Transcripts For CSPAN2 David Brooks The Second Mountain 20240713

Leading eye with the intellectuals and colonists and tv commentators and authors. His new book is tonight. How may people have read this book . How many people are goingan to read it after this is over . How many people are going to get autographed copy from david brooks today . So david, thanks for doing th. Before we go into this book, the Second Mountain which have read and its a very good book, will go through it id like to go through about your background. You grew up in new york . Lower side of new york. About, hippies would go just to be. And one of the things they did was they threw their they put the garage can garbage can on fire, i saw 5dollar bill in garbage can and i reached in the fire and grabbed money and ran away. That was my first step to the 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 you do it longhand or computer . I have bad memory, i have notebooks in my pocket, got one right here. Write down ideas and xerox a lot of stuff and as i would research a book, collect thousands of pages of notes and what i do is i can only get them straight geographically so i put great piles on the floor with the notes in the right pile and when i where a column its only 150 words but theyll be 14 piles on the floor because a pile is a photograph and paragraph and i write the note. Its crawling around on the floor of my living room organizing my piles. [laughter] actually you do go on computer . I tell my students by the time i sit and put it in the computer your paper should be 80 done, writing is about management, structure and organization and if you dont get the structure right it wont flow, getting the structure right and then the process of organizing the piles is the process of creativity, sparks start coming. Some people that are writers would like to say i write some amount a day, are you that way . Not as crazy as some writers. But i do have to write every day, when we got married breakfast conversation but i could not talk to other people and do 800 or a thousand words. We have routine, i think it was Tina Morrison she had hotel room in her town where she kept typewriter, desk, brandy and a bible and she went there every day to get her thing. Whats the First Mountain. The narrative is we get out of college and we think we want to establish identity, career. We want to play the godmother of the meritocracy, and we start launch off, and sometimes we succeed, and find it unsatisfying, sometimes we fail, sometimes a bad thing happens that wasnt part of the original plan, cancer scare or the loss of a child or something terrible. And dudley youre in the valley, and when youre in the valley you realize the desire thief ego which propelled you up the First Mountain were unsatisfying and then youre ready for a bigger, charger life, which is not building ego but descending interest your heart and soul and its a shift from one consciousness our culture rares. Youre racing occupy the First Mountain forthpart of your life. I ay achieved so far beyond my dreams, it was crazy. Remember, think four of my books have been best sellers and each time he get the call im surprised how flat it is. Its nothing. And im the poster child for career success doesnt make you happy. And so there were part of the make tackcracy, and that tells lie, the fit one is success makes you happy. The second lie is you can make yourself happy if you get better at yoga or a little thinner, but when you talk to people at the end of theunder live is at not the time they were selfsupplement its the time they were utterly unsufficient and completely dependent upon other. Another lee of the marry took contraction life is an individual journey. We give our kids books, the places youll go the dr. Seuss book and its about a kid graduating from school can alone, on a path to success no, front family, and ran into a sociologist who says the gets the book to kids who are immigrantings and heighth hate it because it doesnt reflect live as the know the is relationships. Identity lie of our curl tour and its a pernicious lie, it that people who achieve more are somehow worth a little more than everybody else. And we pretend we dont tell the lie but we do in our actions. So, the Second Mountain is the concern about community and other kinds of things like that. Its more a fault ill tell it in my own apex own life. So, i ran 2013 my life crashed. Not the column but my kid had left home, leaving home. My marriage had ended. I had most of my friendships in the consecutive movement and i wasnt on 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 no weekend friends and my weekends withvast expanses of silence and i would good on runs and im in the best shape of my life, but the way of the symbol of that period for me is in my kitchen i wasnt entertaining, nobody was coming over, when you open the drawer where there should have been any kitchen forks and silverware there was just postit notes because i was working all the time. And where there sheave a been plate there was station merry and like any station merry. I tried to aid void emotional and spirit tour cries by working out there it and eventually it crashes so i went through a period where the pain crashes you into yourself. Paul tillic has line in this he thin is suffering is an interruption of life and reminds you youre not the person you thought you were. It forces you to crash to the under of what you thought was the basement of your soul and reveal razz cavity below that and it carves through that and reveals a cavity below that. And so in those moments of suffering we see deeper interest ourselves than we ever thought imaginable and we realize only spiritual and emotional food can fill those places. The different between the first sing mountain is not just selfishness verse prudent, its having an experience that causes you to crash into yourself and come deeply into contact with your soul. And i say this, im not a religious writer. I dont care if you believe god or not, but i do ask you to believe you have a soul, that theres some piece of you that has no shape, size, color, or weight, but gives you infinite value and dignity. And that rich people dont have more of this than poor poem, old more than your. Our soul where is our equality comes from dont have equal brain or muscle power but the level of souls is equill and infinite. [applause] and so what the soul does it yearns for goodness. We all want to lead good lives. Youre in this period of time and how did you get to the Second Mountain . What got you up the Second Mountain . I learned a few things. First thing i learned is that freedom sucks i had total freedom. The income of a 52yearold and the openings open options of 22yearold and the m married friends were projecting their taken tises on me, youre swinging and thats great and i learned freedom sucks and the second thing i learned you cant solve your problem on the same level of consciousness you created it. And then the third thing learned was that you cant pull yourself out of the valley. Somebody has to reach down and pull you out. And so i get a very lucky to deover to a house of a couple named cassie and david and i was accepting all invitations at this opinion and 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 helped him with issues and stuff, and so james, this kid, often had no place to eat or stay. They said james can stay with us. And then jamessed a a friend and that kid had a friend and that kid had friend and so by the time i in to dinner there in 02015 they have the 40 kids around the dinner table and 15 sleeping in the house. I walk in the door, reach out the 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. Not the huggiest guy on the face of the earth but they taught me how to do it. What the kids given 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 tack my drawer and came out and said thats the warmest place ive been. Took a by the name bill who has been doing youth work and said ive been doing youth work for 50 years and never seen a program turn around a life, only relationships turn around lives. And toso thats what is happening here. And so im writing but social id layings and fragmentation and hatred on a National Level and thursday night at dinner, im seeing the solution. And so it was through that that was several experience but one experience was suddenly an hour assistance on how to behave and live better. So part of this you get married again. I get married again, which is another good thing. And that was to have a hip marriage is like win thing lottery times a thousand. Okay. So, today, you would say youre happier than you have ever been . Ive raising my kids were a happy period but im blissfully blissfully happy. In your book you write about a new religious experience you hatched born in one religious and now sort of in another relation . Its complicated the student joke i made once now i have to live with forever is im religiously buy sexual. But i grew up jewish and went to got a bar mitzvah for most of my adult life kept cosher and id and yeps a jewish holiness and thats not in my my line is that every Church Service i go to is more spiritual than every Synagogue Service but every friday night shabbat meal is more spiritual. And when he family is gathered and the blessing are said its like theres a feeling of loving kindness, and its like 18 poem people around the table and 18 people are listening to 17 other conversations, all talking at once and correcting the 17 other wrong things that have just been said and thats sort of the jewish goodness and but then i grew up went to the school in new york called grace church school, Episcopal School and went to a camp and there i saw another kind of goodness. Which was there was a guy there, for example, name west who had a he was love, like a man child, holy child, who just radiated joy. He spoke in whistles and always interrupting himself and laughing, and he did saw horrible things in his life, became a episcopal priest and work in honduras and then women suffering from Domestic Violence in annapolis and yet radiated a sort of holy joy that was unconditional antibiotic to me. Dory day has a lynn that christians should act in a way that doesnt make sense unless god exists and wes was like that. So i saw two different kinds of goodness which were inspiring to me but wasnt a problem because didnt belief god so it was like two things. But then over the course of a number of years, at a friend of mine says, reality overflew the category is had to understand it. You have certain moments of transcendence, moments as i described earlier where you become aware of other peoples souls. And if youre a journalist, youre writing stories about people that cant just be but a bag of genetic material. The only reason we work hard at journalism is if other people have souled that have the consequence, and from there it was just the most boring dish started reading religious stuff. If you start going ton a religious journey people send you books. So i get 750 books in course of three or four months, only 4 onwhich were mere christianity by cs lewis. And then so im sitting in my apartment and jesus comes through the wall. Im kidding. That did not happen. I just became aware that i was a person of faith. So you know are both religions. Well, my jewish friends say, no. Thats not allowed. And so but i feel more jewish than he ever did because now when i read gentleman or exodus i think the covenant is real. So i feel more jewish than ever and yet the sermon on the mount is a glimpse at a celestial beauty that lingers and i cant unread matthew. So, why should somebody now that theyve seen what you have written about and heard what you have written, why should they buy this snook whats a good reason to buy the book now that they heard about it . Will the launch more buying the book than they just heard . Its a really good status item. [laughter] the book is partly about the first and Second Mountain but the Second Mountain is a life of commitment. And so theres it started as a class actually the book started i was single and dating and it was first going to be called the marriage decision. How to decide who to marry. And then the next 20 years of their life. Most to spouse and family to a community, vocation and a philosophy and faith and my view the Second Mountain life is the life where you make maximal commitments to those things. Dont just have a career you have a vote case, not a contract marriage trying to be happy. You have a covenantal marriage and try to surrender yourself to your as joy and i tribe describing in the book what it looks like to live a life of maximal commitments. We live in a hyperindividualistic society, and were not going back to the 1950s. But we can join our society together by making promises to each other and then trying to stay faithful to the probable millions and the lot is the practical nuts and bolts how to choose a vocation, how to choose a marriage partner, community. In other words, youll live a happier life if you buy this book. Actually, thats i was teaching a kid, a wonderful kid, who was bill a roads scholar, and he a Rhodes Scholar and he said your class has made me sadder, and i was like, thats a win. So its better to be a sad spiritual person than a happy achieve atron. Recently you have taken on new project tet as spend institute. Called weave the social fabric project and its start i wad writing columns columns ae symbol here, on social isolation, fragmentation, suicide has risen 30 since 19199. Teenage suicide has risen 0 2011. A rise of distrust, problem being solved at the local level by people we call weaver who are building community, and we thought we go out, learn from their example and try to nationalize their effect and i do this now every week, go somewhere the country and i meet people who are really living for relationships, not for self, and building communities, and a lot of them are Second Mountain lives. A woman i met a while ago in new orleans called lisa fitzpatrick, a health care executive, driving one da and i saw two kids, 10 and 11, and they looked terrified, and they had something in their hands and they held it up and it was a gun, and they shot her in the face. And it was a they had to do a gang initiation killing to get into the gang. And so she recovers from this, and she realizes, i wasnt the victim here if was collateral damage. Those two little boys were the victims because they had to kill somebody so they could have a family. And so the now devotes herself to gang work in new orleans and works for the city, and a lot of our weavers have had something negative happen in their life and they try to fission what happened to them. You were doing this with aspen weekly, riding two columns a week, youre on pbs on friday night, writing one book a year and teaching at yale and youre married and have have to kids. Do you have in the free time for anything . I actually this is the sad element of my life. People ask me what is my hobby . And i say i use to say i good out to din with friend offered 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 politics when you writing a column, you were fairly critical of i think it cass candidate trump, my President Trump. I cant remember. You were critical of maybe candidate trump may be President Trump i cant remember your critical of maybe both. What is your view on the likelihood of President Trump get reelected . I have actually at sure your you. Then my democratic friends. I think the guy is at 40 . Hes offended 60 . Take it stupidly. Thats that good, and so i am more optimistic that he will lose that a lot of democrats i hang around with. [applause] when you write any critical articles of them to never hear from him . Does he call you and s say i dot like that article . Used to tweet about me but i never had any contact with him. Very happy notot to. [laughing] i do r want to be in the same rm with the guy. What is your view in a likelihood the democrats will retain control of a house or to control of the senate . As i say, well, i do think the democrats, when we see what i think is a pretty big advantage for the democrats, of course knowing the party, the main question is a what how you will find a way to screw this up . [laughing] and so if i were advising the democrats which im sure its advice they would love to get, i would say just go with the land. Another one job is to get trump out of the office. And your view is the likely democratic delbene is going i to be who . My earlier answer to that question was, harris. She has the force of force. If youan think about who can stp trump i think h she has personal character force of forcefulness that at the would be a good match. Im now looking at the race and then thinking, it will could be elizabeth warren. [applause] and i must say, i dont know her well, but i have spent some time with her and ive never got the likability charge. I find her very warm. I like law professors, granted, and if you look at what shes done over the last three or four months, she has steadily climbed up the ranks and shes not got a higher favorability rating than any other democrat. And shes taken 45,000 selfies. Thats like retail politics. When youre covering a Campaign Like this, youre like like a , scouting a baseball pitcher. Whos got good stuff . I would say in substance i dont agree with that but just as a candidate i think shes a strong candidate. I have known by. For a long time at above, i think hes a very lovely, very lovely man. But you dont think youll get the nomination . Im very impressed by his strength. His strength may fade but he has a real strength of support. And so those are the three other think are most as you look back on what you are done with your life today, how old are you now . I i turned 58. Thats a teenager to me. 58 years old. At 50 what what would you say your most proud of that youve achieved . Anybody is going to say your kids. Once you get past that. [laughing] well, i wrote a book on humility shy should talk about how great i am. [laughing] i would say its continually being on the move and trying to continually learn more. I just wrote a book about a book coming outy next week by general jim mattis called callsign chaos and hes a guy keeps going to learn more to be a better marine, and he did that his whole life. Hes got a great quote, he said if you havent read hundreds of books you are illiterate because your own private experience is not enough to get you through life. [applause] seeid your parents live to your success, professional success . My father is still alive. My mom diedwo about two and half years ago. When my mom died i lost my toughest critic. I would center my book manuscripts and she would she was like, this is garbage on the top of the page. [laughing] my mom was blunt and direct. S your other children, what are they doing . My youngest is at the new school 200 feet from where i went to Elementary School and my oldest boy grew up here and then went to college and then served inthe israeli army for nearly 3 years and now hes back. He decides he likes protecting people so hes going to go into law enforcement. The message youd like to leave all these people with is what, what was the main message youd like toconvey to people not just about your ibook about life . What was the message youd like to convey to this audience. The one distinction i found useful and its in the book is the difference between happiness and joy and happiness is about self expansion. 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 the self, when youre involved in some moment so delicious that your sense of your own self fades away. So for example ill tell 2 stories. The first is me, im driving home from newshour when my kids were little and im driving home with them and i pull into the side of the house and i see the backyard and my kids who were then 12, nine and four were playing a little ball and they were racing in the front yard to get it and they were falling all over each other and giggling and laughing and it was just a scene of perfect family happiness and it was summer sun coming through the trees for some reason my lawn looked perfect. And it was one of those moments where reality just fills up at its boundariesand i stared at it through the windshield. Just with, what with joy i felt and i knew i couldnever have deserved. Parents have all had that. And there are moments where you just are over on by the way the universe has blessed you. And thats joy. Youre not thinking about yourself at all, youve dissolved and i have a friend whos a poet who teaches at yale and he, utwhen you talk about chris about his early life is often in different cities because theres a woman there so once you live in buffalo theres a woman there and he was living in broad and there was a woman there and he was writing his poetry on the Kitchen Table and a falcon landed on thewindowsill. And he turned to it, the falconwas scanning the streets and he was struck by the beauty of the bird. He calls to his girlfriend whos taking a shower and he says to her come here, youve got to see this so she runs out of the shower and shes standing there dripping wet and theyre just looking at this bird and the falcon turns its head and lots eyes with wyman and wyman says as he looked into those birds eyes he felt something crumbleinside like looking at the century and it was like those experiences we feel in nature when we are just lost in it. And his girlfriend was, knew the power of the moment and she said makeawish. And he wrote a poem about it later and one of the stanzas is and i wish and i wish and i wish that the moment would not end. Just like that he vanished. But those are these elusive moments of joy that we experience and its not about the self and its not about the ego, its about surrender and there are some people we meet, i need them with some regularity where joy is not a moment, its just an outlook. They just radiate joy allthe time. I work with yoyo ma and i just, he radiates joy all the time. Every human being is like the first human being hes ever met, these creatures are amazing. And here i was at a luncheon at a think tank and i sat next to the dalai lama and that guy, he didnt say anything very profound which was a disappointment to me but he just laughed all the time. And just radiated joy that comes from decades of spiritual. You said in his book he laughed and you didntknow why but you left to make them feel good. I wanted to be polite so that orientation, if you tpoint towards happiness thats good, im all for happinessbut if you point towards joy youll be heading in the right direction. I want to thank you for a interesting and very emotional conversation. I am sorry this moment had to end but thank you david and i assume your signing books somewhere. Thank you very much. [applause] okay, thanks. Coming up on cspan2, University Professor Kerri Greenidge recounts the life of William Munro trotter, a civil rights activist. He used the boston guardian to promote racial equality area that followed by journalist Lawrence Weschler on the late neurologist and officer oliver sacks and eugenia chang, author of beyond infinity explores the limits of logic. Tonight on the communicators, mark randolph, cofounder of netflix and author of the book that will never work shares his experiences starting the online streaming service. April 14, 1998 i our cto hit a few keys and we were live and it didnt take long and we got that first thing. How we cheered and again opening bottles of champagne and then two or three minutes later, ding ding, three more orders and we were so excited and then we got two more orders and in all the excitement we kind of lost track of things until someone noticed that its been a while since the bell has rung. And we were unplugged, is there a problem . It turned out in the first 15 minutes of being online we had crashed all of our servers. Mark randolph tonight at 8 pm 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 Andreas thoughts about the relationship between six drugs. Alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, opium, cocaines and war. And Harvard University history professor Vincent Brown chronicles the 18th century slave revolt that took place in jamaica known as taxis revolt. And later marie anna provides a history of latin america at the wisconsin book festival in madison and enjoyable tv now and over the weekend on cspan2. Cspan as roundtheclock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic and its all available on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Once white house briefings, updates from governors and state officials, track the spread throughout the us and world with interactive maps. Watch ondemand anytime, unfiltered at cspan. Org coronavirus area