The Elusive Son | Julian Peterson | EP 259

[Music] Julian and Dad, it's good to have you guys here.

Hey, we're pretty happy to be here in Nashville talking about this.

Yeah, pleasure.

Julian, hello. Elusive Peterson finally cornered into a podcast.

I know, Ed.

Yeah, it's been a lot. It takes a lot of work to corner him.

A lot of work, I think.

Yeah, I don't know if this was cornering. I think, yeah, the least cornerable Peterson.

Yeah, yeah, that might be saying something.

Who's the most cornerable Peterson?

Elliot.

[Laughter] For now.

For now.

For now, yeah, definitely.

Yeah, okay. So today—

Yeah, it's not my dad.

It's not your dad.

No, no.

Yeah, okay.

It's not Scarlet.

No, it's Elliot. Hi!

So today, we're going to talk about essay mainly, and then I'm also going to throw in some questions because I think people are dying to know.

I relate everything about you.

Good luck.

Okay, Julian, yes. Why did it take you so long to agree to talk to me over the interweb?

Um, well, I'd like—I like my privacy. I've always liked my privacy, but I think that's most of it. I don't really have a lot of interest in being a public person.

Um, if I am public in any way, then I generally—well, I'm quite sure that I prefer it to be about something that I've done, and I didn't really feel like I had done anything that was particularly, you know, useful, let's say, to talk about to other people.

Um, and so, you know, I have a really nice life and I like my little family and my, um, you know, the fact that it's relatively contained from the world, and, you know, I don't really ever want to give that up.

But I do have interest in sharing things that I've done that I feel like are going to be meaningful for other people, whether that is, well, this application, which I'm really proud of, or, um, well, the album that I released last year. I didn't really talk about that.

Um, we're gonna talk about that, but I think that's why mostly is I—you want to wait until you had something to say?

Yeah, yeah, well, the problem in your position is that people would be interested in you in some sense for peripheral reasons.

For sure.

Yeah, you could certainly, yeah, for sure.

And you could say that demand if you felt like it, but it seems to me that waiting until you have something.

I don't feel like it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no kidding.

Yeah, and it's been good to see that your life has been protected from all the storms that have gathered around us, and that was a good decision.

I think so and this is a good thing to talk about because this app could help a lot of people.

Yeah, well and then we should talk a little bit about testing too. One of the things I realized years ago and had drummed into my head as well by people who have built successful software programs and marketed them is that you should be in dialogue with your audience, your customer base, let's say, while you're building it.

You don't build something and then launch it and hope everyone buys it. You have to be testing it step by step with the market, with the environment, to see if not only do you have the ideas right, but you have them right at the right time in a way that can be communicated to people that they will want to purchase and will purchase.

And so you tested this with Actin Academy, for example?

Yeah, yeah. So we tested this with like a number of different groups over the last couple years, um, with private groups on Reddit, with people who signed up to test it, with peop—with students, MBA students at the Actin Academy, um, using usertesting.com groups.

You know, we tested it constantly as we were building it to make sure that our design was consistent, that people understood what it was for.

Um, and many times they didn't, which is well often what you find when you test software.

Um, yeah, well, you get—you get familiar with it and then you think it's obvious because it's now obvious to you, but it's interesting watching people often use a piece of software that you've designed and see where they don't get it.

Yeah, isn't that what they did with, uh, one of the first Macintosh computers, right? They, uh, they would bring grandmothers, I think people over 60, to come in and they would just put them in front of an Apple computer, right?

And, you know, not tell them anything. They would just like use this thing.

Yeah, and you know, they'd pick up the keyboard and, like, do all sorts of stuff with it and figure it out.

They tried to find it sometimes, right?

They did—that's right! They'd do all sorts of things, right?

But that was—that was how they did the testing, right? Either you're supposed to give people a task or you just want to see how they naturally interact with it.

Um, and we did—we did both of those things.

And you made a lot of improvements.

You have to be aware of the assumption that people should be smart enough to know how to use this. It's like, no, if they can't use it, it's because it's a stupid design.

If people were just a little smarter, they could figure this out.

It's like, yeah, good luck.

No, that's how you fail.

Yeah, that's how you sell your product to three software engineers.

Yeah, exactly.

And, yeah, they want to use it just because they want to show a smart thing.

Yeah, no, that's a very bad design philosophy.

It's—if someone can't use it, it's your fault.

It's the right attitude in business.

That's why it's not so much—it's like websites, when every single website has a formula and looks the same, and one other website is, oh no, no, that logo or that button should go in this other corner.

Yeah, one—that's the modern internet, right? Like, is that everything looks the same because, well, then people can use it, right?

You build in redundancy.

Yeah, and, yeah, and you violate conventions at your apparel.

You know, we could have insisted that everybody use a Dvorak keyboard for this writing program, and that's a way more efficient keyboard because the letters—the alphabet letters are spaced for optimal speed when you type.

But you don't see people using Dvorak keyboards.

Well, one of our developers did.

Yeah, what—is this type of?

I was nodding along like I knew what you were talking about, but I don't.

There's a keyboard that's more effective!

Oh, way more effective!

Yeah, well, yeah, because at least we're not telling you about it because you have to keep learning using QWERTY.

The QWERTY keyboard was developed at least in part to slow you down when you type because, yeah, for typewriters, right?

With the old mechanical typewriters before electric typewriters, the keys would jam if people got too fast.

So they slowed them down.

Yeah.

So now we use a keyboard that artificially makes typing, um—

So what's the other one look like?

The most common letters are together or where they should be.

Yeah, like on a QWERTY keyboard, the most common letters are spaced out as much as they can be.

Because I can type really fast!

I'm very proud of my typing. I can type really fast!

Yeah, but do you think it would be worth a fun stop because people would be a struggle at the beginning?

Yeah, yeah, that's right. You'd have to re-automatize your—

But, yeah, yes, yes, it would be faster eventually!

Yeah, would it save me time if you add up all the time?

And then yes, I'm doing it.

Yeah, I think it would.

But can you buy computers like that?

Like MacBooks? You can buy keyboards like that.

You can't buy—right?

You'd have to have a separate keyboard.

What's this called?

Dvorak is one.

D-V-O-R-A-K.

Yeah, just rings off the tongue, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, I'm going to ask some fun questions too. Are you ready?

It's going to involve Julian talking a bunch, hopefully!

Okay, shifts uncomfortably in history.

I'm actually not that worried about that.

Hopefully, you'll do that on purpose if it happens.

Yeah, what has been the biggest challenge of having Dad shoot to fame?

Yeah, well, there's been a ton of challenges, benefits, and challenges.

Um, I think mostly there's a couple things—you know, it gets you involved in a battle that isn't your own, which is interesting, right?

Because of the way that you became popular, which was about, you know, political topics and philosophical topics that were contentious generally.

Um, and so then people start to assume that you know you hold the same opinions as your father, which to a certain extent I do obviously, right? Like I mean there's some things that, uh—and plenty of things that we're aligned on.

But there's always—you know, you never have the same views as your father. I mean, if you do, then you need to think more probably because, well, you're generationally different in all sorts of things.

Yeah, that's what every father thinks.

Yeah, essay program—so that was one of the challenges.

And, well, just being public to a certain extent, you know people know who I am even if I have maintained relatively private.

Um, I've been asked for selfies before, which is very strange because I'm just a regular dude.

That's—that's a selfie with us!

Yeah, yeah!

Oh yeah, well your approach to that I think has been interesting.

You know, people get random—like free guy reference!

I think keep up, man, this is a quick moving conversation.

So one of the things that's been—that your situation has really highlighted for me is the danger that's posed to people's mental health and maybe even to social stability when people get fixated on things that are too abstract.

And you say, well, we should only pay attention to the important issues—climate change, for example—which is about everything: why aren't you worried about everything all the time?

And that's what you would be worried about if you're a good person.

It's like, well, no, you need to parcel off a part of your life that's private, that consists of the specific things that you're involved in—your specific wife, your specific children, the specific projects like this.

I always like to be referred to that way, and this is my specific wife. Don't ask me any more questions!

But it's a strange thing because you could be more concerned with generic wives than actually having one, you know?

Yeah, so—and you've maintained that specificity, and that's made your life comparably much more peaceful.

And yes, that's for sure.

Yeah, so it's easy to get dragged out into the general fray, and it's hard to protect yourself once that's happened.

So, okay, here's another one. So when—how old were you when you got married to Jill?

25.

And then when did you have Elliot?

26, I guess.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so I'd say compared to 37, maybe general debaucherous population—

Yes!

Even compared to me, definitely compared to me, you've had your—you've organized your life so— from the outside anyway so well that it's hard to believe.

Well, thank you! That's a really nice compliment.

You went to university, you got a bunch of educations. What did you do in university?

I did a Bachelor of Arts, which everyone thinks is the best thing to do.

Yeah, that's—uh, no, but I did a cool one.

It was—I went to University of King's College in Nova Scotia and I recommended places.

Yeah, great university!

And did a great books program called the Foundation Year Program.

Um, there's a one-year program where you read kind of the history of great Western thought.

Yeah.

And so I did that to begin with and then I did my general degree in philosophy and music.

And you wrote your thesis on Heidegger and the psychedelic experience.

Yeah, that's right!

Yes, but that was a common topic among students.

Yeah, yeah!

Well, yeah, one of the things that's interesting, I worked with a lot of high-performing lawyers and this was especially true of the women—they were hyper conscientious and they were overachievers, which is a horrible word in junior high and in high school.

It's two words!

No, it's one word!

It can be—

It can be hyphenated!

Anyways, they were the top of their high school class, then they were the top of their undergraduate class, then they went to law school and they were the top of their class, and then they got picked up by a big law firm, and they shot up through the ranks and became senior partners.

It's one word?

No! Wait, no!

And then when they got to be senior partners, they generally concluded that they didn't want to work 60 hours a week like all these other guys.

And although they were women, they wanted a more balanced life, but they had never really stepped outside of this single-minded track, you know?

And it wasn't until they hit the pinnacle of what they were aiming at that they sort of woke up and realized, well, maybe this isn't what I wanted to be doing all along.

And the interesting difference with you, I think, is that, well, you've been organizing your life in a pretty consistent manner and in a traditional manner, I would say, you've also pursued your artistic pursuits simultaneously, and that makes it different because that's a place where you can have freedom within the context of discipline and where those things actually work very well together.

You told me that we were walking the dog in the park like a couple months ago and you're like, what do you want for yourself in five years?

And I was like, well, I want to have, you know, a good family life and I want to have a career that's meaningful and, you know, good generic answers.

But you were like, oh, so you have feminine goals, I guess!

Yeah, yeah!

Well, well, that fits very well with the story!

Yes, the high achieving woman!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, that could be worse!

Yeah, no, I'm happy about it, I wasn't offended. I just think it was a little surprising!

40!

Well, I mean, time will tell!

Yeah, well if you do, please keep that private!

Well, yeah, I would be keeping that private anyway.

Um, my point was, I guess, do you have advice for younger people about how to—like, are you happy that you're settled down now with a kid?

Yeah, for sure! There's no—I wouldn't really have it freedoms or anything.

Well yeah, obviously in some ways it's limited freedoms.

Um, but, well, I feel like when you get into your late 20s or even mid-20s, you've probably been partying and doing random stuff and living with roommates for quite a few years already.

You know, I mean, it—it doesn't—I don't think it remains interesting for that long.

And even with, you know, people I know that are around the same age, everyone at around this age— or not everyone, but a lot of people end up settling down to a certain extent, and whether that's, you know, it's needing a change of some kind, whether it's deciding to travel the world or switch careers or go back to school or something, you can't just stay on the same kind of young person schedule forever.

And, well, I found someone who I fell in love with and I always was attracted to women who wanted a family, and I always—I—was one of the family.

And so it fit in well for me, and I think that's fairly uncommon with young women, you think?

Um, do you mean one of my observations of you?

I know you were very private, so I don't know all the details.

Thank God!

Is that you tended to mostly have long-term, pretty committed relationships.

Yeah!

And do you know that was the case with me too, generally speaking?

Do you think that was associated with this conscious desire to have a family?

I don't even know if it was. I think that I'd—well, I normally just chose women, girls that I liked.

Would you want to go out with a girl who's like, I hate children?

That's super attractive!

I never want to be like—I'm just—that just shouts infertile!

Yeah, well, it's not so bad if you don't want children and if you only regard them as an impediment, but if you're shouting it, that's definitely a problem.

Yeah, that's a problem!

Yeah, yeah, if you're shouting that on the street, probably you should be there! Avoid it!

But I don't know, it was just—it’s just kind of how it worked out for me, and, um, oh, I was really lucky!

You know, I met someone who I was extremely compatible with very young, and our relationship has only improved with time.

How did you know? How did you know that that was gonna work out?

Well, I didn't! And we had ups and downs, right?

Like we—well, yeah, we had our ups and downs and I didn't—I didn't know until really until we were married, I guess, weirdly enough.

Like maybe not—well, maybe, yeah, maybe that's fairly normal.

But even when we were engaged, you know, I feel like we were still kind of feeling each other out to see if it was really the right path.

Um, and you know, we went through growing pains and all sorts of things that all couples go through.

We fought a lot at times, and but the thing that I guess made me realize that it was, you know, a relationship that was built to last was that every time we did, our relationship improved.

Right, and then it was happening less and less.

Whether you fight, it's whether you reconcile.

Yeah, for sure. That's what it's all about, right?

It's all about finding someone that is willing to put in the effort to improve the relationship, you know, over the years because people change, and their needs change, and their interests change.

And you have to have a partner that's willing to listen and keep up with you, right?

Are you good at negotiating?

Yeah, I'd say so! I mean, that's one of the things that we practiced a lot as kids, right?

And that was one of the things that made our childhood somewhat unique, I would say, was that we spent a lot of time being taught to negotiate.

And so, yeah, it's definitely one of my—the skills that I'm—it's very useful in relationships, I guess, that I have, and useful in other ways.

No, we did—I started a curse leaps to mind when you have arguments and negotiate!

We had a podcast last year with an FBI negotiator and his take was that you either agree to something and the other person kind of meets you there but you don't meet in the middle.

What's your take on that? Like when you guys have disagreements, are there things where you're like, okay, I'll give a little and she'll give a little?

Yeah, I think eventually that's what happens, but I think that when you—I think it's a Hegelian synthesis.

Yeah, I also don't know what that means.

Well, how do you know? Antithesis, right?

Synthesis.

Okay, not negotiated metal!

Yeah, okay, okay.

Yeah, that's—that's what I was going to say obviously. I was going to use exactly the same words too.

Yeah, were you? And there's no way of knowing that I wasn't going to!

Um, but yeah, basically, you know, I feel like one person has to basically give in a little bit at the beginning, and then—the other person will meet you somewhere along the way eventually once the negativity or the emotion goes out of the situation.

Right?

I think it's very uncommon that people reconcile at exactly the same time.

Right?

It's almost always one person decides that it's—either understands what they've done to contribute or is willing to put that aside in order for, you know, to have a real communication with the other person.

Um, and then, you know, and then once the emotion comes down and people can see more clearly, then you meet somewhere down the road, I guess.

Down the road!

Yeah, well, I think that initial willingness to give in isn't—that I'm willing to change as a consequence of this conflict.

Now, that means I haven't specified the direction of change, but you would do that hoping that you could both attain something better as a consequence of the negotiations.

Yeah, and you can almost inevitably—and that's what you can aim for!

It's like, let's make this better—not average, not, you know, miserable in the middle, but better for both of us.

That's the point of a successful negotiation.

It's also means that the negotiated agreement will be stable because if you have to give in, let's say, and compromise, well then you're not really pursuing what you want to pursue.

And so you're going to work at a counter position to that subtly and maybe not so suddenly, but if you see, oh, this is—the solution that we both generate is way better than either of the things we were doing before, that'll just sustain itself.

When one person has to trust that the other person is going to do the same thing.

Right? I think that's where it is because people fight, like, an actual fight in a relationship when the trust disappears about something, right?

Yeah!

Yeah, either, you know, you assume that the other person isn't going to be able to move past it in some way or isn't going to be able to apologize in a meaningful way or whatever.

They were motivated in a way that wasn't right; it was untrustworthy in some way.

Yeah, that's right!

And then, you know, it's one person at least has to decide that there's a, you know, a spark of trust that will come back, right, in that area?

Yeah, exactly!

And you don't have to think that the other person's right or anything; you just have to think that they are willing to actually come to a compromise of something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah! A solution!

And yeah, certainly, I mean, one of the things that your mom and I have going for us is that fundamentally we trust each other.

Like I really trust her to do her best to do the right thing, you know?

And that can be rocky on the road there, but I know she's working, man, she's working!

And hopefully she feels the same about me, and so you know we decided when we got together I had already decided that I was going to try to not live by lies, let's say, at that point.

And I'd made a concerted effort to do that for a number of years, and when we first got together that was part of our agreements: like no lies!

And I don't—I don't think your mother's ever lied to me!

So she really stuck to it, man!

Once she said she—that was what she was gonna do, she was impressive!

Yeah!

Yeah, it really is; it's when she commits to something she's committed!

And that was so useful especially when things got really rocky in our lives when you were sick and when I was sick and when she was sick.

Because we could trust each other.

You weren't sick!

No, it's just awkward!

What is wrong with you? I'm not sick!

Look at me over here!

We don't have time to look at you!

That sounds about right!

Yeah, yeah! Well, I told you that when you were—I don't know how old you were—10, something like that, when Michaela got so sick.

I remember talking to you and saying, “Look, kiddo, we're up to our neck here, and you're gonna have to be sensible,” and you were!

Because it was cool!

I almost got a tear!

Well, uh, my feminine temperament!

My feminine goals!

Your feminine temperament!

Yeah, yeah!

Wow, I'm glad I'm sitting out!

Are they out of the pokes for this?

Sit here quietly!

Uh, I guess we can—I think you were too hard on yourself about relationships there, kiddo, earlier comparing yourself with Julian.

That seems like a backhanded compliment!

I feel like I just—I just meant in comparison to me!

I didn't—I'm not hard on my—I don't think I did something necessarily!

I think I did my best!

There are some extenuating circumstances over here!

Yeah, I'm like, it just didn't turn out!

Yeah, well you also had good relationships in the past.

It's not like you've had terrible relationships!

That's not how it's going, no!

Yeah, no, no!

It was hard!

Yeah, so it has been hard!

Yes!

Anything you're interested?

Oh, I have another question too though!

Okay, you go first!

Well, uh, you did the most protracted writing you did was your thesis.

So why did you pick the topic, and what did it do for you to write that, what—and what did it teach you about writing?

Yeah, well, when I was in my fourth year of university, I was pursuing a music minor and writing my thesis.

I was actually taking—I think I was taking six courses, working two jobs, and writing my thesis.

That was too much!

Um, but it was interesting, right?

I mean, and one of the things that—you know, one of the things that you always say to people but you said to us as kids was, you know, it's useful to see how far you can, you know, see how much you can work right and see where your limits are to a certain extent.

And that was one of the things that it did to me that or for me that year was that I was really going at full capacity—doing all those things.

Um, and, well, it was great! Writing a thesis was definitely the most meaningful part of my university experience.

Um, and I chose the thing that I did probably because it was very interesting to me, you know?

To go back to what we were talking about earlier about finding a topic that compels you, it's—I thought it was— I'd been reading a lot of Heidegger because that was part of the degree that I was doing was focused on kind of that era of philosophers, and I found his philosophy extremely interesting.

Uh, and then I was also reading Terence McKenna at that time.

You would give me a few books that were about the psychedelic experience and like fathers do.

Yeah, that's a normal thing!

And I kept seeing parallels, and maybe that was the psychedelics, but [Laughter] but in any case, I decided they were really there.

Um, and, um, and so I just wanted to explore that because I didn't feel like it had ever been explored properly—that relationship between you know a fairly mainstream, I suppose—well, yeah, mainstream philosopher and kind of out-there thinkers like Terence McKenna or like, um, yeah, the other thinkers that I integrated into that paper.

Um, and it was just—yeah, we're gonna—I wanted to do something.

Like reading list producers—we are about 50 books on that.

So is that about ready to go? Like could that paper be put up online so people could read it?

It could! I'll put it in the essay app!

Yeah, I think you should put it—didn't we decide that you're going to put it in the essay?

Yeah, but it probably needs to be edited.

Oh, God!

Well, yeah!

Yeah, it's pretty good.

What is essay, Julian?

Uh, essay is a writing platform that I've been working on for the last couple years that basically turns, um, Dad's writing philosophy that he used to teach to his students and continues to talk about into a web app that's usable for the average writer and makes it easier to follow the philosophy and, um, and learn to write.

So where did this come from? You said Dad's philosophy. Where did essay come from?

Yeah, so there was this document that Dad produced for his university students a long time ago.

I don't know exactly what it was—15 years?

Yeah, 15 years ago!

Um, and he would give this to first-year and second-year students to help them structure their essays because most first and second-year university students don't really know how to write very well, and they've never been taught by someone who knew how to write.

So maybe they were taught grammar in an artificial manner, but I looked at how I was grading essays and then formalized it.

And I realized I was grading word choice, phrase choice, phrase organization within sentences, sentence organization within paragraphs, paragraph organization within chapters, and then the impact of the whole.

I thought, well, that's also how I edit.

And so I wanted to write a practical writing guide—not one that focused specifically on grammar.

And so when Julian and I started talking about this, first we were going to just publish the essay guide, which we did. We made that available freely online, but then we were thinking through the problem of how to teach people to write.

And the hard thing about that is that usually people write and then submit it for grading, and that's extremely expensive and cost and time-intensive.

So basically, we were attempting to turn this document into something that people could use, and they could improve their writing in a more structured manner, but that it would be more natural than reading a document and trying to do it in that way, and taking bits out of the document and trying to integrate that philosophy into their writing.

And so we did a number of iterations trying to turn it into, instead of kind of a step-by-step guide, a more kind of contained application that would integrate the philosophy and the tools that were written in the document into something that you could just use and it felt natural.

Um, and as you were writing, you could kind of integrate these practical tools, and it would just come together and improve.

Yeah, instead of writing in a word processor and referring to this document, we just integrated the two so that you can write and focus at different levels of analysis with each tool.

And so there's a tool that is optimized for producing a first draft where you just read what you need to read and take your notes, watching what you think and maybe thinking out loud and trying to capture that loosely as rapidly as possible.

And then there are other tools that follow on from that.

Yeah, yeah!

So basically we split it out into the produce tool, the outline tool, the rewrite tool, and reorder, and basically structure that someone's supposed to follow when they're using this app is they, uh, they outline their essays, they decide what they're going to write about, and it doesn't have to be an essay; it could be a document, it could be an email to somebody.

Um, and so you basically come up with your main idea, and then you break it down into subtopics.

Um, and then you go to the produce tool, and that's where you're supposed to kind of fill in your ideas in a rough way, which is what Dad was talking about.

He's kind of right—you’re not supposed to edit; you're not supposed to do anything; you're supposed to get your ideas on paper, um, try to use the research that you've done and produce whatever you're able to produce—a loose first draft.

People often try to write a good word and a good phrase in a good sense in a good paragraph, right, during the first draft so that when they're done drafting it, once they're finished.

And the problem with that is it's actually way more work because you can't do all of that at once, and trying to just makes it almost impossible for you to think.

What you want to do is, well, first you want to ask yourself a question that you really want to have the answer to, so you have to be motivated, and that's an important first choice.

Even if you're writing a document that someone wants you to write, you have to find a handle on it that you're compelled by, and that should be stateable in the form of a question: what question are you essaying?

Which means attempting to answer it should be one you have a reason to answer.

And then you break it down, as Julian said, by the outline—well, what topics or subtopics are you going to hit?

Outline topics are you going to hit while walking through this?

That's a preliminary plan, you know, because you're going to reorganize at the level of the outline too.

And then maybe you go do your reading or your thinking, and while you're doing that, note what you're thinking and write it down, say it out loud, capture it, don't edit, capture!

And so maybe you're aiming to produce one and a half or two times as much written material as you'll need in the final analysis.

Now people don't like doing that because they fall in love with what they write, and it's hard to do it.

They think—but it's way easier to just give yourself the freedom to jot down and note everything you're thinking.

And then, well, then you go into the—well, the next tools!

Yeah, and basically the next tools are editing tools.

And so the idea that we made that we tried to capture in this tool is to allow people to produce variations of their writing and to quickly restructure it.

So like variations of sentences or paragraphs.

Yeah, variations of sentences, first!

And so what you'd do if you were writing a relatively long piece in this is you'd go through it sentence by sentence, and we have a tool that shows you your full documents on one side and then a broken down version of it sentence by sentence on the other side.

And basically you can go one by one through your sentences, produce as many variants as you want, and then see them in context to your document.

Okay, so that's a Darwinian approach to creative thinking.

So because in the Darwinian evolutionary process, creatures generate variance; that's mutation and and sexual recombination, and then the environment selects from among those variants for the most—for the most fit—the particulars that are most fit at that time.

So this tool, it'll show you your sentence, correct me if I get this technically wrong—it'll show your sentence, you click on it, it'll duplicate the sentence, then you can write a variant of that sentence; you can do that indefinitely.

And then what you want to do is write shorter sentences, longer sentences.

Shorter is usually better; people can improve their essays radically usually by cutting the sentence length by 15%.

That's a good first pass attempt.

But you look at all these variants, choose the variant that's better, and substitute it.

You do that with every sentence.

That's fine-grained editing! Not as fine-grained as word choice, but you'd be doing some of that at that point as well.

How much can you put into this?

Like could you edit a book?

Theoretically, you could edit a book.

Um, it would help in some ways because we have the outline tool which allows you to quickly jump through your document.

Um, we've had some—

So what do you mean?

Well, in the outline tool, you have written your subtopics, and then what it shows under each subtopic is a truncated version of each paragraph that you have within the subtopic.

And so it'll show like, um, I don't know, a five or six sentences—or not even probably a four-sentence version so you can quickly toggle through your essay, and so it'll get an overview of—get an overview and you can click to scroll, uh, and it really allows you to navigate a relatively long document pretty quickly.

Yeah, likely what would happen is if you're writing a book, you'd use it for each chapter.

Yeah, probably!

And rewrite the chapters and then maybe use a standard word processor to move the chapters around.

Depends on how long the book is, but for lengthy essays, even multi-part essays with multiple sub-topics, it'll work just fine!

Yeah, so wow!

Yeah, yeah!

Well, we can return to the original—let's call it principles of writing.

You remember when you're thinking about a document, you think you build it word up?

But that's—or do you build it letter up?

I hope not!

Right?

Yeah, right! Exactly!

Well, by the time you write, you've already automated the letter typing process, right?

So, then you have to think about the word and the phrase in the sentence and the paragraph and the paragraph sequence and the subtopic sequence, and the tool is designed to help you learn to think like that at multiple levels of analysis.

And so you don't have to think like that—that's kind of the point of it, right?

Is to break the thinking out into software so that you naturally think that way when you're writing.

Yeah, um, and so that's how you thought writing—that's how you write!

Right?

Well, it was an iterative process because while I was grading and then trying to teach people to write, I was thinking about, well, what am I doing when I'm grading?

Now, I'd already written a lot by then, but it wasn't until I wrote this document that I really started to understand this idea of multi-level simultaneous multi-level processing, which has been very useful for other things I've been thinking through.

It's like, well, where's the meaning when you read?

Well, is it in the words, the phrases, the sentences, the sentence organization, the paragraphs, etc.?

I don't walk through that again, but the answer is it's all of those simultaneously!

And it's even broader than that because you might think, well, the essay as a whole—that's a level of analysis!

But there's neat—the broadest possible level of analysis, but it's not the question you're asking; it's a broader level.

Because the essay, for it to be a real product, a product of your imagination and thought that will be useful to you practically and also psychologically, let's say, it has to address something that you regard as important or the whole bloody exercise is a lie.

And I would recommend if you're bored by what you're writing, then you haven't—you're not trying to write it the right—you're not trying to answer the right question, or you haven't formulated the right question.

What do you do, though, this just side note, what do you do if you're in high school or university and you're assigned a topic?

You find an angle that makes you interested in it!

You have to wrestle with yourself to begin with! Maybe you write something critical!

Well, I think it's a rare teacher that if you suggest something that's similar that you are interested in, they'll say no!

You know, I think—okay, so that's a try that!

Maybe!

I think generally try to write something, you know, approach your teacher and say, you know, I'm actually interested in exploring this topic!

If the teacher says you're not allowed to explore a topic you're interested in, then they're probably not a very good writing teacher!

And maybe you don't care about how they feel about your writing!

That's an important point!

Oh, that's a good point!

It is a good point, man!

It's like don't let people mess with your words!

Yeah, and you don't lose the—you know, if you do enjoy writing, you don't want to have that taken away from you by someone who's going to put you in a box that you don't want to be in!

Yeah, so if you really hate the topic, write something that's subtly satirical or over the top!

Like you have!

Look, man, writing is hard work; it's hard just like thinking, but it's not as hard as doing!

Neither, because then you're a mess, you're anxious and you're without purpose and goal and you're inarticulate and you're weak.

You lose!

And I don't mean unless you win and someone else loses, matter!

I mean in an everyone loses manner!

And so when you sit down to write or think, you have to be motivated and if you're not, you're not doing it right!

And that's writing teachers should stress that above all else, you know?

They should help their students identify something that they can hardly wait to write about because it's so important to them!

Well, then you've got the motivation, and each word starts to matter because your life depends on it!

And if you think your life doesn't depend on your words, you just don't know anything about words!

And so it is definitely the case—let's take a business example—if you're constantly being reinforced to write things that grate against your conscience or that you find yourself bored to death by, then it's either time to stand up and say something and then you should use the writing program to figure out what you're gonna say, or it's time to get a new job, in which case you should use the writing program to put your CV and your resume together and maybe write yourself something like a statement of purpose.

Like, this is no game!

If writing is thinking, which it is, and thinking sets your life in order or not, then you don't let people mess with your words!

You want to get them in order like soldiers and that's partly what this writing program is designed to help people do!

It's not so much—we're trying to teach people to write, we're trying to facilitate their thought and their clarity of communication and writing.

This is another thing that isn't taught well to students!

Well, why should I learn to write well?

How else are you going to communicate with people as you ascend up a hierarchy of competence?

Like some of the toughest guys I know—Jocko Willink, for example—knows, lays tremendous stress on literacy even as a soldier.

He had to communicate orders, let's say, to the people that he was in command of.

But he also had to communicate up the chain of command, and if your words are well-structured and and inspired and properly motivated and aimed like an arrow, you're unstoppable!

And I don't understand—well, this is—so many people are taught to write by people who don't know how to write or why to write or how to think, and that's partly what we're trying to address here!

So we hope people will find it extremely useful!

It's also like knowing how to write a good email too!

Even if you're not interested in essays specifically, knowing how to write a good email can change how a company is run!

Absolutely!

Well, it can change people's lives, right?

You need to write an email to someone you want to get a job from or a landlord to try to get them to not increase your rent or like, you know, write to councilman to try to get them to do something that needs doing in your neighborhood or a politician to get them to change a law.

You're going to be—you’re going to be making your case in front of people badly or well your entire life!

Yeah!

And so I don't know why we don't teach people that this arms them!

Well, we won't use that language, right? Because we think everyone should be cooperative.

And yeah, it's a complete bloody mess!

But we did decide, though, we've been trying to crack the problem of scaling education, and we have a bunch of ideas about that!

And Julian and I were working on a broader online university project when I got extremely ill, and it folded back into this writing program, which turned out in some ways to be an okay thing because this is actually it hopefully will address a very serious issue, and we could do it instead of the other one which—

Yeah, yeah!

The other one was pretty broad.

It was too broad!

Yeah!

Better breaches!

Why it failed, probably!

Yeah, part of the reason it hasn't failed yet!

It's just been sequenced differently!

Yeah, fair enough!

So Solution Academy is coming!

Yes!

Yes!

And we have online courses, and we're working with people in the broader educational sphere!

So who knows what will happen! Should talk about the design a little bit because it's quite elegant!

Yeah, sure!

Yeah, so we spend a ton of time building the design out!

I mean we did a number of iterations at the beginning.

My wife's a product designer, and I'm a front-end developer, and so we're both very concerned with UX and making things that people can use naturally and that feel good to use!

Um, and so, you know, a lot of people don't like to write, and that's an issue, right?

If we want people to write and we want people to learn to write better and think better, then when you go into a new application that you have to learn, it has to be very comfortable!

And so we wanted to make the design very modern, very clean, very intuitive—

Yeah, self-explanatory! Right?

Because the hallmark of good design is that you don't have to refer to a manual to figure out how to use, let's say, the tools!

And these are different things!

Right?

We're trying to teach people to interact with a word processor differently, which is a big ask in a way to the user, right?

And because, well, because almost everyone writes using something, right?

People use Word or Google Docs or whatever, whatever.

You have to make it easier for them to write using this at least easier, but the payoff has to be there!

Well, that's—the payoff also has to be there, but he's a more worried!

It's not just a blank sheet, right?

There's more work! You actually do have to learn to use it!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but theoretically and from our experience, the tools are worth the learning curve, and we've tried to make the learning curve as minimal as possible using good design!

Well, right! The other thing we did, and this is a design element too, is that while you're using—while you're learning to use the tools, you're also learning how to go about thinking at the same time!

So you're not only learning how to use the writing program, you're learning how to think about thinking, and that's extremely important!

Just knowing, for example, that you do multi-level processing and that you can edit and reconceptualize at all those levels, that's extremely useful formally to know about how you think and why you think!

So it's a nice thing about the tools in general is that they're not specific tools to the app, right?

Like you can use them in the context of the app, but if you're writing an email in your—just in your Gmail or whatever, then you can still go through it and improve the sentences and improve the structure of the paragraphs.

And you can use the tools that you've built and practiced using!

Yeah, internalized!

Yeah, you can use them wherever!

And you can use—yeah, when you're thinking, you're talking as well, you know, in a sort of faster way!

But they're generally useful things to understand!

And, right, so my impression going through—I kind of had to learn to use this app in the last few months because although I was involved in the design to begin with, when I got sick, I—I forgot a lot of what the app did and why it was produced the way it was, and so I've had to relearn it—learn how to use it over the last couple of months!

And it was very straightforward to learn!

But what was—what I was even happier about was the fact that learning to use it does not waste effort!

You know, if you learn a program like Photoshop, you can use Photoshop—the Photoshop skills you've learned on Illustrator and other Adobe project products, but doesn't really generalize outside of that domain.

Because—because the commands are so specific.

With this, you could use essay for a year and then hypothetically never use it again because you could—you—you could do one—

Don't tell people!

[Laughter]

I think that once you use it, this guy's not in our marketing team!

You'll also find it a good place to keep track of your essays and all of that to build an essay bank!

And we're going to be—that's cool!

That's a good idea!

Yeah, so we've thought about the, well, the problem of what do you do with what you've written, and that's also relevant to something mentioned earlier.

If you write an essay and your first draft is twice as long as it needs to be and you cut a bunch of it out, keep what you've cut in another document because, yeah, I've almost never written anything that was wasted!

It might not have been useful precisely in the context that I wanted it for at that moment, but keeping a log or a collection of written material, especially by topic, is extremely useful as you progress through your life, and you'll find a use for it.

Okay, it's useful for writers!

It's also—you know, I play music and I've done that with songs too, right?

You can write song lyrics and just write poetry or whatever you're writing, and then you can—you know, that's how a lot of great songs have been written—little pieces here and there of different, you know, thrown-away songs that, yeah!

The people say that all the time!

But yeah, so it's not just—not just for writing, but for artistic things!

No genuine work is wasted!

It just doesn't fit necessarily with exactly what you're doing at the moment!

But—but first of all, the skills you learn while you're genuinely working generalize!

And also the products, if you keep them—I had a few poems I wrote horrible poems about children—um, 15 years—

We don't need context for that; that's okay!

When I was doing my clinical work, and I needed to blow off some steam about all the awful things I was seeing!

So thank you very much!

In any case, I wrote those 15 years ago!

It wasn't till this year that we started working on having them illustrated, and the whole creative sequence of creative projects emerged from that!

So you have to realize that when you're writing, you are literally changing your brain!

So careful about what you write about because that's for sure!

For sure!

Like all the way down!

Well, it depends!

Do you want your—do you want to program in garbage?

Because you're actually producing automated circuits in your brain when you write!

And so if you write something you don't agree with, you can do that as an exercise to stretch out your intellectual imagination, right?

And to develop your argument, let's say, on the contrary argument as part of thinking!

But if you write a bunch of lies for someone that you don't trust to do something you don't like, that will change you in that direction!

If you do that 100 times, you'll be way different than the person you were!

And you may be bored, miserable, angry, unhappy, resentful, a motivated, tendentious, inarticulate, but otherwise fine!

Yeah, yeah!

Don't mess with your words, man!

The point you made earlier I hadn't actually thought about this—I’ve got an issue storing way too many Google Docs and Sheets and Google—Google has like terrible storage!

Google Drive?

Yeah, right?

So the fact that you can actually store focus pieces of writing—that's—that's pretty interesting!

Instead of putting all your spreadsheets and everything in one area, you could put everything that you focus on in one area and then look back on it!

Yeah, well, Google Drive is obviously great, but it's because everything is there, and that, you know, that comes with any losers with a cost, for sure!

Yeah, you use things all the time there!

Yeah, yeah, yeah!

And that's not something that we've solved completely with this program, but it is a good place to store the things that you've endeavored to write!

So cool!

There's—we have what, three patents pending?

Yes, yes!

So that's fun!

You know, it's a—it's, uh, so it's still stealable!

That's what we're saying!

It's still stealable!

Yes, virtually everything is stealable!

And the way you succeed in the marketplace is becoming—getting there fairly early and then making a product that's better than everyone else's and then keeping it better!

If you want to rely on legal protection, even patents, it'll just wear you to a frazzle!

It's not—I mean, look, you have to keep people from stealing your intellectual property and patent protection and legal protection can help!

But in the final analysis, the way that you remain competitive in the marketplace is to stay not only ahead of your competitors but ahead of your previous product!

Right?

And so otherwise you get into this defensive mode where you're fending everyone else off trying to protect your thing!

It's like your thing—the thing you developed, in all likelihood, is alive and you should stay on the cutting edge of its development!

But it's still nice to have the patents!

Yeah, for sure!

So they're hard to enforce; you have to take them out in all sorts of different countries.

You know, you get tangled up with lawyers!

But it's no one wants that!

No, no one wants that!

No!

Lawyers can use our program!

No, I don't mean that! Lawyers are very useful in their proper place!

This is definitely not everywhere!

Yeah, yeah!

How does that work for running out trauma then? Isn't it supposed to be therapeutic?

But how is it not strengthening memories associated with trauma?

That's an excellent question, and there's actually a whole research literature on that which we drew on when we formulated the self-authoring program, especially the past authoring program.

Well, James Pennebaker tested that!

So imagine two theories; one is just write down everything that you can remember about the trauma and cry and be miserable and depressed while you do that, and that's cathartic!

Okay, but then imagine that you write down everything you remember around the trauma, and then you go through a process like you would go through with our writing tool where you organize it, and you reduce it, and you make it clear and comprehensible!

And you weave it into a narrative, and you strip the emotion out of it while you're doing that because you start to understand what happened!

And it isn't catharsis!

James Pennebaker tested this!

So he had people write about their traumatic experiences—it usually made them feel worse for a two-week period afterwards!

But yeah, six months later, they had visited the physicians far less frequently!

So it's out of tyranny into the desert and then into the promised land, right?

So there's a cost that you pay when you first confront things that you'd rather avoid, and that's obviously—because why would people avoid them if there was no cost?

And you might say, well, that's dangerous!

And ruminating involuntarily on traumatic experiences doesn't help get rid of them!

You have to confront them voluntarily!

And then it isn't expression of emotion that cures you; it's organization of the memories into a narrative that specifies the causal pathway!

Why did this happen? When it happened?

Why did it happen to me?

And then is associated with rectification of that vulnerability!

And so Pennebaker tested did people use more words indicative of expressed emotion or did they use more words that were indicative of cognition and comprehension?

And which of those predicted the best outcome?

So like—like what?

Understand, comprehend, came to know!

Okay, angry, sad, hurt, upset on the other side!

The more their written product revealed the cognitive processing, the better the effect of the traumatic narration!

And you see this—you see this when you talk to people who have had a traumatic experience if you if you talk to them carefully and listen carefully as they work through it!

So they want to know exactly what happened in detail so that maybe they can set up their lives so that won't happen again!

So, you know, you were traumatized as a child, but you're a lot easier to take advantage of if you're a child!

Now you have all those memories about being hurt!

Okay, as the person comes to understand their trauma, the time it takes to recount it shrinks dramatically!

Yeah!

And that means they've pulled out the gist, right?

The central issues from the experience, and they can use that as a practical guide to the future!

That is exactly what you're doing by the way when you're writing an essay!

You think, well, it's not a trauma. It's like, well, if you pick a question that's interesting to you, it's interesting because the fact that you don't know it is a problem!

And so one of the great ways to figure out what to write about is, well, what bugs you?

Notice that—that's that involuntary rumination!

That's the manifestation of underlying complexes from a psychoanalytic perspective!

So something's on your mind, poking you, bugging you!

It's like Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio—that is really annoying!

I knew that would bug you!

So it was a positive—you know, is it?

So anyways, you find—you find something that bugs you.

That's your problem!

You might say, well, why should I have a problem?

It's like, picked you. It's your problem!

It's your destiny!

It's something you—that would compel you to solve!

It's your adventure!

Your adventure can be found in what bothers you and won't go away!

Well, that's your topic, man!

That's your life!

Delve into that and use this program because people have to figure that out!

It'll help you figure that out!

Write about things that matter!

You say, well, my life has no meaning!

Nothing I write is meaningful!

Well, you're not writing about something that matters to you!

And that first step that we talked about when you specify the question—the program says this quite clearly—specify the question you're trying to answer.

You have to want the answer!

You want to be motivated to write!

It's like this is a hot question for me, man!

I'm gonna go read some things about it because I need to know!

Well, that's what you want to write about!

That's where you find your passion, to use an overworked cliche!

Okay, well cheers guys!

Cheers!

Thank God!

Thank God!