Episode 106, Four Thousand Weeks (Part III - Further Analysis and Discussion)

The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast

Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane

Education, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Courses

4.8 • 612 Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2022

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Introduction

Enjoying a holiday in a small coastal village, a New York banker finds herself walking along a tranquil pier when she comes across a fisherman in a small, wooden boat. Inside the boat she spotted several rainbow-coloured fish. 'Congratulations on a fine score. How long did it take you to catch them?'

'Only a little while,' the fisherman replied. 'That's great,' said the banker, 'so, why don't you stay out longer and catch a few more?' The fisherman explained that he only caught what he needed to put fish on the table and a roof over his family's heads. 'But', the puzzled banker enquired, 'what do you do with the rest of your time?' The fisherman smiled: 'I sleep in late, I read books, I go dancing with my wife, and I write jokes about Adam Sandler.'

The banker scoffed, 'You know, I could offer you my assistance with your fishing business.' The fisherman raised his eyebrows. 'If you spent more time fishing, you could sell more fish and buy a bigger boat. You'd catch more fish, buy more boats, and soon enough you could buy a fleet! Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the processor, and eventually open a cannery.' The fisherman paused for a moment… 'Right, but how long will this all take?' The banker replied: 'Ten to fifteen years?'

'But what then?' asked the fisherman. The banker looked confused, 'Then you could enjoy some time off: sleep in late, read books, go dancing with your wife, and write jokes about Adam Sandler.'

The fisherman smiled, 'I suggest you stick around for a while. Have you been fishing before? Ha! Why don't you climb aboard?'

Contents

Part I. Time

Part II. How to Use It

Part III. Further Analysis and Discussion

Links

Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks.

Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness.

Seneca, On the Shortness of Life.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan
0:07.0	Scicast
0:08.0	Part 3 Further analyses and discussion.
0:26.6	Welcome to the third and final instalment of our discussion of Oliver Berkman's 4,000 weeks, time and how to use it.
0:35.2	We hope you've had a good time so far. If you haven't, then you probably
0:38.9	haven't been listening to the first two installments. You need to go back and listen to them now.
0:44.8	Oh, we'll wait for you. Okay. All right. Hey, welcome back. I'm glad you paused it in the right
0:50.5	place. So we're going to kick off with some criticisms, some things that we didn't
0:55.0	like about Birkman's book. I think we've done justice to it so far. I think there's several
0:59.9	points which we weren't able to discuss. We just didn't have time to cram them all in.
1:04.3	We're too busy being authentic. Yeah, Berkman would be happy with that. It takes as much time
1:09.3	as it takes. Anything that anyone wants to
1:12.7	kick off with? I think a first issue that really struck me was who is this advice relevant
1:19.9	to and is it good in every situation? He's very open about the fact that he's writing the book
1:26.2	for himself as much as anyone else.
1:28.4	And he's saying writing this advice is helping him understanding it as well.
1:32.5	But on the other hand, it's probably the most relevant for someone who is in the same situation as him.
1:38.5	So is love's productivity, has a really rushed career who really think that they have a huge to-do list,
1:46.4	but that when they get to the bottom of it, they'll be able to relax and just have a very happy
1:51.9	and fulfilled life. And so if you're in that same position as him to start with, then I think
1:56.2	this book will just really relate to your situation and his journey will be really useful. You know, I think writers should write about their own experience. Like, that's important. But I think absolutely spot on there, Rose. I think who is this book for is quite an interesting question? Because actually, if we think about the title 4,000 weeks, I think you mentioned this earlier, off microphone, Rose, about 4,000 weeks.. Like when you first read that title, what was your like immediate reaction to it? Were you like,
2:20.8	oh my God, 4,000 weeks? Were you like, yeah, it's good impression.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.