Inefficiency + Joy with David Epstein
Inefficiency + Joy
with David Epstein
"The slower the speed of life history, the smarter the animal."
Easily one of my absolute-favorite early interviews, David Epstein is the author of the #1 New York Times best seller, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, and another New York Times best seller, The Sports Gene, which have both been translated into more than 20 languages.
He was previously an investigative reporter at ProPublica, where his work spanned from drug cartels to poor practices in scientific research. Prior to that, he was a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. He has master's degrees in environmental science and journalism, and has lived aboard a ship in the Pacific Ocean, and in a tent in the Arctic. His TED Talks have been viewed more than 10 million times, three of his stories have been optioned for film, and he only recently stepped down as the host of Slate’s popular “How To!” podcast.
I personally like to consider him the "king of generalists"—those of us who "range widely" across many different disciplines, skills, and interests instead of focusing on just one. You know, those of us who often have meandering career paths, even late into life.
Because, like a love letter to generalists backed by mounds of scientific data, his second book, Range, makes the case that delayed selection is actually better for development.
When you “sample” many different things, taking your time to find what really suits you, you might spend years looking “lazy” or “directionless” from the outside, but there’s a good chance you’ll find greater satisfaction when you finally find “your thing.” In fact, in combining all of your varied experiences, you might also fill a unique niche in the world—one no one else has ever considered.
And while the world might see this process as very “inefficient”—a hated behavior in an industrialized world—David and I talk about how inefficiency is actually quite connected to the concept of “match fit,” which is really just another way to say “joy.”
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EP 005
Inefficiency + Joy
with David Epstein
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Related Resources
In addition to the episode's show notes, here are some great pieces that I think connect to my conversation with David—
- If you don't even listen to this episode, I'd still want to make sure you read this letter from Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo in 1880, which David and I discuss at the beginning of our chat. There's so much of it I'd like to quote, just to emphasize how it incredible it is, so you might as well just read the whole thing yourself.
- The Future of Work Should Be Working Less—an "opinion" piece for the New York Times, but a statement of fact in my book. Thanks to my friend Natalie Lampert for this.
- Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone by Sarah Jaffe, which I haven’t read but have heard amazing things about, and because—I mean—the title says it all.
- Einstein's Dreams, a book about all of the different ways society might operate if we conceived of time differently. I owe knowledge of this book to an upcoming podcast guest, Lincoln Carr.
- Art of the Commonplace by Wendell Berry, where I first learned about “generalists,” and the idea of “good work.” It also covers a lot of how Industrialization got us here, which David and I briefly discuss.
- Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition by Charles Eisenstein, which covers what doesn’t work about capitalism, why it will eventually fail, what we might build afterward, and how we might survive the transition. I also appreciate Sacred Economics in reference to this episode with David because Charles talks a lot about gratitude, which, in my experience, is how you really begin to access joy. Being inefficient—or at least having more margin, whether it's with time or otherwise—is how I most often have the space to feel real gratitude.
- And Laborwave Radio, an anti-capitalist labor organizing podcast. I have really enjoyed the episodes I’ve listened to so far.
Know of someone else connecting the seemingly un-connectable or talking about why it matters? Think I should interview them? Reply here and tell me!
Brandi Stanley
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