Arthur C. Brooks

We use fancy words in academia to get tenure.

But there's an epidemic of loneliness and depression and anxiety from young people that just absolutely didn't exist and is most correlated with my life feels meaningless.

And so it's really if your life feels meaningful, not whether or not you're able to put all the words around it.

And your grandparents, they lived in a particular way that was incredibly meaningful.

And so this new book talks about how we've changed our brains by accident and then how to heal our brains in the next six months.

And so anybody has a real plan, kind of a six-part plan, as a matter of fact, on how we can actually find the meaning of our lives.

That's kind of being fully alive in an old-fashioned way is what it comes down to.

That's old-fashioned and your brain was actually changing.

I know.

I know.

What a party.

But what's happening fundamentally is that our brains are...

what neuroscientists call hemispherically lateralized.

All that means is the two halves of the brain do different things.

The right side of your brain is more dedicated to mystery and meaning, love, happiness.

The left side of your brain is technical tasks.

It's the what and how to.

The right side of your brain is the why questions, the big why.

The left side of your brain is what and how to.

And you need both.