How many from outside of washington . How many had never been to the book festival before . How many have been to all 19 of them . Wow. Okay. Were going to have a very interesting conversation today with one of the countries leading i was a intellectuals and columnists and tv commentators and authors. His new book is the Second Mountain. How many people have read this book at . Come people are going to read this after its over . , okay. How many people are going to get autographed copy from david brooks today. Okay. So david, thanks for doing this. Before we go into this book, the Second Mountain which ive read and think its a very good book. I like to go through about your background. You grew up in new york . The lower side of new york. My parents were somewhat leftwing. So thel story tell about my childhood is when i was identically, this is, this is in the late 60s,s where hippies would go just to be. One of the things they did was they would set a garbage can on fire and they threw the ones into this demonstrate how little he cared about money and vitriol things. I was five and i saw fivedollar bill on fire in the garbage can so i reached in the far, grabbed the money and ran away. [laughing] that was my first it over to the right. W right. At age 8i read a book calling paddington the bear and decided that i wanted to become a writer and ive been writing pretty much every day since and in high school i wanted to date a woman named bernice and she wanted to date another guy, i was like what is she thinking, i write way better than the other guy. What did your parents do other than being hippies . 1950 progressives but my father was teaching at nyu, scholar of victorian literature and my mother scholar of victorian history. The phrase was think british, act british. So what they did was gave their kids names, super english names like norman, irving, milton, sidney thinking that no one would ever they they were jewish. So your last name jewish names, brooks. Brooks was changed in world war i because it was too german. I was a b minus student. How did you get in the university of chicago . In those Days University of chicago admitted 70 of applicants and i went to chicago because the Admissions Officers at colombia decided i should go. You didnt get in. What did you want to study . Political theory, chicago in retrospect, chicago was the turning point because of great culture, the best thing about chicago is a Baptist School atheist and i took the common core, i wrote 16 papers, i probably wrote 20 and we had in those days professors that were refugees from germany and they when they taught you books they taught you as keys to the kingdom, how to live if you studied the books well and read them seriously, if you burn with enthusiasm people will come from miles to watch you burn and the professors had the enthusiasm and so they really introduced us to the great world ecologies and taught us to take reading really seriously and then they taught us and if you live in washington and seeing the world, most of what you see world in distorted way and theres a quote from john, says the older i get the more important the more i think the most essential thing in life is to see something and say what you saw clearly in a short passage, millions can talk and millions with think and millions can think for one who can see and author that told story, just see the world clearly and disciplined us to try to do. How did you in the university of chicago . I did better there. Theres a certain point where you learn to work. I learned to work. So how did you decide what it was going to be, did you know you were going to be a writer . I knew i was going to become a writer, i didnt want to be academic because im not good at abstract thinking . You didnt want to go to Investment Banking . Theres a higher calling but i would have had to been able to do addition and multiplication as i understand. When you were an undergraduate you met william, how did that change your life . I was school columnist for the newspaper and came to campus and i wrote a vicious parody of him, buckley, one called the buckley review which he merged to form buckley buckley, a jun bunch of jokes about that and he came to campus and gave speech to student body and at the end of it, david brooks if you are in the audience he said i want give you a job and that was the big break. He gave you a job . Sadly i was not in the audience. [laughter] i was literally out, i was hired by pbs to interview and if you go to youtube, you will see 21yearold with big glasses and show socialist, i argue the point, he destroys in about 6 words and the camera lingers on my face as i try to think of something to say. What did you do when you graduated . I worked for a year, best job i ever had and then i covered chicago politics for something called the City News Bureau in chicago journal, that was harold washington, first black mayor come in, the council wars. Did you get a job at buckley eventually . I covered poverty on the south and west side and i thought i was seeing a lot of bad social policies ahead of unintended consequences of making probably worse and that may be more conservative and i called buckley up and said is the job still there and he said yes, and moved to new york. Worked for National Review . Totally shock, you forget how buckley was, he lived a lifestyle that was unimaginable, youre a kid and suddenly on park avenue and they put a finger bowl in front of you, you have, why is soup so watery. Had you been conservative . I think by that time i was happy when thatcher won, but mostly in chicago they assigned me a book revolution of france and at the time i hated, i loathed the book, i wanted to create new ideas for myself and this is a guy that said distrust your reason. Conservatism is based on modesty. The world is a really complicated place, be careful how you think you can change it, do it gradually, incrementally and as if you were operating on your own father and what i saw in chicago social change gone badly and seem to confirm and i wasnt conservative as National Review was but suddenly sometimes when you get close to people you idealize and you see faults, did you see faults in buckley or did you idealize him . His son wrote a book and showed some of the dark father of father, add, his father couldnt sit still when christopher graduated from yale at the commencement and he left, christopher had to have lunch after own commencement alone and that side of buckley i saw, he couldnt slow down, he simply could not slow down. On the other hand, he asked me questions about everything, he took me to concert, he took me yachting, surrogate father for 18 months and what i saw in awesome capacity for friendship. Estimated that he wrote more letters than anybody else in 20th century, any other american because he was constantly staying in touch with his friends and great thing is that conversations at his home were almost never about politics, they were about ideas and literature, he was not primarily a how long did you stay at the National Review . I did that for 18 months. Thats it . That was short. Seemed long at the time. What did you do next . I came down here and i began two, mui movie critic. Did you have a background on movie critic . I went to the movies every night. [laughter] i had seen a lot of movies. Being movie critic was fun, i got to meet and best interview of my life with jackie, i was sitting in a hotel room and wife walks in and plays music, and then jackie walks in and goes like this and its just me and him in a room. [laughter] hilarious story after another. The one i remember is hes outdrinking with joe demaggio and bets a thousand bucks that he can race him around the block and beat him, for those who are younger than 40demaggio was a professional athlete, and jackie weighed approximately 2,000 pounds. As demaggio turn it turns the corner. They take off, they run around, they turn, and once again, he gives him 2,000 bucks and half an hour later back in the bar, demaggio says we raised around the block but we never crossed the bottom side. So all right so your movie criticisms were well received or not . I think well enough. I will say that being critic ruined credible of movies, you cant get lost in the movie anymore, when you meet the people making the movie you can see Financial Decisions on each scene. What did you do next . By then i was at the wall street journal and became correspondent, they sent me in early 90s, this is the part of the world you will cover from iceland, from scotland to cape town. In those days i covered nothing but good things, i covered the independence of ukraine, the berlin unification, mandela coming out of prison in south africa, peace in the middle east, it was all good news. Did you ever go to greenland or no . No. I put in a bid for it. [laughter] so, okay, you so you did that for a while, youre a Foreign Policy expert, what did you do next . I should say i had the best interview of my life in russia, there was a coup against regime and stood up in tank in Russian Parliament building and ran into 90year old woman, first husband had been killed in civil war, second husband and boys were killed in battle and her third husband was sent away and disappeared, she was sent away with her people and ended her life hanging out sandwiches in front of Russian Parliament building, she had personally experienced event of soviet history and it was one of those burning moments that you see history right in front of you. What happened next . I came home and i saw that American Culture had changed. I grew up i went to high school in place in pennsylvania and when i left people wore green pants and buck ties and when i came back it had the first anthropology, i never thought that a story would come to pennsylvania. New culture had come into being and was first chapter of my book. When did you write that . Are. That came out in 2000. The theme was . 60s value with 90s money, basically i came home and looked at New York Times writing page, mergers and acquisition page, it was like goldman marrying mckenzie, you couldnt have the tensions would be too great and they wanted to prove they were not money hungry so they had a code of consumption to prove that they were authentic progressives and so, for example, one of the code was you can spend money, as much money as you want used by the servants. You could spend a lot of money on kitchens, you had the nuclear reactors, stoves, nubby fabrics, you had a whole code that i basically made fun of. When did you began writing for the New York Times . So i went to work at weekly standard, make the republican moderate and reasonable and [laughter] how many years were you doing that . I was 9 years. Well, i really began to figure out what i actually thought and in 2003i got a call from gail call collins and i took the train up and on the way up i said, no, no, no. My best length is 3,500 words, 850 words are not my best length and she asked the question and before i was going to say, no, has anybody ever said no to the question do you want to become a New York Times columnist and they said no one ever said no and i had failure of courage and i said, yes. All right, what year was that that you began . 2003 and youve been writing how long . How many columnists did you write a week . Two a week, thats 100 a year and its a lot. I joke about being conservative communist, not a lot of company there. How long does it take you to write a column . It can be 2 and a half hours and it can be 20 hours. The length of time i spend working on it has inverse correlation on how good the column is. Do you say i dont have anything . Not, thats not allowed. Thats not the way it works. Suppose you write something thats 820 words, you need 30 more, where do you get the extra 30, you to fill out 850 . Character. [laughter] were you surprised of the leadership that you produced with those columns, how many people now read them and i assume youre pretty well known as a result of those columns . I dont know. Well, i will say that the joke columnists tell about their job, seems good for the first two weeks, you have to keep producing. [laughter] but i actually the first 6 months on the job were the hardest professional. You spent time with the other columnists or people on the New York Times or are you at home and send them in . Im on the dc bureau, 3 other others are on the road so much that we dont see do you ever have trouble coming up with an idea or do you have plenty of those . I have desperate trouble. So i used to think like its just sheer desperation, i used to think if i got hit by a bus and i lived i could get a column out. My only desire is column ideas. I remember fantasizing about winning the lottery, testify not the money but get column. When did the pbs series start, news hour. News hour started in 2001. How frequently you do that . Every friday and two most wonderful men i know. Every friday you have to show up in washington or wherever, you cant be anywhere else . Right. That does pin me down because im here every friday. The segment is called shields and brook, we wanted to call brook shields. [laughter] something intensely proud to be part of, we have a certain demographic who is our core demographic which we call season youth and so if 98yearold lady comes up to me in the airport, i know what shes going to say, i dont want your show but my mother loves it. So youre supposed to be the conservative on that and is that a fair column, lacterrization . Supposed to be but frankly over the years ive its been a struggle to call myself a conservative. I think now i call myself a moderate. Its more accurate to say im a moderate. Now that youre well known for tv show and also the columns, do High School Friends call you up and say i really knew that you were going to be successful, are people calling you that didnt call you before. I dated a lot of peoples sisters, in all cases these are women that would have had nothing to do with me. I would say, no, i went for same summer camp for 15 years and that was my childhood, and i have few friends from high school and they treat me as they always do. Jewish camp somewhere . It was unlikely to be jewish camp. [laughter] so, okay. Lets talk about your second book, what was your second book . That was called on Paradise Drive and that was a post 911 book and capturing spirit of america and how it showed out in everyday life and in the middle of the book i saw quote from said that every book is possible to write except the book about the spirit of america. I was like, oh, damn, hes right, basically i was people who live in dc area, i spent a lot of time in german town, springfield, and i thought these were the fastgrowing places at the time and i wanted to show the spirit of america with energy, movement and really paradise. Right. Was behind a lot of the moves and so i wrote about big box malls and, you know right. They would all have the suburban theme restaurants and the highway, which were chilis olive garden. I was obsessed with that part of america that nobody was writing about. They take time off to write a book, do you take time to write a book his or or how do you . I have done twice, id it did not accelerate the time of the book but spent more time with your garden. How long did it take you to write the book . 4 years cycle, im doing other stuff. It takes forever to structure book, my books are always somewhat personal, somewhat public and to get that structure it takes me forever to do it, to figure out what the book is about and the odd thing is you get these complexed book structures and then after 4 years you get down to simple structure and you think why didnt i get a simple structure first but it takes you 4 years to get to simplicity on the other side of complexity. Third book social animal. What was that about . Yeah. Neuroscience but about emotion and me trying to understand emotion because its not something i always say washington is the most emotionally avoiding city on the face of the earth and i might have been the most emotionally person in the city, writing book about [laughter] but neuroscience is showing, patients had legislations in the brain and could not experience emotions and you would think that they were super smart, in fact, they couldnt function in life because emotion is not the opposite of reason, emotion is the value device that tells us what we want, the foundation of reason and so people who are emotionally intelligent are also intellectually intelligent, the two go together. So i really we wanted to write about how we educate through art and literature and how we refine our emotional life through relationship with one another. In the course of writing the book and this is years ago now taylor swift was on 60 minutes and she was asked, you write a lot of sad songs, actually 23 different kinds of sadness, your boyfriend dumps you sadness and lose your dog different set of tune, your mom is mad at you is different set of tune. If youre aware of 25 different kinds of sadness and different kinds of joy is a better way to live and a better that gives you the capacity to see others deeply and know whats going on in their own emotional lives. Book was an attempt to write myself into some capacity for that. And you wrote a fourth book before you wrote this one, road to character, what was that about . What i learned from that book was that books a friend of mine had said this but i didnt appreciate it. Magazine article can be about many things, books have to be about one thing, people immediately can grasp. And so i had throw away passage in the book saying there are two sets of virtues, theres the things that make us look good in our job and eulogy after we are death, courageous, honorable, capable of great love and we spent a lot of time preparing people with virtues but we all know the eulogy virtues are more important, how do you develop those . So that one phrase eulogy virtues carries the book and sense that people share that culture is overpoliticized and overprofessionallized and underimmorallized, not really talking about how we become better people and thats sort of watching 10 people, 10 of my heros, how they went from being human disasters at age 20 to really magnificent people. Do you write book, do y when you write a book, do you do it in long hand or computer . Who you do you do it . I have a bad memory and i leave notebooks in my pocket. Anyway, paper, im always writing my ideas and i xerox out a lot of stuff. As i research a book ill have collected thousands of pages of notes and what i do is, i can only get them straight geographically when i create piles on the floor with the notes in the right pile and when i write a column its only 850 words, but there will be 14 piles on the floor because a pile is a paragraph and i pick up the pile, write the paragraph, throw out the notes and pick up the next pile. Writing to me is not sitting at a keyboard tapping, its crawling around the floor of nigh living room sorting my piles. But you write on a computer . I tell my students, by the time you sit and put it on the computer, your paper should be 80 done. Its about Traffic Management and structure, if you dont get the structure right it wont flow. And getting the structure right. And the process of the piles, creativity, sparks start coming. Some people who are writers say ill write a certain amount of day, if i do that, ill do something else. Do you do that way . Or write until youre tired . Not as crazy as some writers. One wrote 2500 words every day, 250 words every 15 minutes. And if he finished a novel, then hell start another novel. I have to write every day. My wife thought when we were got married that we would have nice breakfast conversations . I cannot talk until i write 8 had,to 1,000 words. Two routines i like, i think Tony Morrison had a hotel room in her town with where she kept a typewriter, a desk, brandy and a bible and went there every day and did her thing. John cheever had an apartment in new york and he would get up, put on his only suit and tie, ride the elevator down to the basement of his building where he had an office and take off the suit and tie and he would write in his boxers until 12 30, put back on the suit and tie and ride back up to his apartment and have his lunch. The more disciplined the effort the work has to be. The book, the Second Mountain, there must be a First Mountain . Whats the First Mountain . The narrative of this, we get out of college and we think we want to establish identity, we want to establish a career, we want to play the game of the meritocracy, so we start, launch off and sometimes we succeed and find it unsatisfying and sometimes we fail, and sometimes a bad thing happens that wasnt part of the original plan, a cancer scare, or the loss of a child or something terrible, and suddenly, youre in the valley. When youre in the valley you realize that ego that propelled you up the First Mountain were pretty unsatisfying and then youre ready for a bigger, larger life, which is not about building up ego, but descending into yourself, into your heart and soul and youre not acquiring, youre contributing. Its a shift from one consciousness, which is from the consciousness our culture requires, to a and you were racing up the First Mountain for part of your life, you would say . And i achieved so far beyond my dreams, that it was crazy. But i remember, i think four of my books have been best sellers and each time i get the call im surprised by how flat it is. Its a nothing. And im the poster child for career success doesnt make you happy. And so, there were part of the meritocracy that tells us lies. The first lie is that career success makes you happy. The second says lie is that you can make yourself happy if you just get better at yoga or a little thinner, but when you talk to people at the end of their lives, its not the time they were selfsufficient that they were happy, its the time they were utterly selfsufficient and completely dependent on others. And another meritocracy, life is an individual journey. We give our children books, oh, the places youll go, dr. Suess book, a kid all alone on the path to success, no friends, no family and i ran into a socialology who says she go gives books to kids who are immigrants here and they hate the book because it doesnt reflect life as they know it which is studded with relationships. Then another lie of our culture is and this is really a pernicious lie if you wants to screw p your society is that people who achieve more are somehow worth little more than everybody else and we pretend we dont tell this lie, but we do in our interactions. Okay, so the Second Mountain is the concern about community and other kinds of things like that . Its more a ill tell you in my own way in my own life. Around 2013 my life sort of crashed in on itself. Not the column, but my kids had left home or were leaving home. My marriage had ended. I had most of my friendships in the conservative movement and i wasnt a conservative anymore so i lost a lot of that. So all of a sudden, im living in an apartment on wisconsin avenue and newark street and im all alone. And i had weekday friends, guys i could men and women i could take to lunch and talk politics, but didnt have weekend friends and my weekends were vast he expanses of silence and in the best shape of my life. But the symbol for me, in my kitchen i wasnt entertaining, no one was coming over. When you opened the drawer of my kitchen there should have been fork and silverware, there were postit notes because i was working all the time. Where there should have been plates, there should have been stationary. Like any idiot i tried to avoid an emotional and work through it, and its for the problem about you eventually it crashes. I went through this period where the pain crashes you into yourself, and paul tillic has a line in theologians, its an interrupt of life and reminds you youre not person you thought you were, it forces you to crash through what you thought was the basement of your soul and reveals a cavity below that and carves through that and the cavity below that. The moments of suffering we see deeper into ourselves deeper than imaginable and only emotional and spiritual food can fill the places. The difference between first and Second Mountain is not just selflessness and community, it causes you to crash into yourself and come deeply into contact with your soul. Im not a religious writer, i dont care if you believe in god or not believe in god, but i do ask you to believe you have a soul, a piece of you no shape, size, color or weight and gives you value and dignity. Rei rich people dont have more than poorer or young. The level of souls is equal and infinite. [applause] and so, what the soul does, it yearns for goodness. We all want to lead good lives. So youre in this period of time and how did you get to the Second Mountain . What did you do that got you up the Second Mountain . Well, i learned a few things. The first thing i learned is that freedom sucks. I had total freedom. I had the income of a 52yearold and the open options of a 22yearold. And all my married friends were projecting their fantasies onto me, swinging great and i learned that freedom sucks. And then the second thing i learned is you cant solve your problem on the same level of consciousness at which you created it, which is an einstein teaching. The third thing i learned you cant pull yourself out of the valley, someone has to reach down and pull you out. I got a lucky invitation in to go over to a couples house and crestwood and i was accepting all invitations at this point, and so i walk in the door and kathy and david had a kid in the d. C. Public schools and that kid had a friend who had his mom had issues and stuff and so, james, this kid often no place to eat or stay so james can stay with us. And then james had a friend and that kid had a friend and that kid had a friend. By the time i go to dinner there in 2015, they have 40 kids around the dinner table and 15 sleeping around the house. So i walk in the door and reach out to shake a kids hand and he says, we really dont shake hands here, we just hug here. And so i every thursday night since then ive been with those kids. Im not the huggiest guy on the face of the earth, but they taught me how to do it, but what the kids give us is emotional transparency. And they demand it from us. And they turn and look at you like theyre flowers looking to the sun for love. And i took my daughter there and she came out and she said thats the warmest place youve ever been. I took a guy named bill milken, community and schools and doing youth work for 50 years. He said ive been doing youth work for 50 years and ive never seen a program turn around a life sh, and im writing at hatred on a National Level and thursday night at dinner im seeing a solution and it was through that, there r were several experiences, but one of those experiences was suddenly, an assistance on how to behave and live better. All right, so part of this. You got married again . I got married again, which is another good thing. Yeah, and that was having a happy marriage is like winning the lottery times a thousand. Okay. So today you would say youre happier than youve ever been . Ive raising my kids were a happy period, but i am blissfully, poli blissfully happy. You right about a new religious experience you had. You were born in one religion or sort of in another or sort of and now that i have to live with forever im religiously bisexual. I grew up jewish and i went to got a bar mitzvah for most of my adult life kept kosher and i experienced the kind of jewish holiness and jewish holiness is not in my line is that every Church Service i go to is more spiritual than every Synagogue Service i go to by every friday night meal is more spiritual than every Church Service. The meal at shabbat when the meal is served and blessings are said, theres a feeling of loving kindness, and its like 18 people around the table and 18 people are listening to 17 other conversations, theyre all talking at once, and correcting the 17 other wrong things that have just been said and thats sort of the jewish goodness, but then i grew up, i went to the school in new york called Grace Church School and Episcopal School and went to a camp and there i saw another kind of goodness which there was a guy there, for example, named wes who he had selfless love, like a man child, a holy child who just radiated joy and spoke in whistles and always interrupting himself and laughing. And he through became an episcopal priest and working with women suffering Domestic Violence in annapolis and radiated a holy joy unaccountable to me. Dorothy day has a line, christians act in a way unless god does exist. It wasnt a problem because i didnt believe in god anyway it was just like two things, but then over the course of a number of years, as a friend of mine says, reality overflew the categories i had to understand it. You have certain moments of trance sen tr trans transendense. And youre writing an and it cant be a bag of material. The reason that we work hard at journalism if people is souls and consequence. From there, it was the most boring i started reading religious stuff. If you start going on a religious journey people start sending you books. I got 750 books in the course of three or four months, only 400 of which were christianity and then so im sitting in my apartment and jesus somehow transferred through the wall no, kidding, that did not happen. I just became aware that i was a person of faith. All right. So you now are both religions . Well, my jewish friends say, no, thats not allowed. And so, but i feel more jewish than i ever did because now when i read isaiah or exodus, i think the covenant is real. Its not just a wisdom story. So, i feel more jewish than ever and yet, the sermon on the mound is to me a glimpse at a sort of celestial beauty that lingers and i cant unread matthew. All right. So, why should somebody now that theyve seen what youve written about and heard what youve written about, why should they buy this book . Whats a good reason to buy the book now that theyve heard about it . Will they learn a lot more by buying this book than they just heard . Its a really good status item. [laughte [laughter]. Well, the book is partly about the Second Mountain, but the Second Mountain is a life of commitment and so, theres it started as a actually the book started i was single and i was dating, so it was first going to be called the marriage edition, how do you decide who to marry and i was teaching and i figured my College Students were going to make four commitments the 20 years of their life. Most to a spouse and family, to a community, to a vocation and to a philosophy and faith. In my view the Second Mountain life is where you make maximal commitments to those things. You dont just have a career, you have a vocation. You dont just have a contract marriage where youre trying to be happy, you have a covenantal marriage and surrender yourself to your spouses joy so i tried to describe and i do describe in the book, what it looks like to live a life of maximal commitments. We live in a hyper individualistic society and were not going back to the 1950s, but we can join our society together by making promises to each other and trying to stay faithful to the promises and a lot of it, the practical nuts and bolts, how do you choose a vocation, how do you choose a marriage partner. In other words, youll lead a happier life if you buy this book, is that what youre saying . And actually i was teaching a kid, a wonderful kid who became a rhodes scholar, a really smart kid. He took my course and he tend of the class he said professor brooks, your class made me a lot sadder. I said, thats a win. Its better to be a sad spiritual person than a happy achieveatron. Recently youve taken on a project. We the social fabric project. And i was writing these columns, our little symbol here, on social isolation, frag mentation, suicide has risen 30 since 1999. And teen suicide since 2012. Were seeing the rise of distrust and that seems to be the problem behind a lot of problems. But its a Problem Solved at the local level by people we call weavers who are Building Community and so we felt wed go out and learn from their example and try to nationalize their effect. I do this now every week and go out somewhere in the countries and i meet People Living for relationships not for self and Building Communities and a lot of them are Second Mountain lives. There was a woman i met a while ago, called lisa fitzpatrick, she is a Health Care Executive and she was driving and saw two kids 10 and 11 and looked terrified and had something in their hands and held it up, it was a gun. She shot her in the face. And they had to do a gang initiation killing to get into a gang and she recovers from this and realizes i wasnt the victim here, i was collateral damage, those two little boys were the victims, they had to kill someone so they could have a family and she works in gangs, in the city. And the weavers try to fix bha happened to them. You were doing this with aspen weekly, youre writing two columns a week, youre on pbs friday nights, writing one book a year and teaching at yale and married and have three kids. So, do you have any free time for anything . I actually this is a sadd element of my life and people ask me my hobbies and i used to say im always going out to dinner with my friends and kids and now im trying to take up tennis, i want to have a hobby, you should have some pleasure in your life. You spend a lot of time on television talking about politics and you were critical of i think candidate trump or President Trump, i cant remember, maybe both. Whats your view on the likelihood that President Trump will get reelected. I have actually a cheerier view than a lot of my democratic friends. I think the guys at 40 and hes offended 60 . I mean, i take it stupidly, thats not good. And so im more im more optimistic that he will lose than a lot of the democrats i hang around with. [applause] when you write any critical articles of him, do you ever hear from him and call you and say why like that articles. He used to tweet about me, but ive never had any contact with him. Im very happy not to. I really dont want to be in the same room with the guy. So what is your view on the likelihood the democrats will retain control of the house or get control of the senate . As i say, well, i do think the democrats, you know, when we see what i think is a pretty big advantage for the democrats of course knowing the party the main question is, i wonder how theyre going to find a way to screw this up . And so i, you know, i if i were advising the democrats, which im sure its advice theyd love to get, i would say just go with the bland plan, the number one job is to get trump out of office. In your view the likely democratic nominee is who. My earlier answer was kamala harr harris, i think she has a force of a force, if youre thinking who could stand up to trump i think she has personal character force, a forcefulness to her that i thought would be a good match. Im now looking at the race and im thinking it could well be elizabeth warren. And i must say [applause] i dont know her well, but i spent some time with her and ive never got the likability charge. I found her warm. I like law professors, granted, but and if you looked at what shes done over the last three or four months, shes steadily climbed up the ranks and shes now got a higher favorability rating than any other democrat. And shes taken 45,000 selfies, so thats like retail politics. And so im im very when youre covering a Campaign Like that, youre like scouting a baseball pitcher, whos got good stuff and i would say in substance, i dont agree with it, but as candidate i think shes a strong candidate. I have to say ive known biden for a long time and i love the i think hes a very lovely, very lovely man. But you dont think hell get the nomination or no, im very impressed by his strength. I thought it may fade, but he has a real strength of support and so those are the three that i think are most likely. As you look back on what youve done with your life. How old are you now . I turned 58. Thats a teenager to me. At 58 what would you say youre most proud of what youve achieved. Anybody is going to say your kids. Well, once you get past that. Well, i think what i would i wrote a book on humility so i should talk about how great i am. I would say its continually being on the move and trying to continually learn more. I just wrote a book about coming out next week by general jim mattist on chaos, hes a guy who learns more to be a better marine and he did that his whole life. Hes got a great kwaet quote germane to this festival, if you havent read enough books, experience to get you through life. So did your parents live to see your success, your professional success. Yeah, my father is little alive and my mom died two and a half years ago and when my mom died, i lost my toughest critic. I would send her my book manuscripts and she was like, this is garbage, on the top of the page. My mom was blunt and correct. And so i missed her for editing this book, but my emotional stability is a little and your father . My father is still alive and doing great and hes right now up in the botanical gardens, bronx in new york. And your children, are they writers as well . No, they go their own way. My daughter walked into a hockey rink at age five and suddenly felt at home. And theyre like, i mentioned, i discovered i wanted to become a writer at seven, i called the enunciation moments, early in life, prefigure a lot of whats happening. She walked into a hockey rink at rockville. She teaches hockey for the Anaheim Ducks out in california. And your other children what are they doing. My youngest is a student, and oldest is boy, grew up here and went to college and served in the israeli army for nearly three years, and now hes back. He decided he likes protecting people so hes going into law enforcement. So the message that you would like to leave all of these people with today is what . What was the main message youd like to convey to people not just about your book, but about life . What was the message that you would like to convey to this audience . The one distinction i found useful, its in the book, the difference between happiness and joy and that happiness is about selfexpansion, we feel happy when we taste a good meal, when we win a promotion, when our team wins the super bowl. When we feel bigger. Joy is when you erase when youre involved in a moment so delicious that your sense of your own self fades away. And so, for example, ill just tell two stories. The first is me, im driving home from the news hour when my kids are little and i drive to a home in bethesda and i see them in the book ward and my cards were 12, 9 and 4 and playing with a little ball and they were picking it up in the air and racing across the yard to get and falling all over each other and tickling each other and giggling and laughing, it was a scene of perfect family happiness and it was summer sun coming through the trees. For some reason my lawn looked perfect. [laughter] and it was one of those moments where reality just spilled outside its boundaries and i just stared at it through the windshield and was just enveloped by joy that was better than anything i that felt at work and which i know i could never have deserved. And we parents have all had that and there are moments where you just are youre overawed by the way the universe has blessed you. And thats joy. Youve dissolved. And i have a friend chris whyman who teaches with me at yale. When you talk with chris about his early life,s often in different cities because theres a woman there. What are you doing in buffalo . Theres a woman there. He was living in prague because theres a woman there and he was writing poetry at the Kitchen Table and a falcon landed on the windowsill. And he was turned to it, the falcon was scanning the street and he was just struck by beauty of the bird. And he calls to his girlfriend taking a shower and he says to her, come here, youve got to see this. She runs out of the shower dripping wet and theyre looking at this bird and the falcon turns its head and locks eyes with wyman and when he looked into the birds eyes, crumbled inside, like looking through the centuries, experiences in nature where were just lost in it. And his girlfriend was knew the power of the moment and she said, make a wish. And he wrote a poem about it later and one of the stanzas and i wished and i wished and i wished that the moment would not end and just like that it vanished. But those are these elusive moments of joy that we experience and its not about the self, its not about the ego, its about surrender and there are some people we meet i meet them with some regularity where joy is not a moment, its just an outlook. They just radiate joy all the time. And i work through weave with yoyo ma. That guy just radiates joy all the time. And every human being, this is the first human being hes ever met. My gosh, these creatures are amazing. I was at lunch and sat next to the dali lama, and he didnt say anything profound, but he radiated. He said he laughed and you didnt know why and you were laughing just to make him feel good. I wanted to be polite. That orientation, if you point toward happiness, im all for happiness. If you point toward joy, youll be headed in the right direction. I want to thank you for a very interesting and emotional conversation. [applause] i hope im sorry this moment has to end, but thank you, david, and i assume youre signing books somewhere. I am. Thanks very much. [applaus [applause] tonight on the communicators. Mark randolph cofounder of net knicks, the author of book that will never work, shared the streaming sentence. They hit a few keys, we were live and didnt take long we got the business ding and cheered and opening champagne and two or three minutes later, ding, ding, ding, three more orders and two more orders and in the excitement we keened of lost track of things until someone noticed its been a while since the bells running. And is it unplugged . Is there a problem . It turned out in the first 15 minutes of being online, wed crashed all of our servers. Mark randolph tonight at 8 p. M. Eastern on the communicators on cspan2. Youre watching a special edition of book tv now airing during the week while members of congress are in their districts due to the coronavirus pandemic. Tonight global history. First Brown Universitys peter andres, talks about the relationship between six drugs, alcohol, amphetamines, cocaine, war. Vincent brown and the slave revolt in jamaica. And later, marie and rona, latin america at the wisconsin book festival in madison. Enjoy book tv now and over the weekend on cspan2. The president s from public affairs, available now in paperbook and ebook. Presents biographies of every president organized by their ranking, my noted historians from best to worst and features perspectives into the lives of our nations chief executives and leadership styles. Visit our website, cspan. Org the president s. Learn about the features and order your copy wherever books and ebooks are sold. [inaudible conversations] thank you all for joining us this evening. Im the director of