Arthur Brooks

You and I have a better conversation when we have this bonding hormone that's actually going through our brains when we're looking at each other in real life.

You don't get it through Zoom screens.

There's a lot of research on this at this point.

you get a different kind of experience when you have the in real life experience.

And so one of the things that I do when I'm talking to couples, and my wife and I, we do work, we'll do these marriage retreats, for example.

One of the things that we'll do with couples, we'll say, okay, before you go to sleep, you need to stare into each other's eyes.

Before you go to sleep, lying on the bed, on your sides, looking at each other, stare each other in the eyes for five minutes.

That's it.

That's the prescription.

Because you want to establish this thing that probably they haven't had for a really, really long time and that your brain actually needs so that your brain registers, that's my person.

You can't get it any other way.

Why is it that meaning can't be simulated?

Meaning can't be simulated because meaning is this fundamentally complex right hemispheric experience.

And so when you're, the simulation is always in the wrong side of the brain, right?

And so it'll look like it's meaningful, but it isn't, is what it comes down to.

It'll feel like in the moment, like love, but it isn't.

It'll feel like friendship, but it isn't.

Yeah.

Well, they do know that they want it.

They just don't know how to get it.