I used to live in an apartment with a bunch of cockroaches and a guy named Rob.

Good guy. We'd smoke hookah and play chess.

Rob was a vegetarian.

And I don't actually know why. Whether it was for health reasons or ethical concerns or he was in some kind of religious startup, I don't think it ever came up actually. But I do recall that people would get really mad at him

without explanation when he brought up that he was a vegetarian,

at barbecues. We were to barbecue one time and a guy said,

hey Rob, can I grab you a hamburger?

To which Rob said,

no thanks, I'm vegetarian.

And that guy said,

Oh, so I'm some kind of murderer then, huh?

Which struck me is a bit of an overreaction.

As in, that guy flipping hamburgers seemed to have a problem with meat or

vegetarianism or both or something and Rob accidentally stepped into

whatever bear trap he had floating around his mind.

In retrospect, our neighbor did have a problem with meat and or vegetarianism, I think.

And what Rob stepped into was a big old bubbling pot of cognitive dissonance

the uncomfortable feeling we will be plunging into today. My guest is going to give you a better

definition of cognitive dissonance than I can, but I'll tell you what it feels like to me.

If my brain wore underwear, cognitive dissonance is that feeling that the underwear is too tight,

that vague but deeply uncomfortable sensation my brain wants to

alleviate. Sometimes it's vaguely tight to where I'm just a little uncomfortable.

...