goes down.
I think that's the perception
of a lot of people.
You get better at
what you're doing.
You can land free throws
as a basketball player.
You can hit more home
runs as a baseball player.
You can produce more
platinum albums as an artist.
Self confidence goes up.
Self-doubt goes down.
But I think you and
I both know a number
of people who are
successful enough
to know that oftentimes there's
a mirror image to that, where
people feel pressure
because they did it once now
they got to do it again.
RICK RUBIN: Yes or that you
think you're so good at it
that it comes easily and you
don't have to apply yourself.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Arrogance.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
So self-doubt it's like a--
it's a check on yourself.
It can either be really helpful
or it can undermine you.
So it's something we all have.
And if we let it undermine us,
then we don't make anything
and that's not good.
But when used as a
balancing tool in our lives,
it serves a great function
where we really do--
it's OK to have
all the confidence
in the world and
still second guess,
is this the best it can be?
You can doubt--
I think the phrase
is in the book.
You can doubt your way to a
great work, to a masterpiece.
Sometimes that
questioning allows
you to push further
than just accepting,
I made it so it's good.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, I've
encountered more people that
seem to be driven by
self-doubt and the need
to constantly perform
and perform again,
then I have real arrogance.
Just hasn't been my
experience, fortunately.
I've met some arrogant
people in my life.
And of course, we never--
as a psychiatrist who I admire
a lot and bio-engineer who
was a guest on this
podcast Carl Di Saraf said,
we never really know
how other people feel.
I mean, most of the time, we
don't even know how we feel.
Again, language is a
very deprived format
for explaining feelings.
So we think somebody feels
one way but we can observe--
and it could be another, but
we observe their behavior.
So in the sense of
returning to the work,
just always
returning to process,
it sounds like your routine is
fairly scripted, at least now.
But the things that
you are getting
in touch with-- wrestling,
sleep and dreaming, the ocean,
there's a predictability of
them because you can access them
in a predictable
way, but they seem
to have a lot of
unpredictability in them.
The ocean is completely
unpredictable.
RICK RUBIN: I also listen to a
lot of music that I don't know.
So I listen to a lot of
classical music, and less so
but some jazz, and
a lot of old music
that I never heard before.
And I like being
surprised by music.
And sometimes it really
catches me off guard.
I shazam a lot when I
hear something I like.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Have
you ever encountered
music that really
works well live
but just does not
work in a recording?
Or that it's much better
live but the recording is
sort of, meh.
You don't have to name names.
RICK RUBIN: I don't think so.
I feel like maybe there
are some artists who
are great live who've never
captured it well on record.
Example would probably
be the Grateful Dead
is a good example
of a band where
I feel like their albums
are not their strong point.
But if you hear live
recordings, they're
really interesting and really
different from each other.
And that's part of what makes
the Grateful Dead interesting
is their unpredictability.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I confess.
I had a sister who listened
to the Grateful Dead.
And I got taken to a few
shows when I was younger.
And they would do that--
was it called space?
It was these drum
solos that would go on
for hours and hours.
This is like the antithesis
of punk rock shows,
where songs are like
90 to 120 seconds.
And I remember
thinking, what is this?
What is this?
But people I know, who
love the Grateful Dead,
love that uncertainty about
where that drum thing--
I think they do call it space.
Forgive me deadheads.
I'm not enough of
one to get it right.
RICK RUBIN: But they're
looking for something.
And sometimes they find it.
And if you're there
when they find it,
it feels exciting
because it's not just--
it's not just
following a script.
It's like something
is really happening.
It's a real moment.
Something that I aim
for in the studio
is to create real moments
that when you hear them,
they don't necessarily
sound perfect.
They sound like something
that really happened.
And in that moment,
something happened.
And it's a special moment.
And you can feel that if
they were to play it again,
it wouldn't be like that.
There's something really
exciting about that.
It's really what-- it's
how jazz works as well.
And I think some of-- bringing
some of that jazz mentality
into other types of music
is really interesting,
makes for compelling things,
because when you hear them,
there's a certain amount of--
you really have to pay
attention to do it.
When you're doing it, you're
really paying attention.
It's like, I don't really know.
There's no music.
There's no map to follow.
And now we're working
together to make something.
Do I play or not play?
When do I play?
And you're really
paying attention.
And can I add or you go
to start adding something.
And someone else
added something.
It's like, oh, I can't do that.
And it's like everyone's
just in this thing,
in this moment experiencing
this thing at once that you
can feel as a listener.
And we get to hear their
excitement of finding it.
And it's thrilling
when it happens.
So I like that experience.
I feel that's what
the Dead do live.
They'll play songs
in different ways.
And again, I don't know
very much about the Dead.
It's newer for me to
listen to the Dead.
Growing up, I never
listen to the Dead,
but probably because I
heard songs on their albums
and thought, this doesn't
really speak to me.
But I think that the
albums don't really reflect
what's special about them.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I think
a lot of their shows
were recorded or videotaped--
RICK RUBIN: By fans
which they supported.
They supported that everybody
come, everybody tape,
everybody trade tapes.
It made sense for
who that band was.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: They
redefined or they defined--
excuse me, the
notion of followers.
I mean, people literally
gave up their lives
or spent much of their lives
literally driving from city
to city to follow them.
RICK RUBIN: Because it's not
like going from city to city
to watch a movie over and
over because it's not a movie.
It's different every night.
It's changing.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's pretty
incredible phenomenon.
I don't know of anything else
quite like it except cults.
And those often don't end well.
I think a guy that mixed
the punch for the Jonestown
Massacre went to my high school.
RICK RUBIN: Is that true?
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I think so.
RICK RUBIN: That's amazing.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
My sister is really
good at all this '70s, '80s
dark psychology trivia.
She's a very light person.
RICK RUBIN: Did you read
Season of the Witch.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: No.
RICK RUBIN: It's about
San Francisco in the '60s.
It's great.
You'll love it.
Great book.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I
ought to check it out.
The way you describe
experiences going by in time,
or things emerging in time,
and the creative process being
a way of capturing those
moments, maybe rearranging,
maybe watering, et
cetera, I thought
was beautifully captured
in the analogy you
gave about a conveyor
belt going by of things.
We think of the creative process
like it's going to land in us,
or we're going to
enter it, or that we're
going to sit there in a
chair and grit our teeth.
There's some Hemingway
quote where you just
sit there and stare at the
page until the beads of blood
form on your forehead or
something, maybe it was him,
maybe it was--
I don't know.
It sounds like
Bukowski or something.
Anyway, I'm going
to get this wrong.
People tell me in the comments.
Maybe no one said it.
It was a dream.
But I love this
conveyor belt thing.
That reminds me of
being in laboratory,
doing experiments thinking I
was trying to solve one thing,
and then seeing
something else, and then
having to make the decision,
like is that really cool enough
to drop everything and go that
direction, or to spend a night,
or a week, or a
career going that way?
I mean, these are
big decisions, given
that at least as far
as we know, we're
going to live 100 years or less.
But this idea that we have
thoughts and experiences
in our past.
And we can draw on,
and try, and make
good decisions-- do we grab
these things off the conveyor
or not?
I'm hearing you.
And I'm starting to realize
that being attached to the past
might be the worst
thing that one could
do in terms of
being able to make
good decisions in this
context, because we
have a playbook of what's
worked and what hasn't worked.
But you actually
talk about this--
there's a passage
in the book that--
I'll just read it.
To be aware of the assumption
that the way you work
is the best way simply
because it's the way
you've done it before.
I sat with this page for almost
10 full minutes, which is not
something I do very often.
Maybe you could elaborate
on this a little bit.
I mean, we want to have
mechanisms and routines we
can trust, but this is, I
think, an important warning.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah
when something works,
it's easy to be
fooled into believing
that's the way to do it
or that's the right way.
It's just a way.
And it's just a way that
happened to work that time.
And this plays into
when you get advice
from people who have
more experience than you.
You explain your situation.
They tell you their advice.
The advice that
they're giving you
is not based on your
life or your experience.
It's based on their life
and their experience.
And the stories
that they're telling
are based on
experiences they've had,
that have very different
data points than yours.
So maybe they're
giving you good advice,
but maybe they're giving
you good advice for them
and not giving you
good advice for you.
And it's easy when we
try something and have
a result, a positive
result thinking,
everybody can do this.
The way I was vegan for
a long time, 22 years.
And then I started eating--
I started eating animal
protein and then eventually
changed my diet a few
times to the point
where I lost a lot of weight.
The way that I did
it worked for me.
Right before that happened, I
did something that I was told
that everyone else who did what
you did, they all lost weight,
for whatever reason, I didn't.
So the idea that we know
what's right for someone else--
I think, it's hard
enough to even figure out
what's right for ourselves.
And if we do somehow crack the
code of what's right for us,
be happy we have it,
and then still know,
I wonder if that's the only way.
Maybe there's an even better
way that we're not considering.
Not to get comfortable
with thinking
we know how it works
just because we
get the outcome we want.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I was raised
in science with a principle.
It was literally dictated
to me as a principle,
almost like a rule
of religion, which
was that the brain is plastic.
It can change and learn
until you're about 25.
And then the critical
periods end and that's it.
And this was a rule.
Essentially, it was
dictated a Nobel Prize,
which was very deserved,
given to my scientific great
grandparents.
They deserve it.
But I was told there was no
changing of brain structure
function in any meaningful
way after age 25 or so.
It turns out that's
completely wrong.
Sorry David and Torsten,
but they knew it was wrong.
RICK RUBIN: Wow,
that's interesting.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Yeah, it was actively
suppressed because of the
competitive nature of prizes
and discoveries at that time.
And a guy named Mike
Merzenich and his student,
Gregg Recanzone were showing
that adult plasticity exists
and only now is this really
starting to emerge as a theme,
just crazy.
There were so many reasons
and the textbooks said it.
We were all told it.
And it changed our behavior.
Now we know this to
be completely false.
There's plasticity
throughout the lifespan.
There's limits to
it here and there,
but it's just far and
away a different story.
RICK RUBIN: So why would
that be the only time that
ever happened?
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Exactly.
But the field was run
by a very small cabal
of people at that time.
RICK RUBIN: All fields are run
by a very small cabal of people
who have an investment in things
being the way they are now
because they're in charge.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And
one of the great things
about getting older is that--
well, fortunately,
everyone eventually ages.
And I hope that--
David unfortunately passed away.
He was lovely.
Torsten is lovely.
He's still alive.
And they would say--
I think Torsten
would say, yeah, we
should have been a
little more open or kind
in allowing these other ideas.
But I think that--
RICK RUBIN: But just
think about all the years
that were wasted with
this misunderstanding.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Absolutely, absolutely.
And it went beyond that.
And there were BBC specials
that helped propagate this.
And one of the
goals of the podcast
has been to try and shed,
shine light on ideas
that at first seem crazy.
I know you and I are both
semi-obsessed with the health
benefits of light.
And you hear about this stuff
like negative ion therapy.
It sounds crazy, right?
Sounds like something
you would only hear about
at Esalen or in Big Sur.
Turns out negative ionization
therapy for sleep and mood
is based on really amazing work
out of Columbia by a guy named
Michael Terman.
The Nobel Prize, I
think it was in 1916,
was given for phototherapy
for the treatment of lupus.
This idea that certain
wavelengths of light
can help treat medical
conditions is not a new idea.
But somehow, we see a red light.
We're not used to seeing
red lights except in sunsets
and on stoplights.
And somehow, it bothers people
or it makes them feel like--
RICK RUBIN: It undermines
a business model
that doesn't take red
light into consideration.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Until it does and then
it was-- and then
it's co-opted there.
And the place what I
look to is acupuncture.
For a lot of years, people
said, well, acupuncture, this
is like no mechanism, no
mechanism, no mechanism.
There's a lab at Harvard,
a guy named Qiufu Ma,
who I reasonably
well, whose laboratory
is dedicated to trying to figure
out the biological mechanisms
of acupuncture.
And they are discovering
what everyone
is known for thousands
of years, which
is that incredible effects
on anti-inflammation, the gut
microbiome.
RICK RUBIN: I have
a friend who was
having a terrible back problem.
And I suggested that he
see an acupuncturist.
And he went to the
acupuncturist that I suggested.
And his back problem completely
healed almost instantaneously.
And I asked him, have
you been keeping up,
because he had another flare up.
He's like, no.
I can't go back there because
acupuncture doesn't work.
I said, well, you
saw it work for you.
He's like, yeah, but
there's no science.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Wow, he's got it--
now there's good science and
published in premier journals.
What's interesting is there's
a little bit of science
editorial, but since we like
to exchange information about
health and things of that
sort, the editorial staff
of a journal dictates what gets
published and what doesn't.
And the premier journals
have an outsized effect
on what the media covers.
And so the beautiful thing
is the journal staff now
is of the age that they grew
up hearing about acupuncture,
hypnosis has a powerful
clinical effect
if it's done right, yoga
nidra and similar practices.
And so the tides are
changing, but I sometimes
like to take a step back and
think, what are we confronted
with now that seems crazy that
in 10 years, the kids that
will be the-- because
to me they're kids,
will be journal editors.
I'm like, oh yeah, absolutely.
I'm making this up but
putting tuning forks
against your head or
something like that,
like sound wave therapy.
I think when one
adopts a stance of--
we have to filter everything
through the limitations
of our biology, but also
through the sociology,
the way culture goes, it
becomes a different story.
How do you deal with that,
not just in terms of health,
but in terms of
thinking about anything?
It sounds like you don't spend
a whole lot of time thinking
about what people are going
to think is cool or not.
RICK RUBIN: No, I can't.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: You're
a punk rocker at heart.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: You still
are there, I got you.
RICK RUBIN: I can't.
I just know what I
like and what I don't.
I know what works for
me and what doesn't.
I try things.
And I'm constantly looking
for new better solutions
to anything.
And wherever they come
from doesn't matter.
It could come from--
it could come from
Stanford or it
could come from the guy talking
to himself on the street.
If it works, I'm good.
It doesn't really
matter to me at all.
I don't hold any of it tightly.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well,
fortunately, there's
now a division of the
National Institutes
of Health called complementary
and alternative health.
And it's amazing.
NCCIH is run by a woman
who has published on--
this is interesting, some
of the anti-cancer effects
of things like acupuncture,
not that acupuncture
can cure all cancers, but
real data that I think
for a lot of people, certainly
of the generation above us,
they just are not interested.
It sheds new light on the Andrew
Wiles, the Paul Stametses,
the wild ones.
RICK RUBIN: Ozone therapy,
there are so many.
There's so many we can look at.
I mean for a long
time, nutrition
was just thought of
as something that
doesn't matter what you eat.
It's what medicine
you take and what--
the food is everything.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Food
is a powerful variable.
In the landscape of
online nutrition,
it's one of the third rails
for anyone like myself
who's out there on social media.
You do a very good
job of putting out
posts on Twitter and Instagram,
but each day you take it down,
you put up a new one.
RICK RUBIN: And I
don't talk about any--
I only talk about--
I talk about creative ideas.
I don't talk about
anything specific
related to anything other
than maybe something like,
don't believe what you hear.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
It's right, exactly.
Well, in the landscape
of nutrition sometimes
I now place it
through the filter
of professional wrestling.
You've got your vegans,
and your omnivores,
and your carnivore MD.
And you've got liver king.
And you've got
everything in between.
So you could translate that to
any number of different areas.
Fashion probably has its people.
I'm just not aware
of who they are.
Music has theirs.
And sports has theirs.
And science has
theirs characters.
So are we all just
pro-wrestling characters
in these different
domains and we're
taking ourselves and each
other way too seriously?
RICK RUBIN: Yeah, it's all--
we don't know anything.
If someone has an idea
and it sounds interesting,
do you try it.
And if it doesn't work, it's
OK and try something else.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
You're an empiricist.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah, whatever
works, whatever works.
And if something seems
interesting to you
and you're excited by
it, why not try it?
I try very fringy things.
I like, in some ways,
the more unrealistic
it seems, the more
interesting it is to me
because I feel like that's
getting closer to something
that somebody doesn't
want me to know.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: But
you're not a big drug
guy like the big psychedelic
craze that's happening now
and that happened some years.
RICK RUBIN: I'm not against it.
It's just has never been
something that I've done.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Yeah, yeah, it's
an interesting area
that's definitely
making headway inside of
standard academic science
and medicine now.
RICK RUBIN: I'm interested in
non-pharmacological approaches
to things, whatever they are.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well, I'm a
big believer that also that
behavioral do's
and don'ts, first,
are that they're the most fun
to explore because, in general,
unless it's something like
jumping between buildings,
doing parkour, or
something, most of the time,
you're not going to
injure or harm yourself.
There's more room for
iteration than there
is with a pill or a potion.
Although, certainly,
pharmacology has its place.
So you've had creative
works certainly
within the realm of music, also
comedy, and producing film,
and other things.
For somebody out there
who, of whatever age,
maybe they're
creating, maybe they
know they have this creative
antennae, the sources outside.
What was it that Strummer said?
I actually wrote this on
the wall of my laboratory.
No input no output.
RICK RUBIN: Wow.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
That Strummer's law.
It's written in my laboratory.
The people in my lab were
like, what's going on here?
I think one guy
knew what that was,
but it was a picture of him,
and picture of my bull dog,
and no input no output.
I don't think I can just
stay in a room with four
walls, and a ceiling, and
nothing else and create.
I mean, I know that there
are certain number of things
in here, but I do
think accessing
the world is important.
RICK RUBIN: And the world is
giving us clues all the time.
If we're paying attention,
that's another part of it.
If you're paying attention, the
thing that you are looking for
is being either whispered
or screamed at you
in the outside world if
you're paying attention.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well, I forget
the exact title of the chapter,
but there's a chapter
about staying open to clues
or being on the
lookout for clues.
Now, I feel tempted to
look for the exact title
of that chapter.
RICK RUBIN: It's probably look
for clues is what I guess.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Look for clues
sounds like it sounds right.
And since you wrote it,
I'm guessing that's right.
RICK RUBIN: Well it's
something like that.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So do you think
there are clues in everywhere?
RICK RUBIN: Yes, I think
there are clues everywhere.
If we pay attention,
we'll hear a phrase.
It'll trigger a thought.
We'll see something unexpected.
If someone recommends
something to you,
maybe it's a coincidence.
If three people recommend
the same thing to you
maybe it's not, who knows?
Who knows?
I do believe the universe is
on the side of creativity.
And the universe is
supporting things to happen.
And they can happen
through you or they could
happen through someone else.
So if you're paying attention,
maybe it'll happen through you.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: We had a
guest on the podcast named
Justin Sonnenburg.
He's an expert in
the gut microbiome.
And he applied something
that-- without knowing,
he applied the
opposite principle,
the opposite is true principle.
We were talking about these
trillions of gut microbiota
that clearly are doing
amazing things to create,
neurotransmitters,
and govern our brain,
and even decision making, how
much sugar is in our system
driving appetite, et cetera.
And he said, we think
of them as cargo,
but maybe we're just vehicles
and they're in charge.
That all of our
interactions like
every time we shake
hands or touch our eyes,
we're exchanging gut microbiota.
And we think of intelligence
as thinking and intelligence.
And he's a microbiologist.
And in all seriousness
he said, maybe
we're the ones
being manipulated.
We're the house cats.
And we think here we are,
we're falling in love,
and kissing, and shaking hands,
and washing hands, and doing
all sorts of things to isolate
or connect with one another.
And maybe the gut
microbiota are really
trying to optimize
their survival.
RICK RUBIN: That's what Laird
Hamilton said that at one point
in the sauna--
that when you're in the
sauna, it's really hot.
The feeling that you have
of wanting to get out
could be the bad critters in
your body that can't handle it.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Like
let's get out of here.
RICK RUBIN: Are trying to
convince you, from the inside,
to get out.
Maybe that's where the feeling
of being compelled to get out
comes from.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So Elon
getting us all to Mars
might be a bit of--
maybe they just
want to get to Mars.
And so they're
RICK RUBIN: Maybe.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Because I'm starting
to feel like I'm channeling
Lex Freedman here for a moment.
No, I think this considering
the opposite is really key.
And while it might
sound mystical
to people or a little bit like
we're just playing with ideas,
that's exactly what
you do in science.
Someone walks in with a
result and says, I found this.
This is true.
And you say, but what if
it's all something else?
A good example
might be-- here I'm
pulling from podcast
episodes that we've had.
But Alia Crum is this
amazing psychologist
who works on belief effects.
Your knowledge strongly shapes
the physiological outcome.
And she had this amazing
graduate thesis where she said,
what if all of exercise
is placebo, all of it?
Yeah, burn some calories
and does some things.
Turns out this isn't the case.
But it turns out a lot of
the effects of exercise,
positive effects--
lowering blood pressure,
relieving stress,
positive are placebo
but nobody thinks
of it like that
because we're so attached to
calories burned, et cetera.
RICK RUBIN: I think
that's a big point
that the belief part of it is
a huge part of the conversation
about everything.
What we believe has power.
If we believe we can
make something great,
the chances of us
making something great
are better than if we
don't believe we can.
So I would say, any
ability to harness
your belief on your behalf is
a really healthy thing to do.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And one
thing that you make very clear
is that while our own abilities
may come into question
from time to time,
you absolutely
believe that the elements from
which to create are out there.
RICK RUBIN: Absolutely.
All the elements are here.
Everything is here.
We get to pick and choose.
We get to-- the conveyor belts
going by with the little gifts.
And we can-- first, we have to
notice there's a conveyor belt.
Then we notice the gifts.
And then that's
the starting point.
And then we may even
feel empowered enough
to grab one of the
gifts, and open it
up, and see what's inside.
And then maybe that started
something really beautiful
that we wouldn't have done.
Everything that I
make or have made
has always been based
on something that I see
or hear that allows
me to see something
that I didn't see before.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So I was going
to ask you whether or not,
it's important to be
happy in order to create,
but certainly a lot of
people that were unhappy
were still able to create.
But the more I listen
to you, it seems
that it's really about an
ability to pay attention.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So if I'm
unhappy or if I'm happy
may not be as relevant
as whether or not
I'm able to stay undistracted.
RICK RUBIN: Yes.
I would say that's--
I would say being able to stay
present in the work is probably
the most important part of it.
And how you feel is less of
an issue unless how you feel
gets in the way of you feeling
how the work makes you feel.
Do you know what I'm saying?
If you're in a lot of pain
and you're looking at a piece
of art, it may be hard to know
how that art makes you feel
because you're--
the big signal in your
body is the physical pain.
I'm sure there are some
people who can do that too,
who can, even through the
physical pain, can feel it.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Now, there's
this idea of transmutation,
of taking one emotion and
contorting it and co-opting it
into another action
in an adaptive way.
But this idea of
distraction being a problem,
this really resonates, I think.
When I think of times
of great productivity
is when I was able
to be undistracted.
I could also see how success
can be its own distraction.
This is often discussed in the
context of fighting sports,
where someone starts
making a lot of money
and pretty soon their focus
becomes all the things
they can access with
their success as opposed
to the thing that got them
there in the first place.
Keeping an underdog mentality.
RICK RUBIN: Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Before we conclude,
I do want to ask you about
one other aspect of process,
which is meditation.
Meditation is interesting
to me because when
we close our eyes as
most meditations are done
and we focus on our brain,
our brain has no sensation.
Like if we--
RICK RUBIN: I wouldn't
say we focus on our brain.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Or
we focus on something
other than our normal
experience, is that--
how would you define meditation?
RICK RUBIN: Well, there's
different-- there are
different types of meditation.
Either way, I would say there
is no form of meditation where
we're focused on our brain.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: OK, good.
I'm glad we disagree.
RICK RUBIN: I would say, here
are the things that happen.
We either are engaging
in a mantra, which
would be a version
of almost creating
a trance for ourselves, not
unlike listening to something
when we go to sleep that would
distract our conscious mind
from participating.
We would be overriding
the talking mind with just
a sound that we're
generating, or a word,
or phrase, a series of phrases.
Meta meditation is a
loving kindness meditation
with phrases,
could be that or it
could be focused on the breath.
But the purpose of being
focused on the breath
is to not hear the self-talk
that we normally have.
It's a single pointed
focus exercise in those
that I described.
The other version is an
awareness meditation,
where you're closing your eyes.
And you're being with
whatever is and noticing--
so if we were to do it
now, and you could do it
eyes open or eyes closed
with an awareness practice.
But the first thing that I
would do is I would feel--
I feel a little
ringing in my ears.
It might be from the
electronic equipment around us.
And I don't mean that
I hear the sound.
It's like a vibration.
I hear cars passing
in the distance.
Let's see what else comes out, I
can feel a feeling in my chest.
I can feel this part of my face.
I'm not sure why.
It feels like it's
related to my jaw.
More car sounds.
I'm aware of a little
feeling of warmth.
So now, I would say the
room feels a bit warm.
I wasn't aware of that before,
when I wasn't just being
with what's happening.
I feel a little itch
on my left shoulder.
So that would be an
awareness practice,
which is another kind of
meditation where you're just
paying attention
to what's going on.
There's no story.
There's no this means this.
None of those things.
It's like an inventory,
almost, of everything
that comes up when it comes up.
And you do that for
a period of time.
But in all of those
cases, in the example
of doing the
awareness meditation,
or doing a mantra meditation,
or focusing on the breath,
in none of them am I thinking.
And none of them am
I concentrating on--
I'm being aware of
sense perceptions
in the awareness one or
in the other meditations.
I'm doing a practice
so that I'm not
aware of thinking
about anything else.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: When
did you start meditating
and how often do
you meditate now?
RICK RUBIN: I learned
when I was 14.
And I started with TM.
And that's probably
the meditation
that I've done the most in
my life and I come back to.
Although I tried many
different kinds and also
different physical
forms of meditation--
Tai Chi, things like that.
I meditated for
five or six years.
And then I stopped when I
went to school, to university.
And then I started again
several years later.
And when I started again,
I realized how profound
it wasn't in me that I
had done it when I did it
So I usually have some
sort of a practice.
In some ways, the beach walks
could be a form of meditation.
But for me, typically,
I would wake up.
It'd be the first thing I would
do during that in-between time,
maybe go out in the
sun, close my eyes,
and meditate before
starting my day.
If I'm doing it twice
a day, the second time
would probably be
right before dinner
if I'm doing it on
a regular schedule.
Then if I find myself
on an airplane,
I might meditate for an hour.
I can remember, one time,
meditating the entire flight
from New York to LA, just
was a great opportunity
to do a deep dive.
And time passes.
You lose track of time.
You don't even know--
it's like going to
sleep and waking up.
You don't feel like
that was eight hours.
It's just time stops.
Not always, but when it
does, it's a great feeling.
ANDREW HUBERMAN:
Yeah, you've sent me
some meditations
including the one that you
did on that transatlantic--
transcontinental flight.
And I've been trying to get-- do
longer and longer meditations,
but I've always
meditated a little bit.
But your meditation practice is
one that I'm starting to adopt,
maybe we could
convince you to give us
a suggestions of one or two
and we can link out to them
for listeners.
I'm sure they'd appreciate.
RICK RUBIN: And there's also
meditation like practices
to do that involve--
there's something called
the surgical series
from the Monroe Institute which
I used when I had a surgery.
You listen to this recording.
And it both allows your
body to heal much faster
and remove some of the trauma
that goes on when getting cut
open-- it's traumatic.
But just through listening
to certain things,
you can have a really powerful
effect, heal much faster.
I remember I was about to
be put under for a surgery.
And my eyes were closed.
And I wasn't
communicating with anyone
there because I
was going inside.
And my wife was with me.
And they came in.
And they said, oh, so they
already gave Rick the sedative
because he's ready to go in.
I don't think you
gave him anything.
He's like, look at his numbers.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I love it.
Yeah, it's an amazingly
powerful practice
that I like because
anyone can cultivate.
RICK RUBIN:
Absolutely, absolutely.
And there's no good
or bad version.
It really is just--
if you learn a technique and
show up and do it, it works.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well,
I love that you're
so willing to share what
you do in your process.
Listen, I just want to say thank
you for a number of things.
I want to thank you for
the music you've created
and that you are to
create because we want
to be still ongoing, certainly
for your time today in sharing
your thought process
and a bit of what
goes into this incredible
creative process.
And I want to thank you
for writing the book.
I don't talk about or feature
many books on the podcast.
It's just not something
we typically do,
but I've seen a little bit
of the evolution of it.
And then I've seen it
now and read through it
in its final form
twice, as I mentioned.
And I'm going to continue
to read through it again.
It is one of those books
where it is so filled
with gems, like every chapter.
I could take notes on this.
And take notes on this.
And it's assembled in a
very digestible way that
allows people to extract
the meaningful parts
in every chapter.
And there are so many in a way
that's very straightforward.
So I love the book.
So thank you for doing
it because you certainly
didn't have to write a book.
But I'm so happy that you did.
And I know that I've
already benefited
I know so many people
are going to benefit.
It's an amazing book.
And I couldn't help but put
my neuroscience lens on it.
But I also, about
halfway through,
I learned to discard my
pre-existing lens a bit
and start to see things
through what I think
is a different perspective.
So I just want to thank you for
being such an incredible portal
and also for being
an amazing friend.
RICK RUBIN: Thank you.
I love you.
I'm so happy to
be here with you.
And any time I get to
see you, it's a good day.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Likewise.
Thank you for joining me today
for my discussion with Rick
Rubin--
all about creativity and
the creative process.
Please also be sure to
check out his new book,
The Creative Act--
A Way of Being by Rick Rubin.
As I mentioned earlier,
it's an incredible book
and such a wealth of knowledge
for you creative types
out there, for those of you
that seek to be more creative,
or to understand the
creative process generally.
And as I mentioned at the
beginning of today's episode,
Rick has very generously
offered to answer your questions
about creativity.
So if you have questions for
Rick Rubin about creativity,
or the creative process, or
anything else for that matter,
please put those in the
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