The Topic: Spending Money

The Guest: Elizabeth Dunn

The Episode: Download – iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud

Which would you rather have, a mansion the likes of Jay Gatsby, fully decorated and furnished or the memories of a month spent on the International Space Station? Would you rather own the kind of car they photograph for wall posters with doors that open in an unusual manner or spend a year practicing guitar for a chance to play a single show with the Red Hot Chili Peppers? How about $1,000 cash or a gourmet meal for you and your friends cooked by and enjoyed in the company of Gordon Ramsay? Assuming in each of these scenarios you can only have one and never have the other, which would you pick?

When asked similar questions, most people choose the tangible things over the experiences. The material items just seem more valuable in the long run, and cash always seems more practical than a fleeting indulgence. Yet the research says if you are seeking long-term happiness, nothing compares to unique experiences, even short experiences, even bad experiences. Over time, things lose their luster, but memories do not. Memories grow and spread inside your mind like a tree that can always be harvested of its fruit. They become a part of you, increasing in value as you age and continuously providing stories and smiles long after a nice car becomes just a way to get to Taco Bell or a nice house becomes the place where you watch Breaking Bad before going to bed.

We just moved back in after repairing the many tree-sized holes punched in our house by an asshole tornado a few months back. We were inside, on the floor of a hallway, as it crunched up and spat out the neighborhood. It went on to destroy more than 200 homes in our town.

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Below these words, you will find 10 quests, each offering a prize should you complete the challenges therein.

The You Are Not So Smart book was published and then released into the wild about a year ago. That means it is time for it transmutate into paperback form, and I’m proud to announce the paperback version is now on shelves just about everywhere books hide. Also, if you live in the UK or one of the many countries that buys books from UK marketplaces, you can now get the You Are Not So Smart book free of hassle with a new, dapper cover design.

To promote this wondrous occasion, I want to send you on some quests. Should you succeed, you will be handsomely rewarded. Some will be easy, and some will be trials of will and skill. Those proved worthy will be featured in a future posting. Here they are:

The Topic: Selling Out

The Guest: Andrew Potter

The Episode: Download – iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud

Andrew Potter is the guest on this episode of the You Are Not So Smart podcast. He wrote the book The Authenticity Hoax and co wrote Rebel Sell.

Both books present an upside-down view of the quest to avoid the mainstream and seek out the authentic. The books help explain how it came to be that so many people seem concerned about selling out both as a consumer and a producer. Most interesting though is Potter’s assertion that there really is no such thing as authenticity when you get right down to it. As he puts it, “there could never be an authenticity detector we could wave at something, like the security guards checking you at the airport.” Oh, and he says countercultures actually create the mainstream they rebel against.

According to Potter, a giant portion of modern people living in industrialized Western nations eventually notice just how much consumerism and conformity intrudes on their daily lives, and they seek release. The average person watching an interview of a reality television star on a 24-news-network following a musical performance by the latest winner of America’s Top Pawn Wife after a breakdown of what is trending on YouTube while commenting on an Instagram photo on Facebook on an iPad on a treadmill in the gym between advertisements for antidepressants and movies about mall cops who befriend talking ferrets will understandably feel a bit overwhelmed from time to time. The urge to walk away from all of that and get lost in the most obscure thing you can find, the most distant and untouched landscape you can visit, the least processed or marketed product you can put in your body, is strong and understandable and healthy, but Potter says it is ultimately futile.

The You Are Not So Smart book is now available in the UK and all the places that can […]