Steve Levitt

My wife, Suzanne, is New Agey.

No, that's not true.

So clearly I'm a rationalist through and through, and I believe more than anything in the power of science.

But I think as a kid, I was willing to listen to my mom's very odd takes on the world.

And I didn't really believe it.

But as I got older and older, I've seen enough evidence.

No, the power of placebo.

I think some of the nicest and best and most interesting people I know just have a faith in the universe and believe in stuff that's a little bit out there.

When Suzanne and I, we went to India for a month.

I talked about it on the Sam Harris episode of this podcast, but I went so grudgingly.

I really only went because she doesn't have a lot of common sense.

And I thought if she was alone in India for a month, she probably wouldn't come back alive.

And so I...

I went in.

Part of the deal was she said we couldn't use our phones, which I don't know why I ever gave into that.

I guess that when you're first dating people, you do things that you wouldn't do later.

But the first two weeks of that trip, I was miserable and I was angry and I was frustrated.

And eventually, I did have something like a spiritual awakening.

And it came because she would say, well, what do you want to do in India?

And I would...