My guest today is, I don't even know how to describe him, you.

I've read more of his books.

I've read so many of them that I don't even know which ones I've read and haven't read.

And he's most notably has a YouTube channel and podcast and newsletter and animated children's cartoon.

Do you have that yet? Yeah, yeah, that kind of thing.

Called the School of Life, no one's a philosopher. This fucking guy is a philosopher. You're the only

one who figured out a way to monetize philosophizing. Am I, is there, how long is the list of people

that have monetized philosophy in the last 30 years?

I mean, most of them have monetized them within universities. They're employed by universities, which sets the kind of questions they can ask and it really limits, I guess, what they can get up to.

Well, first of all, it's tell people your name, because I always get intimidated when I see it. I don't know how to pronounce it. And it's a weird name. Alain de Botton. Alain de Botton. Okay, so I get timid. Yeah. You're doing well. It makes me feel small. No, it shouldn't. It shouldn't. Um, so you feel like you could have, did you, were ever a professor? No. I mean, you know, I was at university, when I was at university, I kept asking myself the question, what am I going to do with my life? Because I... You went to a good school, right? I went to Cambridge. Pretty good. But none of these places are really... I mean, they're kind of good. They're good in the sciences, but, you know, in the humanities. Anyway, I was doing humanities. And I kept asking myself, where do I fit into the landscape here? Because I really like, you know, the big ideas that are in circulation. But I don't like writing books that no one understands, that are abstruse, that are not linked to everyday life.

Broadly speaking, because I was reading and thinking for one reason only to be a little less

crazy and a bit calmer, it was all completely about a kind of self-therapy.

So you're just to assuage your own anxiety?

Yeah.

I was never interested in culture for its own sake, for the, you know, in the name of I don't know what. I mean, it's interesting, the other day someone, someone came to me and said, will you sign up to a literacy program? Like to, we want to get young boys reading more. Like such a good idea, young boys reading more. Great. And then I was thinking about it and a naughty side of me thought, the only reason why I started reading more, a lot more, was because I had no girlfriend. I was really unhappy. I was really confused. Didn't know what's going on. I was having a terrible time. So that's why I started being a big reader. And if you see somebody who's really well adjusted, kicking a football around, having a great time, do they need... I know it's heretical. I know there are counter-arguments. I'm just being playful, but do they need books? I mean, they're just having a lovely time. If you don't need books, just don't read... Of course, if you need books, we're out there. We're giving you books. Yeah, we got books for it. But reading's going down. You've seen that stat. There is. But I think, you know, all of us probably going to hit a moment in life when we are deeply unhappy and we think there've got to be some books out there. At that moment, we're going to be reading for the right reasons, which is to save our lives. I mean, the good readers,

the really good reads, all about the motive from which you do it. And you should be reading

because you're puzzled about what we're doing here. You've got pains, you've got longings,

etc. That's when reading comes alive. The rest is a, you know, intellectual parlor game. We don't

want that. The first book of yours that I remember reading is a status anxiety. Oh, yeah. Was that early? Yeah, I was relatively early.

I was 2005. Yeah, yeah, I was 35. That was all looking about, you know, how we're driven crazy

by this need that arises. As soon as you're leaving college, et cetera, you have this, you know, no longer matters whether you're a nice person, what matters is what you do? First question you face in any social encounter, what do you do? And according to how you answer that, people are really pleased to see you, or they leave you alone by the peanuts and head off somewhere else. So you are what's on your business card. And this is incredibly punishing. It is,

you know, we talk about snobbery and prejudice, et cetera. It is the most prejudiced way of judging

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