♪ (music playing) ♪ - Welcome to the Aaron Harber Show.

My guest today is famed author Gretchen Rubin.

Gretchen thanks for joining me.

- I'm so happy to be here today.

- Well I want to talk about the book here, Life in Five Senses, but you've written so much about happiness so I want to start out with what is happiness?

- Well I started my career in law and I have many memories of spending an entire semester arguing about the definition of contract.

And if anything happiness is a more difficult concept to define, there are something like 15 academic definitions of happiness so what I decided is if you think of peace or calm well-being or satisfaction, we can all have our own idea of what happiness is and what I think is interesting is however you would define happiness for yourself how can you become happier, tomorrow, next month, next year?

What can you do to be happier?

How are you moving in the right direction because we can spend a lot of time arguing about definitions it does not really, for the layperson it does not really help.

- For me it's Cheetos and root beer.

- And okay for everybody, not mine but there you go.

- There you go.

- I'm a simple guy.

How do you obtain happiness?

- There's one thing that's the secret to happiness, ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists would say relationships to be happier we have to have enduring intimate bonds we have to be able to give support and get support, we need to be able to feel like we belong, so if you had to pick one thing, to be the secret to happy life, I would say it's relationships.

- How often is it normal to be happy?

You can't be happy or can you, are there people who are happy 24/7?

- Some people think that if you want to have a happy life, what you're aiming for is to be happy 100% of the time.

But that's not realistic and that's not even a good life because there are many times where we would want to experience [indiscernible] or anger or guilt or boredom, negative emotions have a very important role to play in a happy life because they tell us where we need to make change, but every medicine can become poison so I think for the aim should be given my nature and given the circumstances am I as happy as I could be?

Are there things I could do today, next month, next year to become happier?

Why don't I do them, and become as happy as I can be?

- Well certainly I think that having other emotions like being sad, then allows you to appreciate being happy.

- That's true too.

Absolutely.

- What about a person's disposition in terms of this talk a little bit about that.

- Research shows about 50% of happiness is genetically determined.

Some people are born Tiggers and some are born Eeyores.

And that's hardwired to some extent, and then about 10 to 20% is called life circumstances.

So things like health, education, income, marital status, and then all the rest are within our conscious thoughts and actions.

So in my work, what I really focus on is what can you do with your conscious thoughts and actions that can make you happier?

- Can somebody be unhappily happy?

- I have a friend who said I'm a very happy person who suffers from depression.

So it can get confusing and people often think that they are kind of our sort a seesaw but actually you can be very happy and unhappy at the same time, so they are complex emotions.

- Okay I want to talk about your book Life in Five Senses.

I know you would like me to talk about it probably.

- I love happiness and I love habits.

It's all fascinating.

- So tell me a little bit about the book, the theme seems to be that we take our five senses for granted.

It's your exploration of the senses, one of the things you do is the book is divided into your exploration of each sense.

What about the interplay among senses?

Tell me what your conclusions were about that, and I did not see a lot of that, and in points you talk about how one sense if that's what's happening other senses kind of submerged.

- No but you are exactly right in practice be much more experience the world through our sensorium it's all the five senses working together, and in fact like when I was writing the book I had a whole chapter called sensorium and my editor said I was ready to get to the conclusion so I cut that chapter up to parts because you're right it's much more realistic to talk about the sensorium.

But it is really interesting to think about how they interplay and I think some of this we were aware of and some we take for granted, so for instance like when one of the senses is brought back, the others kinda come forward which is why lights dim, in a concert or why you might close your eyes when you're kissing I'm a fearful drivers I will turn off the radio when I'm driving so I can see better.

- You mentioned all those in your book.

- Right, but it's interesting we are very wired for sight, that's just the human condition.

Sightseeing takes up the biggest part of the brain and has the most wiring so if there's a conflict among the senses, usually the sight will trump which is interesting, as well as how they coordinate.

- Tell me about some of your reflections, I mean one of the things that interested me, is that you did this daily visit, and how did you come up with that concept?

You talk about in the book with the idea of doing something like that every day.

Definitely seemed different to me.

- Yes I decided that every day for a year I was going to go to the Metropolitan Museum and there were a lot of parts, one is I'm very interested in repetition of familiarity and how things change over time it's always been very intellectually interesting to me but I'm also an all or nothing personal, for me it seems easier to do something everyday than to do it some days.

But what I found when I started this was that many people will share this interest in doing something everyday so there [indiscernible] who go to the same spot.

Or they walk their dog on the exact same route or take a picture of a river everyday at 7 AM.

Some people are like the world is so varied.

Why would you limit yourself to the same thing?

And I think many people are very interested in how things change very gradually over time, things reveal themselves in a different way.

I talked to a guy that says he goes to the same big chain drugstore every single day and I'm like 100%.

There's so much going on in a big drugstore.

I absolutely would go every single day and just see how it changes.

So I was very fascinated to see how that would change as I went over and over and it certainly did.

The year's long gone now but still everyday.

- Wow.

Definitely.

How do you come up with your manifesto for listening?

So my manifesto for listening was everything I needed to work on most because listening sounds easy and passive but is actually very hard.

So I knew that there were things that I need to do better so I made a list so I could put it on the bulletin board and review all the time, but for me a lot of it was about being willing to stay in difficult silences, or stay in challenging conversations I realized I would often sort of even without realizing move conversations on safer ground instead of staying in a tricky conversation.

A lot for me is just let people say paraphrases, I would often leap into reading suggestions so say oh you're getting divorce, I have a book for you.

Oh worried about your childlike social situation in school, have a book for you and I would do that to kind of get on safer ground so now I sent an email with my book suggestions and try to listen better.

- Yes, I was intrigued by your discourse on the smell and smell test.

I am a volunteer in a scientific study and it's longitudinal and part of that is states that have sent different points to your sense of smell.

The actually sent me a set of cards and you are supposed to-- yes.

I had never done that, I was fascinated with it so when I was reading it... - I wonder if I took the same test because I was sent away for the test.

Very sadly because of Covid historically in the West people have treated smell as a bonus sense but I think the so many people lost their sense of smell from Covid, even if you did not lose it... just talking to people who did we realize how important it is to our sense of well-being.

I love the sense of smell.

- So I was intrigued when you wrote about touch.

And when I read about touch, and then I look back on the other senses you had covered.

I noticed there was no discussion of sex in the book.

And certainly you know seeing someone you love, smelling someone you love, touching someone you love, being touched, was that a conscious decision?

- Yes I don't like to write about sex.

It's as easy as that, yes.

- Really?

Why not?

Because I mean it's kind of important to most people, or to humankind.

- Yes but you know and all my books if you look you will see like I just write about what I want to write about, and I leave everything else out.

I can skip the boring parts like anything boring to me I write around it, and I'm like sex would almost swallow up the whole thing, it would become so much about sex probably.

- Well it seems like a glaring omission.

- Well maybe.

Arguably, but you know it's also I think everybody brings their own.

That's kind of the point of the book is that it is not so important what I did, it's more like did hearing what I did give you ideas for what you would want to do or think about?

- One of the things you wrote about was the -- I love the phrase about the magic of Ketchup.

So talk a little bit about that.

- Yes, Ketchup is magic.

Well if you take Heinz ketchup which is an extraordinarily popular brand and catchup is extraordinary and popular,... - Though salsa has now supplanted to ketchup in sales.

- Interesting.

- Thought you would like to know that.

- Okay, one thing that salsa does not offer the Heinz ketchup is that it is all five of the basic tastes.

Sweet, salty, sour, it's bitter, and it is [indiscernible].

That is very difficult to do.

So something like a Margarita is four, but not [indiscernible].

So it is very hard to get all five and I think that's why ketchup is the secret ingredient in a lot of foods, where you would not expect to find it, like [indiscernible], you know, thousand island dressing.

Like who knew that they had barbecue sauce, it's because it can hit all five.

- I know a lot of people who would pick the Margarita over ketchup though.

- Right.

- So yes that was kind of fun, fascinating to me.

What about when you look ahead in terms of technology?

And how technology will both affect our ability, our sensory abilities, magnify some of them, for people who have lost partially or fully certain senses, how advancements in science and medicine and technology will allow people to have those senses back, or if they did not have them to begin with.

- It's absolutely fascinating and so even for something like colorblindness, now you can buy glasses.

EnChroma classes that will allow people who have certain kinds of colorblindness to perceive color.

For the first time.

And that's a pretty simple thing, but there's extraordinary, like smart canes, you can get so much information to people who lost their vision, there's all kinds of new technologies that are coming on, that can enhance and then you think of something like well the extraordinary abilities of dogs with smell, the incredible things that they can smell how can we use that technology ourselves.

It is fascinating to research improvements that are being made.

It is really astonishing.

- I have a friend, speaking of dogs and smell, and I thought about that a lot.

He has had the Department of Defense grants and years ago he was one of the first people on the planet to train dogs to detect cancer.

- Yes which now... - And then he moved on to train dogs to detect specific cancers.

Which blew me away.

While at the same time so that's kind of one end of the spectrum, the other end, on the science and technology side, is our advancements in creating instruments, that can do or have the same sensitivity and eventually we will on the technological side reach a point where we will have the ability to sense things, odors, smells whatever.

At the same level and ultimately beyond what dogs can do today.

- It's just extraordinary what the human body and what humans and animals can do.

You think of the subtlety of that, it's extraordinary.

Even just a sense of smell generally, I can walk into a room and know if someone's baking, I know if there's lilacs in bloom over the wall, I know if it's garbage day in New York City.

It is so thrilling to realize what we can do with the body.

- Let's see garbage day: the noise of the trucks, the smell of garbage, and the smell of diesel exhaust.

Yeah, I agree.

- Yes, New York City can be an overwhelming place for sure.

- Yes, that's okay.

What about AI?

And our senses, what are your thoughts about looking ahead and how AI can be used, certainly it will be used to enhance certain senses and certain experiences, but it also can be used to just be deceptive.

Having thought much about how we may be having experiences, AI-based artificial intelligence-based experiences which trick our senses?

- Yes, that's a great question of our time.

It is the great challenge of our time which is just like seeing is believing, even when we know we should not believe everything we see and it is very hard to overcome.

And if something acts like a person and talks to us like a person it seems to listen to us like a person, do we start thinking it's a person?

The brain we are getting into entirely new territory.

A friend of mine says that she punished her child for speaking too disrespectfully to you know a smart speaker.

And I was like what are you talking about?

She said well you cannot talk like that.

And I was like but it's like talking to your toaster.

And just like no it's true it's talking back.

We are getting into very complex territory and how this will engage with the senses is a very important question.

- No, I'm fascinated.

- I don't think we do enough with the raw tools of getting going, so I'm like start with your own between the focus on that too.

- Yes, certainly the great thing about the book is I hope, for a lot of people it will be kind of an awakening because you know I think clearly almost all of us take our senses for granted.

And are not paying attention to how our senses are actually working.

It's just we are on autopilot.

- Yes we get stuck in our heads and like you are here in the beautiful mountains but you are so busy thinking about your to-do list that you don't even see it.

What's interesting is that now that the book is on the shelves I've heard from people say I read your book on vacation and I enjoyed Italy so much more than I otherwise would have because I was really tuning into each of my five senses and not just focus on the food and the scenery the way I would've been.

And that's my hope is that people would realize, it's funny with the senses, in almost anything you would like to do to be happier if you want to engage more with other people you can use your five senses but if you want to focus and be productive you can use your five senses.

If you want to spark your creativity you can use your five senses.

If you want to calm down and have more serenity you can tap into your senses.

If you need to have more energy you can tap into your five senses.

But we know the senses and we may take them for granted but they are very concrete things we know, and I think if I say to somebody okay you seem really stressed out, how might you make your sensory experience help you to feel more calm?

People instantly will have lots of thoughts.

It's something where we can find ways to do it, because they are familiar to us and yet we don't use them as much as we could.

- For me it was fun because I happen to be somebody who's grateful every day.

I wake up and live on a farm, and I get to smell almost every morning unless there's a wildfire, I could smell fresh air and if there's a wildfire, that's the happy unhappy contrast which makes me appreciate fresh air.

Even more so.

So I'm just I've always been very appreciative of almost everything that happens or that I experience in a given day.

I walk into a grocery store and I am amazed at all the choices that we have.

And the variety that's in front of me.

Or I take off in an airplane and I'm thinking to myself, this is so extraordinary.

That I am flying above the planet and I am a lifetime million miler on United, I have traveled a ridiculous amount of miles.

And especially every time I safely land I'm very appreciative.

So what the book made me realize, and something I knew is I don't take that much for granted.

And I really am able to appreciate a lot of things the folks on autopilot.

I want to read you something somebody wrote and it's about well...

I don't want to say it's about your book, because it's not.

So introduction.

Life in Five Senses, is a book that aims to explore and celebrate the human experiences through the lens of our... - You know what this is?

- Let me guess.

Chat GPT.

It has the ring in the very first words.

- But it is not about your book.

- Oh what was your prompt?

- My prompt was to give me a critical analysis of life in five senses.

But it cannot do that.

You know why?

Because it only has information through 2021.

Your book was published in 2023.

This is what is generated.

- But I have a lot of stuff on line from before that, so let's see.

Let's see, I can recognize my signature.

- So the prompt is what's key, and I asked for a critique.

So then I also separately asked for a more positive mode, like what are the most fascinating highlights or you know, what can you learn from life in five senses, and it came back with the AI came back with I cannot respond because there is no, there's no such book.

Yet... Want to give at this prompt, asking for critical analysis, it was very critical.

It was fascinating to me that it wrote a critical review of something it said it fictionalized so it made up your book.

- This is a hallucination, this is why it's so... A lawyer cannot trust it because it will hallucinate.

- I mean that just struck me as and when I read this, the way it's written you would think it read the book and it's given you its opinion.

- Hey kids, this is why you do not use it in your high school like this is why you know... - I'm fascinated.

I am for kids using it only because I don't think they're going to have any choice.

But it's how you use it.

And can you use it to create something and then can you improve on it?

Can you correct it?

Can you make it better?

I think the real question is do we become so...

Already how much knowledge do young people have stored in their brain compared to what you know you and I had from the way we grew up or you were educated instead, everybody just... - I will say if you look back to the dawn of literacy the argument was young people won't remember as much as we do because if they can just read on a page they will not commit to memory.

I think we all would think that the written word is probably a good technology.

Yeah, I guess I look at things like math scores, reading scores, and it just seems like we are failing kids.

So much, and so you know how many kids are as excited about reading as had been the case 30 or 40 years ago?

- They probably read so much more.

- Yes because of social media.

- Oh my gosh.

Now you're really scaring me.

- But anyways, this is very far afield, but these are very large questions to which there is no answer there, just tensions that we have to debate endlessly because.

- So tell me when you completed the book, you handed it in, you obviously have lots of other thoughts about it, and lots of reaction to it, kind of what is the next level for you when it comes to your experience and what you wrote in the feedback you got?

What kind of feedback did you get?

- People are really interested in it because I think it's like where everything is built it's immersive, this museum exhibit is immersive this van Gogh exhibit is immersive I think we are just hungry to connect our five senses so like oh my gosh if you go to this kitchen supply store they will have an immersive display like oh my gosh I have to check it out.

- An immersive blender.

- I mean it probably exists because anything that promises to I think we are just craving that kind of very concrete stimulation of all five senses and I think sometimes also we are kind of out of balance because if you go watch a movie you are seeing so many images and you got this beautiful soundtrack that's evoking all these emotions but there's no smell or air in your face, you're not touching anything and so you might be eating what what did you say?

Cheetos and root beer?

- Great recollection.

- Cheetos are engineered to hit Bliss points, so like they are so satisfying that way, but you are not experiencing the smells of cooking because you just opened up a bag there's no aroma that's drifting through the way if you are baking bread or something like an experience, so I think people are craving this all the stimulation and what I find, because I think you sound like a person who's very in tune with gratitude and maybe your senses, I'm very up in my head that's why wrote the book because I'm stuck in my head all the time, and I feel like it's easy to feel changed, and it's harder to stay changed, so I feel like now that I have written the book and talk to people all the time, everybody has the same experience which I do which is this is so valuable, so exciting, the trick is how to maintain it, and so you remember like not to take our senses for granted I really appreciate that.

And of course you can have a rich, happy life even if you do not have the full complement of the five senses, but whatever senses you do have how to really engage with them as much as you can.

- So one final thought I'd be interested in, is if you make changes or if you do things which allow you to have deeper experiences, or more experiences, is there any kind of focus or any type of approach that you have developed or you have observed which helps you continue that and not lose that?

- Well one thing I did and it's kind of a gratitude journal.

You are a very gratitude guy.

I tried to keep that journal when I wrote the happiness project and I was very deeply annoyed by it.

I don't know what that says about me, but anyways, I started to do an exercise actually ends up being a kind of gratitude journal which is I just took like a notebook and wrote seeing hearing smelling touching and then I would write one notable experience so maybe I walked by a movie theater and I smelled buttery popcorn so it was not necessarily my favorite with something notable, but you know because that buttery popcorn smell is so distinctive and I was just like I smelled it as I was walking by the theater so I would do that.

- By the way, cheetos do have a distinct smell.

But if you open up the bag but they're not filling your house and floating up the stairs and all that.

So I mocked it up for myself as a way to kinda keep it uppermost in my mind that I would be thinking with the five senses every day and then I created a journal where it's like nicely made and specifically designed for that because I found that to be such a valuable exercise both in helping me maintain my awareness of my five senses and my appreciation and then also it does act like a gratitude journal because you feel like you're sort of witnessing to the richness and the treasures of the world.

- Has this had any impact on the girls?

- You know everybody in my family and circle is like an innocent bystander and gets pulled and all these things.

- You pull them to do different things.

- Yes I was just saying to my daughter, there's a sculpture without sightings let's go.

You know at first they were sort of like not kinda weary but then they quickly learn that any of these exercises ended up being so much fun and oh if I have this experiment they would really even my husband likes doing it because they are always interesting and really fun.

- Gretchen thank you so much.

- Thank you, had so much fun talking to you.

- All right that's Gretchen Rubin, make sure you read Life in Five Senses, and you should take a look at her other books as well, you will be impressed just with their titles alone.

I am Aaron Harber, thanks for watching.

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