The Ikigai Podcast
The Ikigai Podcast
The Shared Wisdom of Stoicism and Ikigai with Ken Mogi
What if the hard road is the honest road—and also the most creative? Neuroscientist and author Ken Mogi joins us to explore how Stoicism and Ikigai converge on a single idea: live in alignment with nature, accept limits with grace, and let difficulty forge depth. We move from the awe of a first butterfly to the precision of a rocket launch, tracing how humility, gratitude, and restraint can transform work, relationships, and personal meaning.
Ken challenges the stereotypes. Stoicism isn’t about shutting down emotion; it’s about seeing clearly and acting accordingly. Creativity thrives under constraints because it has to answer to reality—melody has rules, physics has teeth, and craftsmanship respects the materials. That same ethic shows up in Japanese culture: itadakimasu as a daily lesson in interdependence, the ripening rice ear that bows as it grows heavy, and kaiseki cuisine that reveals flavor instead of hiding it. Ikigai, in this light, becomes alignment with who we are and how we want to relate to others, not a checklist of what we’re paid for.
We also press into modern stakes: AI alignment, the “cult of statistics,” and why humility matters when systems scale beyond any single author. Ken argues for Stoic design principles—restraint, transparency, and alignment with the laws of nature—to keep power tethered to purpose. Along the way, we discuss lowering expectations to reduce needless suffering, desirable difficulties as a compass for growth, and the quiet courage to choose the next step—potential infinity within a human life.
If you’re ready to replace hype with clarity and busyness with intention, this conversation offers practical wisdom and a fresh lens on meaning, creativity, and resilience. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review telling us which idea you’ll practice this week.
When you have two roads before you and one road is an easy road and the other way road is a difficult road, if you can choose a difficult road, uh because that's when you become really creative.
SPEAKER_02:Ken Moggy, neuroscientist author, among many other things, returns to the Ikigai Tribe podcast to talk about his new book, Think Like a Stoic: The Ancient Path to a Life Well Lived. So I've just finished it today, actually, Ken. So it's a great read, as always. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me today. Thank you. No, thank you, Ken. You've been very generous with your time uh with me. This is our fourth podcast together. You attended my online summit in 2023. And of course, you participated in my Ikigai retreat last year. So it's a pleasure to have you back, Ken. Yeah. That was wonderful.
SPEAKER_01:Nobody understands Ikigai like you. It's always an inspiration to watch you interact with people.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe you have the Ikigai jin in you. I think you have it in you too, Ken. So yeah, I really appreciate our friendship and your time and all the love and learning you spread with your literature, your time, and our conversations. So, what sparked the decision to write this book on Stoicism?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I have been always reading Stoicism books. In my book, I argue that Socrates is a father of Stoicism, and I am such a great reader of Socrates. It may sound a bit unexpected for audiences from outside Japan, but in Japan, good boys like me. We read uh Greek philosophers from childhood. For some reason or another, so Plato writes a lot about Socrates. Actually, Socrates didn't write anything about himself, so you know, we know only through Plato what uh Socrates was thinking. I I think I really resonate with Socrates in his way of looking at life. And yeah, of course, Nick, uh you have been in Japan and you know Japanese culture, and I think summarized I think these people were really stoic people living for something greater than themselves, living in alignment with orders of the world. It's quite contrary to some people who are so self-centered, selfish, and you know, self-focused. So I think stoicism is something bigger than you, and that resonates very well with the Japanese philosophy of life.
SPEAKER_02:When I wrote my book and I was talking to my editor, and I was introducing concepts like Gamman and Gambaru, there was the suggestion of relating it to Stoicism, but I wasn't sure. I think in many ways, these concepts, which we'll talk about later, do reflect, I guess, a Japanese type of stoicism or that they share that theme. So I guess that sparked your own culture and your own thoughts about the culture and reading on this subject from a young age.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. If you look at people like Elon Musk, you realize that he's a big mouth. Elon Musk is always kind of making claims and a really controversial guy. But when he launches his rockets, that's very stoic. Because here I'm talking about acting in alignment with physical roles. You can't disregard physical roles when you launch a rocket. So you can be a big mouth and you can say, Well, hey guys, I'm going to Mars. You know, I'm going to Mars and use this rocket. And you can say that. But at the end of the day, if your rocket is not made in a stoic way, meaning it is in alignment with the physical rules, your rocket is going to be exploding until you be a failure. So Elon Musk, I think, is surprisingly one of the most stoic persons on Earth living.
SPEAKER_02:Didn't he have four failures before he finally successfully launched? He was on the brink too financially. I think NASA lent him a sort of a lifeline. So he risked it all to obviously pursue this goal of getting to Mars. I actually remember one day I showed my wife one of the launches, and it affected her so profoundly that she actually cried. Really? Yeah, yeah. And I was surprised. And I thought, wow, it seemed to impact her in this way, like, wow, the human race has leveled up a little bit. So it is important stoicism, which we'll talk about today. But what I found really interesting is the dedication in your book, and I quote, dedicated to the first butterfly that I saw as a child. So do you want to touch on that? And do you actually remember seeing a butterfly for the first time?
SPEAKER_01:I wanted something poetic to start with my book, and when my editor asked me whom should I dedicate the book to? I thought maybe the first butterfly I ever saw as a child. Because do you actually remember the time you saw a butterfly?
SPEAKER_02:I think I do have the memory of the awe of seeing this little thing flutter about, and you have the desire to chase it.
SPEAKER_01:Comes at the total surprise. You know, of course, I'm in Japan. You were born in Australia, so we have different kinds of butterflies. For me, it's this sense of wonder about the world we live in. We are born into this world without any prior knowledge, unless you had some prior life. Some people do believe in that, but as a scientist, I don't believe in that. So I was born into this world without any knowledge, and I see a butterfly, and hey, what's this? Or when you see a really attractive person, a girl, for the first time. You remember that? Four or five years old, and hey, what's this? You remember that? All these wonders that come away, I think that's very stoic because we respect the world. I have a question. So, Nick, I always thought that you are a very stoic person, self-disciplined, a full of appreciation of the blessings of the world, all these gifts that come away. So, where does it come from? Is it your personality or your heritage? Where do you think it comes from? Your appreciation of the world.
SPEAKER_02:That is an interesting question. I do ponder on this idea that we're born with this personality and we don't really choose it. And you you often see this in a large family of brothers or sisters, they're all unique and different. Right. You would hope upbringing would have some positive influence. I guess if you have parents who encourage you to be grateful and appreciate, and they offer valuable life lessons, and then maybe life experience also plays into it. But yeah, we seem to be born with this personality, which is sort of the foundation of who we become, how we interact with others, and maybe our level of appreciation. But I think also living abroad for me, living in Japan for 10 years really exposed me to different mindset, different way of thinking, also seeing Japanese have so much of their culture is about appreciation to the point of kimarimong set expressions and the deep meaning, like something like Itarikimasu. I just thought it meant oh I'm receiving food, but then later I understood it had this meaning of I'm receiving life, something has died, and it will sustain me as I eat it. We don't have those kind of set expressions in Australia. So I think it's a combination, but it maybe it starts with your personality and your willingness to learn and be open to different cultures. What do you think?
SPEAKER_01:What you have just said is quite interesting for me because in my book I try to connect stoicism with modern and contemporary science. So I think this appreciation of the fact that you are receiving food, this food, as a result of some creatures living died for it. That's empathy, that's compassion, but also it's a scientific way of seeing things that they really are. We can sometimes be delusional. Some kids might have this delusion that foods are on the shelves of supermarkets, and if you go there, they are there for you, prepared. Some people do have that attitude. As you said, in Japan we say itadakimasu, which means I'm receiving this food, and that's appreciation of the fact that we are all connected in the world. I am connected to you in some way or other. We have had some beer, well, actually a lot of beer. So we are connected. Recently, I came across this really interesting idea about brain gut access. And some research in Central America has shown that if you associate with people, you start to share the gut microbiota with other people. So the more you associate with people, you shake hands, you hug, and sometimes even you might kiss each other. Those interactions actually your microbiota shared. So that's a really fascinating idea. I think all these spiritual dimensions of Itatakimasu or uh Ikigai or Toicism, I think they have scientific foundations which we really need to appreciate.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it is a fascinating, I don't know what you call it, philosophy of way of living. But what's interesting is the etymology of the word. So you want to touch on what the word stoic or stoicism means and comes from? Stoicism comes from stoic the painted roof.
SPEAKER_01:One of the things that I kind of stressed in this book is that stoicism is not a cult of personality. Nowadays, people kind of worship, they have the tendency to worship a particular person. Like in entertainment, for example, you might worship Taylor Swift, which I think is justified. But entertainment is something bigger than a particular individual. Bruno Mars or Taylor Swift or Madonna. So the case of philosophy, for example, if there's a founder of a school of philosophy like Kant or Herger, some people tend to worship these people. But Stoicism, although arguably, as I said, Socrates is probably the father of Stoicism, it's not associated with the name of a particular individual, which I think is really great. You know, important concepts are bigger than a particular individual. So Ikigai is bigger than me or you combined. So Ikigai is something bigger than a particular person. The same can be said about stoicism. Stoicism is something bigger than a particular person. That's I think that's very important.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's important. I mean, it comes without the burden of, I guess, religion. So there's no feelings of guilt or having to follow some doctrines or be a certain have certain beliefs. You can sort of study Stoicism and relate it to your life. But the concept also has many interpretations, or it kind of has this image that you touch on in the book, but you relate Stoicism to so many things about life. So it's a fascinating eye-opening read. And one thing I really thought uh would be helpful is the first step to becoming a stoic that you share is to never expect certain behavior from anyone. You share the idea if your expectations are low, you can enjoy the sunshine more, which I really believe in. So you want to touch on that a bit more?
SPEAKER_01:As you wrong, as you live in this life, you expect less and less from other people. For example, when you are dating somebody, when you are a teenager, you expect so much from your date. Sometimes you want her to be kind, understanding. But that doesn't happen typically. So then you are really upset and you're not happy. But that's all your fault. And because nobody owes you a date. I mean, you know, even in work places, your boss doesn't have the obligation to behave as you expect, and your parents also, your family members. And so again, I framed stoicism as a way of life in alignment with laws of nature. So laws of nature tells you that other people don't behave in ways that you would like them to behave. That's science. I have been watching how you lead the Iki tribe, and you are always kind and generous, and you're not a bossy, you're really natural, relaxed, and so that's stoic, that's very stoic, you know, according to my defense. You don't expect too much from other people. All right?
SPEAKER_02:No, no. I mean, I like this idea, stoicism allows you just to really be yourself, of course, to like the work you do, you know, growing a business, yeah, it's quite hard and challenging, but you you definitely need the support of others. So I guess when you're seeking the support of others, like when I asked you to first do the podcast, obviously I'm gonna do that with kindness and gratitude. And then when that's genuine, I guess you reciprocate and and now we have this friendship and connection. But yeah, if I was demanding embossy, it probably wouldn't look too good for you, and we wouldn't have this friendship. So I I think, yeah, stoicism's has this image that you're kind of alone and isolated with your thoughts, and you're thinking I've got to be this strong person resilient. But stoicism comes from interactions with others, uh relationships, understanding people, and you know, obviously developing resilience, but also understanding I have expectations. These are my expectations, and I should manage them rather than thinking people owe me or people should do this for me. So I think that obviously comes with life experience as we become to understand the ways of relationships, and obviously, even like the laws of nature. You really go broad on this idea of stoicism. You you even tie it to Ikigai, stating that Ikigai provides the feeling that what you are doing aligns with your perception of yourself and how you want to relate to others and to society at large. And that resonated with me because that's how I want to live my life. I want to be in alignment with people and the work that I do. Really, it's self-referential, and ikiguy is your life. Do you want to touch on the relationship between Ikigai and Stoicism a bit more?
SPEAKER_01:I think Ikigai is about conversation. Actually, I went to Germany in August to meet my editor of Dumont. This is the Dumont version of Ikigai, and I'm really grateful for the fact that this book became the number one bestseller in nonfiction. And I went to the bookshops in Germany, and my books were everywhere. They were selling better than Haruki, so I was surprised. But probably we share the same feeling here. We have just started to understand ikigai, its broad implications. And as we have been discussing, I think alignment is one of the key concepts to come to a genuine understanding of Ikigai. We need to live in accordance with what nature has for us, or what human society has for it. And Ikigai is actually understanding of life's alignment with greater things. I think that's very Japanese. You know, we have grand small tournament now in London happening today. Small wrestlers, they never boast. As you know, even if they win, they never boast out of respect for your opponent because your opponent wants to win as well. So you never show joy on the small ring. That's a very beautiful expression of the fact that we live together and nobody is an island. All this scientific realization that we are social animals and no one is that special. You think you are special, but no one is that special in the society. Everybody is a piece of the greater picture. All these things, I think that's very much related to Ikigai and also Stoicism. So I think alignment is aligning yourself with greater things in the universe. I think that's the key common thread, if you like, these important concepts. Ikigai is very Japanese, but stoicism is arguably very Western, the very European, Greek, Roman. So combining Ikigai and Stoicism, I think, is a really great way to meet between the East and West. And that's what you're doing. Nick, you have been doing really wonderful work of that. Yeah, many, many, many things to be explored from here, I think. You know.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it is true. I mean, I I think I've only scratched the surface when it comes to learning about Ikigai that there's so many more conversations to have and so many more books to read. So many people are writing research papers on it now, so that the body of work on Ikigai itself is growing, and this is connecting me to more Japanese and non-Japanese. Talk about this. And I think that's almost yes, you said that's like a stoic process of conversing, learning, sharing, and every time you have a conversation, you kind of become a slightly fuller or different person because you have this wisdom, you have this experience.
SPEAKER_01:What's what's decision like in Australia? How do Australian people embrace Iki or Stoicism?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I guess we would embrace it with a fairly lay-back attitude. Depends what kind of Australian you're talking about. We have these Australians who are very direct, don't mind dropping F-bombs, have strong beliefs about this and that. But then we're also a multiculture now, so we're quite open to other cultures and learning. I think our cult of personalities are sports. You know, we love our sport. So we we just had our grand final for both rugby and AFL. Now we'll move into cricket. We love that, and so we probably experienced stoicism through sport, through getting so close to winning, yet losing, or suffering, you know, my team's just suffered another horrible year. We haven't made the finals for 20 years. Our captain wanted to trade himself to another team. So things are really bad for my team, but I still love my team, and I still support and hope that we'll get back to winning. So even following your team is this form of having stoicism because you have to endure all the bad times, all the frustrations, and believe that it's still worth your time caring about a team. I mean, you talk about this, the idea of there's limitations, but we can also be audacious in what we do or what we pursue, but we also have to realize our limitations. So I think that's true in supporting a team. Like you want your team to win, but you also must understand most of the times they're gonna lose. And so you have to accept that imbalance or balance. Because if you don't, you're always gonna be angry or unhappy.
SPEAKER_01:This I think is a very interesting point that you're raising because I go to baseball because I love baseball. Shouhe Otani is now playing in Los Angeles Doggers, and probably baseball is not that big in Australia, but it's big in Japan as well as in the States. When I go to a baseball match, baseball game, I don't actually root for a particular team. I just watch the players do their best, performing. Sohee Otani pitching. He pitches already as bad, so that he's a really great, amazing person. Sometimes he succeeds, hits a home run, but sometimes he just thinks out. And it doesn't really matter because I know Sohee Otani is doing his best. So I really love to watch people doing their best. Japan actually won against Brazil for the first time ever in now much international match a few years ago in Tokyo. That was a big headline, you know, all over Japan. You know, Japan wins over Brazil. But I don't really care too much about it. That's really beautiful to watch, and that's very stoic. I mean, so I don't care too much about wins or loses. The fact that you have done best that the fact that some people are doing their best and you're watching it, you are sharing that moment. I think that's all that is important. How how do you feel about that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's interesting. I was gonna ask, do you think that's a quality of you? You've had a pretty unique life, and I think from a young age, yeah, I think you were reading meditations when you were 15, and you're a neuroscientist, you travel the world, you speak multiple languages, and you're obviously quite stoic. But I also know Japanese in general kind of have more appreciation for both. Whereas if I took you to a footy match can here in Australia, you'd see a lot of ugliness, you'd see a lot of swearing and people getting angry and yelling at the umpire and abuse, and then you'd see lots of happy people only because obviously they've won. I think it's beautiful that you can see the bigger picture. Is that a result of being stoic? You see the bigger picture.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, this is interesting, isn't it? I mean, um in the samurai era, of course, it was a life or death battle. But if you read Japanese classics, uh it's always about the losing side as well as the winning side. For example, the most famous case is the tale of Heike, it describes a really great battle between Heike and Genji crowns. Um Genji crown, so they dominate Japan. But the story is about the Heike people, you know, how they lose and how they weep and how they feel sad, and all these literary uh descriptions of the losing side. It's actually one of the most famous tales in Japan. So it's quite interesting. Probably it's in the Japanese culture to see the winning side and losing side on the equal footing, and sometimes that's even sympathizing with the losing side. And I think that's quite in manga and anime as well.
SPEAKER_02:But I think there's this more compassionate awareness in Japan and more this idea of doing the right thing. I know out of consideration for others, Japanese won't even share their good news. Whereas in the West, we have this tendency to want to celebrate. I got a new job or I've I've achieved this, and Japanese don't tend to do that. Yeah, that's quite interesting. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I began to appreciate that a lot when I lived in Japan. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because that's interesting because you know, I think in Japan, uh, if you become quite successful, uh you don't show it because other people are not successful. That's a really interesting observation. I didn't realize that because it's something that is so natural of here, but as you mentioned it, yeah, that's also really true. So we don't know, typically know who's got uh pay rise or you know who's got promoted, except for very close friends, because people do not broadcast it. Yeah, it's quite an interesting observation. Do you your celebrations big time in Australia?
SPEAKER_02:Me personally, not really, but I'll share with family or my brother, but I mean we we have something similar, I think you know, Ken, uh tall poppy syndrome. Once someone becomes quite famous or successful, if they become too famous or successful, like a tall poppy, we want to kind of cut them down and bring them back to earth. It's an Australian saying. So tall poppy syndrome. We kind of celebrate wins and victory, so we're not like Japan. Maybe we're in the middle of Japan and let's say somewhere like America, where we don't want to overly celebrate ourselves, and we don't like to see that in other people. So we like to some degree to see people be humble, and it's true when you see the captain of a team being interviewed, and even if he's played the best game of his life and he gets complimented, he'll say, Oh no, it was a great team effort today, and and the other team did really well, which I think is a universal thing. But we have this awareness too: like if you get too famous or too well known, or you regard yourself too highly, then Australians will start to think you're a bit of a dickhead. We'll say something like that, uh, he's a dickhead now.
SPEAKER_01:In my book, um you know, I have this quote, uh oops, a rice ear hangs his head, it's head low as it ripens. So this image of the rice head, kind of buoyant, keep it low profile, that's a really important aspect of the culture. So, yeah, that's quite interesting, and you know the same goes for Instagram. Of course, some uh Japanese people show really showy photos on their Instagram, but typically a Japanese person doesn't want to show how happy he or she is, what a gorgeous time they are having. That's not in our culture. I mean, that's perceived as American. Uh I don't know if that's correct or not. Um you know, celebrity people on a big yacht and drinking champagne, and that's not us. You know, some Japanese people are infected by that virus and they do that, but that's not us. So that's quite quite an interesting observation, actually. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:That is a beautiful image of that idea that once um a rice stalk starts the grains start to form, it's almost bowing, and Japanese see that as a way, another symbol of being grateful for abundance. So you you've obviously read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I'm wondering, did you read that in Japanese?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, obviously, when I was a teenager, I did read it in uh Japanese, but when I was uh university student also, um of course I read it in English. I wish I could have read it in Latin, but I haven't. Yeah. Marx Aurelius. Uh so for some reasons, uh Marx Aurelius was always liked by Japanese people because of the emperor's humility, sense of humility. That resonates with the Japanese uh split, I think. So and did you know Miyako Kamiya translated the work? Yeah, yeah, of course. So Miyako Kamiya, you identified her as a mother of Ikigai, and that's totally justified. She's a really wonderful person. So, do you have any comment on that? I'm just curious, as somebody who is very well read, Miyako Kamiya. So, do you have any comment on that?
SPEAKER_02:I'm just amazed at how much she accomplished. But how much she followed her own icky guy? So she had a love of languages. She learned French living in Geneva, I think, from late childhood to early teens. She learned studied English, classical Greek. Then she wanted to study medicine, and then she formed this compassion or affinity with lepers, and then wanted to understand them. And then that obviously led her to uncovering, yeah, what is Ikigai. So she was constantly learning and researching, and she achieved so much. She was even a tutor to the former Empress of Japan. She was an interpreter for the Tokyo War Crimes trial. So she has like this incredible CV that is almost impossible to believe. A woman living in that time, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, highly unlikely for someone to be so prolific. And she wrote many books. She deserves as much recognition as some of her male contemporaries, but she doesn't get it at least worldwide. She doesn't appear to be even well known now in Japan.
SPEAKER_01:She is actually well, at least among us, but you know, not among the general public. She's not probably a household name, if you mention. So yeah, that's totally true. But as you mentioned, uh, the fact that Miko Kamiya translated Mark Sauridius is very important, I think.
SPEAKER_02:She was quite stoic herself. She had a lot of health issues, suffered a lot of loss in her life, yet also had this incredible desire to express herself through writing. She was quite successful, yeah. She was a professor, a psychiatrist.
SPEAKER_01:And also she was a best-selling author.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but very humble person. So, Ken, something I'd love to share with you one day or one evening would be Kaiseki. And you talk about kaiseki in your book, and you even relate it to Stoicism. So maybe a lot of our listeners would not know what kaiseki is. So you want to touch on that?
SPEAKER_01:It's very expensive. They come in great varieties and they tend to be very expensive. But you must remember that the ingredients themselves are taken from nature. It's not like the French cuisine, you know, where the chef kind of imposes his or her own interpretation of how food should taste. So whatever the ingredient is in French cuisine, especially the traditional French cuisine, they tend to kind of brush over the natural ingredients with the sauce. But in Japanese cuisine, kai seki cuisine, you know, everything is so natural. The seasonings are minimum, some salt, soy sauce, uh peppers, but it's always minimum. And so these cookings are very minimal. They taste really great, but the taste is the taste of the ingredients themselves taken from nature, nature's gift to humans. So that's the spirit of kaiseki, and that's I think very stoic because, as I said, stoicism is about living in alignment with nature, right? So some people might say that kai seek is very luxurious. Well, it is luxurious in terms of price, but in terms of spirit, it's very stoic.
SPEAKER_02:Actually, my my father-in-law treated me and my wife to kaiseki before we were married when I first went to visit the family. And yeah, it was amazing. It was like 13, 15 courses or something, and very small. And you're right, it was bringing really just the essence of the taste out. I remember I never liked uni, and then when I had uni at this kaiseki, I loved it. It was so delicious. So I think you're right. There is a stoic process in preparing the food. Maybe there's even restraint and this focus on I'm not influencing the flavor of the food, I'm just drawing out the flavor of the food from nature. Yeah, it's quite an experience. So if you get to have kaiseki in Japan, I recommend it. So at the start of your book, you have mentioned that seeing a butterfly is like your little icky guy, something you observe and really appreciate, and connects you back to your childhood and you something you studied. But qualia, you write, is your main icky guy, one of your purpose-driven icky guys. So, do you want to touch on what qualia is and how are you trying to solve the puzzle of qualia?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I have been kind of razy in that. Not because I have not been making efforts, but consciousness studies I think is really difficult. But you know, I can say that those people who claim they have a theory of consciousness are all wrong. I am really interested in how we can solve quarry. Quaria is a redness of red and coolness of water and smell of meat. I think this is going to be the most significant work, not Ikivali or not Stoicism, because this is very original. Yeah, and 30 years have fast, almost 30 years, but there's nothing equivalent to this book, I think, in the literature now.
SPEAKER_02:But I mean you're also quite prolific, Ken. You're constantly writing books, you're you're traveling, you're delivering lectures, you have your podcast.
SPEAKER_01:I I'm a disrupted person, it's always disrupted.
SPEAKER_02:How how do you manage your time, Nick? I just keep going with the next step. I think you talk about that infinity, like infinity is just following the next step. So you talk about two types of infinity in your book, and one seems impossible for us to understand, but we can understand another type of infinity just by the next step.
SPEAKER_01:As I said, this is Isotope who made this distinction. Actually, infinity we can never understand because we are mortal humans. But the potential infinity, as you said, is about the next step. So as long as you have a next step, you have access to potential infinity. So that's all we can hope to achieve in our life to handle potential infinity.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so that's how I manage my time. But another interesting idea you present, which contradicts, I guess, this uh image we have of Stoics, is we think they're not creative. We think they're reading old books or just making plain decisions or doing things the hard way. But you really say stoics are creative, and that every stoic is creative or should be. So do you want to touch on that?
SPEAKER_01:Creativity is about finding the truth, what makes us possible, you know, makes life possible. For example, Albert Einstein was a very stoic person, Johann Sebastian Bach. He was a stoic. So, you know, every great creator, I think, was a stoic. Because creativity is about finding truth about ourselves and the world. So the question is, where does it come, this misunderstanding of stoic people not creative? I think that's an interesting issue. For example, you if you look at the film Amadeus, Mozart is portrayed as a really frivolous person. But on the other hand, Mozart, of course, was a stoic, right? Because he wrote so many beautiful music and this music followed some roads of melody and rhythm and harmony. I think there's an image problem of stoicism, you know, stoic people. But you should also realize that Mozart was a stoic person as well.
SPEAKER_02:I think this leads to something that really resonated with me: desirable difficulties. And from that, we can be creative, we grow, we learn, we get closer to the person we want to be. So we should embrace desirable difficulties because they bring out our true self or the best in us.
SPEAKER_01:When you have two roles before you, and one road is an easy road, and the other way is a difficult road, if you can choose a difficult road, because that's when you become really creative. I have this fascination about the history of human evolution. We were born in Africa, and out of Africa we spread all over the globe. So in that process, our ancestors crossed over to, for example, Australia. In that process, our ancestors crossed over the ocean. So, you know, just imagine you are facing an ocean and you don't know if there will be Ireland or Land or whatever. So when you migrate, at least there need to be maybe 10, 20 people, females, males, otherwise you cannot start a population once you get to Australia. So that's amazing, isn't it? So that that's a really difficult road to be taken. But if our ancestors didn't take that road, we wouldn't be in Australia or South Africa, South America. So there are times when you really need to do that. I mean, to take the difficult road. That comes in when you wrote your first book, Ikigai Gang, that was a difficult decision, wasn't it? But without that book, you wouldn't be here, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. You're right. I mean, I I didn't do well at school. I struggled. I really struggled with writing and spelling. So I've always had a very negative relationship with writing and and lack of self-belief. But yeah, Ikigai was so important to me. I thought I need to express myself. I can do it through podcasts, I can do it for conversations, I can do it for videos, but it felt the book was the next step, you know, the right thing to do. And I'm writing another book now. So you overcome these false beliefs or challenges. But I think your book, Ken, I think Facus Dog's really timely because our lives have radically changed. Let's say for most people now in the last five years with AI, the uptake of ChatGPT was incredible. Like most people are using ChatGPT every day now. There's all this anxiety about the future, there's obviously positive aspects, but you talk about AI alignment, and there's obviously icky guy risks, there's even possible extinction. So, how does the stoic piece help us with all this uncertainty and fear as our lives are radically changing? And there's also this fear we're not going to be thinking for ourselves.
SPEAKER_01:In my book, I wrote about Kazoo Ishiguro, the novelist, and he his works are all about stoicism. The most famous one is Remains of the Day, where the butler Stevens hides his love for his colleague, and that's very stoic. But also Kazoo Ishiguro writes about artificial intelligence in his novel Clara and the sun, and where the artificial friend tries to be kind to her human friend, and you know that's kind of artificial stoicism. So we should really study how we can build AI that would behave like a stoic, you know, restraining their ability, restraining their behavior. That's a really important field of research. Many people have been discussing so many things about it, and people don't have an answer yet. The Nobel Prize-winning mathematician, uh Jeffrey Hinton, who is sometimes called the father of artificial intelligence, he says he doesn't have any idea how he can do that. So some people are really, really pessimistic about the future of AI. We might actually become extinct because of AI. That's the argument of some people. So we really need to study stoicism seriously. How we can make artificial intelligence systems that would align with humans and also that align with the laws of nature. I think that's a very urgent topic, uh actually.
SPEAKER_02:You actually mentioned we we might be moving from cult of personality, where we're fixated on people, cult leaders, or rock stars, or uh influencers, to moving to cult of statistics. That's interesting.
SPEAKER_01:You want to touch on what that means? I have written so many things that are interesting to me in my book, but that might be a hard sell. I don't know if this book will do well. My book takes time to kind of spread. So I have written so many interesting things. Interesting to me, not necessarily interesting to the general public, so I'm not sure, but anyway, cluster statistics, yeah. Artificial intelligence systems, they obey statistical learning algorithms. If you take ChatGPT, as you know, no single author counts. Whether it's Shakespeare, Kaso Ishigar, or any great writers, they are just bits of data in the great ocean of collective human writings. So no author, however great he or she might be, counts. That's a count of statistics. So we are just data. You know, hey you, Nick, you are just data. I'm also just a piece of data, right? Whatever we write about IKI, it's just a really tiny part of what has been written already. So we don't count, we don't count, Nick, for AI. This is true.
SPEAKER_02:This is why you say we are all equally unimportant. So I think I found your book eye-opening. So if I'm recommending it, saying this will surprise you because initially some ideas you kind of think, oh, is that stoic? And then you realize, oh, actually, it is. So it's very eye-opening, and I I recommend it. So if you want a new perspective or a broader perspective on stoicism, obviously I recommend your your book, Ken. And it's kind of refreshing, actually.
SPEAKER_01:I recommend uh Nick Kemp's uh Ikigai Khan. Also, uh his new book, upcoming book. Where is it coming out?
SPEAKER_02:Um that'll come out December, so a year of Ikigai. That was challenging because I had to do like a daily entry and I couldn't expand on ideas. So I found that very challenging, and I had to sort of come up with 365 ideas of expressing Ikigai. But of course, Ken, you get a mention in my book. So thank you for your quote. So you recommend becoming someone's Plato, yes?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Maybe your father's Prat or your mother's Prator. I like this idea that somebody's afterlife is in the memory of people who remember them. So typically an afterlife is when you go to heaven and you have a wonderful afterlife. But I I don't believe in that in that. Uh I believe that somebody's afterlife is how we remember these people. So if your dad was a great person, you can remember and write about him. Or you your granddad, your grandmother, or somebody you knew, you had the privilege to know. Socrales didn't write anything about himself, but Plato remembered him. So what we read about Socrates is actually an afterlife of Socrates, as remembered by and you know written by Prado. So you should be somebody's Prado, Nick. Maybe I'm uh a Plato for Japanese culture or something. Yeah, I really appreciate you for that, and you are so genuine. I should be saying this, but this Venn diagram of Ikigai so misrepresents the core concept of Ikigai, so I'm not so happy with it. So, you know, it's not ikigai, it's purpose. I mean, what you have, that's certainly ikigai. But what you are paid for, what the society needs, and what you are good at, these three elements are totally irrelevant for ikigai from my perspective and from the perspective of Japanese culture. So maybe you can have your ikigai in drawing, making paintings, and you might not be good at it, but that's totally okay. You might love making music, and society might not need it, but that's totally okay. You might actually love watching butterflies fly, that's me, you know, but you are not paid for it, right? And you don't get received any money for it. That's totally okay. So this famous uh Venn diagram, that's a Western misrepresentation of what Ikigai is actually is. So I'm really grateful. It's really great that somebody from outside Japan have a genuine understanding of Ikigai. Thank you. I'm not saying that these Venn diagrams have not been helpful. You know, I I really grateful for these Venn diagrams for spreading the interest about ikigai. But once people get interested in Ikigai, I hope people will come to a genuine understanding of what the original philosophy was. That's my hope too. Yeah, what Mirko Kamiya writes about ikigai. Well, I mean it's nothing about nothing that has nothing to do with what you're paid for or what the society is or what you're good at. You know, these are all rubbish.
SPEAKER_02:Uh thanks for sharing that. I agree with you, Kenneth. It used to frustrate me. I thought everything about Ikigai is factually incorrect or romanticized. People think it's the secret to happiness or the secret to longevity. So yeah, it came out of a love for Japan, a love for Japanese culture, and this sort of frustration that it was being misrepresented. But I mean, this is my Ikigai, having conversations with people, getting to know people, this sort of emotional intimacy. And I really appreciate all that you've done for me and our friendship. So I'm looking forward to having maybe some beer and kaiseki.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you really deserve uh applause.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, Ken. But congratulations on your new book. So Think Like a Stoic The Ancient Path to a Life Well Lived. I highly recommend it. Very insightful. It will challenge your ideas about stoicism, which is a good thing. So thanks so much for spending time with me today, Ken. Thank you, Nick.