Particles of Thought

HAKEEM: So, fame and the brain. So, let me give you another, I know you have some thoughts on that. And so, let me just tell you my personal experience. So, I started doing science television about 13 years ago, and now people recognize me and it's completely changed the way I move through the world. It doesn't make me have a big head or anything like that. It gives me a comfort because I grew up in great violence, common violence, and I came of age and I turned 18 in 1985, the crack cocaine era, anytime you went out, somebody was mean mugging you. I was at gunpoint so many times because of the way I was living my life, various things like that. But I just have this, I was just going through the world on the defensive all the time, on edge, always looking. But now I expect that people are going to greet me in a positive way, which is kind of new, right? And what it's done is it's really just been a relief, right? It's just a, "Whew."

HEATHER: Yeah.

HAKEEM: Yeah.

HEATHER: You're not on the defense, you don't think you're being attacked.

HAKEEM: Yeah. Yeah. So, it hasn't taken me from like, "Yeah, I'm the man now. I don't feel that at all." Right? I'm still just the same dude. But wow, I do feel such a sense of relief.

HEATHER: Yeah, not a threat. There isn't a threat.

HAKEEM: Not a threat, yeah. Everybody's not a threat anymore.

HEATHER: Yeah.

HAKEEM: Yeah.

HEATHER: I think... So, I've gotten really interested in how fame affects people, and it's not one size fits all. It's very different depending on the... So, I'm really interested in how different personalities intersect with this phenomena of fame.

HAKEEM: And if I can interject.

HEATHER: Yeah.

HAKEEM: There's the phenomenon of children who become famous and how negative that can be in their lives. So, do you differentiate between adults and yeah, yeah-

HEATHER: Yes. There's all different types of fame. There's childhood stardom that affects the developing brain. Suddenly you're having this really abnormal experience and all these sycophants you can have anything you want, and your brain isn't even fully developed. You don't even have impulse control, a lot of bad things... If you don't put things in place to help them, it can go really south. And we've seen a lot of cases of that. You have fame, you have infamy being famous for doing something. You get famous for just living your life and you do something amazing. And then you get famous. You have an athlete just trying to do their... Actors, politicians, there's different types of fame. There's falling out of fame, getting disgraced, getting canceled. I'm really interested in the psychology of this. Why do people chase it? Why do they want it? What's the evolutionary roots of it?

What we see from studies is that actually the person who has the best advantage is not the alpha, but it's the beta. It's the best friend of the famous person. Because everyone wants to knock the alpha person off their thing. They're constantly having to worry about, "Can I keep this?" And threats, and people want to knock them down. The guy just next to him, the best friend is getting all the benefits of more chances to procreate and getting more resources and getting all of that and getting all into VIP clubs, whatever. Because when you're Jay-Z's best friend, you're getting all the good stuff, but you're not getting all the people digging at you and trying to knock you down.

HAKEEM: Yeah, your famous, but free.

HEATHER: Right. Exactly. So, fame comes with a lot of perks, but it comes with downsides as well. But evolutionarily, now we're in this really weird world where anybody can sort of be famous, and everyone thinks they're this close to being famous, which it's illusory. It's not true. Internet fame isn't really what we meant by being famous. The sustainable, or for having done something amazing in the world like we're all going to know is the person who walked on the moon for the first time or-

HAKEEM: Amelia Earhart.

HEATHER: ... Amelia Earhart or whatever. Right. They did things that, that's why they're well known, Einstein. But now it's like, I can create a meme and suddenly, but that doesn't last long and then you get the dopamine high and, "Oh, people like me." And then you're seeking it for more and more and more becomes like a drug. So, we see the same neurocircuitry involved in drugs of addiction are involved. It's involved in fame. It's another addiction.

HAKEEM: What about formerly famous?

HEATHER: Formerly famous? I mean, people who've been famous and fall out of fame.

HAKEEM: Yeah.

HEATHER: So, there's different types. Some continue the rest of their lives searching to try to get that high back again, right? It's like you got a cocaine high and now you're just keep trying to get back to that high. The successful people who navigate that find some other meaning and meaningfulness in life. They become an astrophysicist or they become... And they find other meaning. Other famous people find meaning in, now I'm going to do something positive with this platform or with this fame that I've gotten, and I'm going to turn it into something good for the world. And that becomes reinforcing for them. You get dopamine from helping others.

HAKEEM: You bring up another point implicitly that seems to track to all sorts of positive benefits, like longevity being healthier, and that is living with purpose.

HEATHER: Yes.

HAKEEM: Right?

HEATHER: Yeah.

HAKEEM: And one of the sort of conflicts I have with the way we talk colloquially, we talk a lot about being happy, right? "Oh, if I'm happy..." And when I reflect on my own life, it hasn't so much been happiness, but fulfillment. And one example is when I was in the military, sometimes there would be some screw-up we've all participated in, so they're going to punish us. So, they're like, "We're getting up at 4:00 AM and we're going to run for six miles." And when we wake up at that ungodly hour and we're trying to fall out, and it's a chilly morning, we're all complaining.

HEATHER: Yeah.

HAKEEM: But at the end of it, we're all like, "This feels great." Because they just showed us what we were made of. They just extended us and pushed us, and we lived up to it. And I find in those situations where I'm just drugged and I persevere is some of the best feeling I have, but I wouldn't describe it as happy.

HEATHER: Right. It's the same thing with let's say having children. Having children doesn't make you happier, right?

HAKEEM: Right. Right.

HEATHER: [inaudible]. That's the one thing that's come out of this. You can cut that one. She says, "You're not sleeping." I'm like their personal servant. You didn't make the pasta the right way. Make it again. You're driving them around, whatever. You're not increasing your level of happiness, but you are increasing your fulfillment. There's a joy you get from hardship and adversity because you're doing something that has meaning and purpose. Like, "I'm helping this human who's going grow into something in this world," and that becomes my purpose, and that has meaning for me. And every interaction I have with them is valuable. And so, yeah, happiness, it's-

HAKEEM: So, what's happening in the brain when you have fulfillment and meaning and purpose, and why is that so beneficial?

HEATHER: It's different than... So, there's highs you get in life from a amazing peak moment, which is great. And a lot of patients come in like, "I don't know, I don't feel happy." It's like, "It's not about happy, it's about, can you just..." It's like equanimity, first of all. That's first and foremost. Your baseline should just be, "I'm at peace."

HAKEEM: Right. Hopefully.

HEATHER: Not happy.

HAKEEM: Hopefully.

HEATHER: Yeah, right. No, most people aren't. And we're just trying to get to that.

HAKEEM: Tell me about it. Yeah.

HEATHER: It's not about, "Oh, I want to be happy." Those are peak moments. You can't always be happy. So, that's first and foremost. But our brains in some ways give us a reward or give us some certain types of pleasure from finding meaning in things. So, when you solve a puzzle, that's a good feeling.

HAKEEM: Yeah. Yeah.

HEATHER: And there's evolutionary reasons for why our brains evolved to find pleasure in solving problems. And I think finding meaning in ambiguous things and finding purpose, it gives us a sense of this pleasure, this contentment, which is different than the big dopamine highs and the rushes like a drug or fame.

HAKEEM: So, what is it inside the brain? Is it turning things down?

HEATHER: It's hard to say. It's not necessarily turning things down, but when I think people are fulfilled or feel at peace or have a sense of purpose, you do get some dopamine. You get the serotonin, which is the more long-term feeling of sort of a happiness or a contentment. But it is turning, if you want to say turning down the anxiety parts of... The rumination, the obsessing over all the negative things when you're like, "These negative things are happening in my life." It's really a sense of resilience, but I have purpose, I have meaning. It helps you build up this resilience. And we see that there's a genetic component actually to resilience.

HAKEEM: Really?

HEATHER: So, there are people like let's say who've been... They look at studies with PTSD, talk about being in the military. You go to war, they looked at soldiers who went to war, both experienced the same horrible things. A certain subset goes on to develop PTSD and the others don't. Is there something neuroprotective? And it turns out there is, there's certain genetic differences that help make people more resilient. People are studying this now, how do we increase resiliency? But the point is that when you have a purpose or a meaning in addition, let's say there's some genetic components, but it can help inoculate you against all these negative things that inevitably happen in life. People die, you lose a job, whatever. That all happens to everybody.

HAKEEM: Right.

HEATHER: Some people overcome it because I have a greater sense of purpose. Some people find that in religion, some people find that I have a higher purpose. When people go to AA, they always say, find a higher-

HAKEEM: That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

HEATHER: But it's something greater than oneself. It's like that kind of feeling. It's not just about me and my little petty problems, whatever. It's something greater.

HAKEEM: Something bigger. Yeah.

HEATHER: I have a purpose. And I think when you link yourself to something bigger, and that's what I talk about as a cure to kind of fame. It's not about me, me, me, I need all the adulation and the likes and whatever. It's what's your greater purpose outside of you, outside of yourself?