Michael Greenberg: Dealing with Fear, Anxiety and Helping Others
“Every one of us is a leader may not be at a national level, but you can be a hero with your kids or with your friends or with my patients. Just by being there for them. ”
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Dr. Michael Greenberg is a Dermatologist dedicated to providing patients with state-of-the-art care at the Elk Grove office of Illinois Dermatology Institute. He specializes in medical dermatology, as well as treating patients with an emotional or spiritual component to their skin condition. He is a co-founder of Illinois Dermatology Institute.Dr. Greenberg embraces the benefits of a group practice, stating that "practicing in a group that is more family than corporate has added to my joy of being a physician." Dr. Greenberg graduated with his undergraduate degree in Biology from Case Western Reserve University and then received his medical degree from the University of Illinois in Chicago. His postgraduate training included a residency at the University of Illinois Hospital, where he served as Chief Resident during his final year.
Outside of his practice duties, Dr. Greenberg also hosts a bi-weekly radio show for medical professionals on XM160, where he shares his advanced knowledge and experience with other doctors. Throughout his career, Dr. Greenberg has had articles published discussing his goal of increasing the care and compassion providing by medical professionals today. "As far back as I can remember, I knew I was a physician. My choice to become a Dermatologist was one made from my heart, not my head. As a junior medical student, I was assigned to shadow a Dermatologist and, arriving at his office, felt a strong connection, even before seeing patients."
In this conversation, Michael shares his insights on how to cope with heightened stress-related to COVID-19. Michael strives to be in service to his community for as long as he can and truly wants to make an impact on each person he connects with. Even though this conversation takes place during this time I believe the ideas are timeless; they are only more relevant given the current situation.
Show Notes:
[00:05:08] Outlining the Problem
[00:06:39] Combating the Fear
“Get out of your head. All right. How do you do that? Well, first of all, you do a reality check. You really need two pallets of toilet paper, and you need 500 gallons of bottled water at home, and the answer's no. So realize we're in this together. Share with people. The second thing that I've found is as a doctor, for instance, we had a practice meeting over the weeks, and some of my partners are closed for three or four weeks, and I basically, although it's controversial because my partners can say, well, you're, you might be exposing people.
I might not be, and I'm in the office. I'm going to take care of people until they make me force money to close my office, or I get sick because that's what doctors do. I'm not doing as much dermatology as I'm doing, just hanging out with people and taking care of their fears and talking to them about that.”
[00:09:13] Getting people to pause
“The people who are going to get hurt by this, the most are the over consumers who are in debt, living paycheck to paycheck, not the people who are being paid poorly, living to paycheck by paycheck. I understand that they're in a different situation, but there's a number of people who do really well.
But they never have money because they're buying more stuff than they need. So you can't live like that. You've got to have resources. You've got to have got to save some money because things do happen.”
[00:11:49] Learning to respond not react
[00:14:46] Leveraging what you have control over
“I have control over if I'm going to walk out of the house today. And you know, the reason why they closed all the bars and restaurants in Illinois was because people wouldn't control themselves and spread this infection. So I have control over that. I have no control over the government, the stock market, and the virus.
So I'm not going to worry about those things. I have no control over it. What I can control is myself and plan for the future and learn lessons from this and realize, you know what, I got a plan for our plan for the next virus. I have to be somehow prepared emotionally and mentally and, and spiritually. It comes down to one thing to realize that I am powerless in the face of the universe. Things will happen and try to learn this lesson over and over again.
And 10 years ago, I had prostate cancer, and I'm fine, and it was caught very early for those people who are listening, I'm not going to be dying next week.
And, and I got depressed for about two days until I turned to my wife as if, you know, the universe is trying to teach me something. You know, this, the fear is I'm out. I'm not in control. And if this can happen one day, something worse, something's going to happen. I'm going to die. I'm going to have a stroke or a heart attack.
I have no control over those things. So I can either accept at this moment that I don't have control over these things. And stop worrying about them and be happy like the guy jumping off the skyscraper, or I can fret about the rest of my life. I have chosen to practice my life in the here and now.”
[00:17:58] Making an impact in your community
[00:25:24] Awareness, Selfishness, Self-Centeredness
Awareness by Tony de Mello for more on this book read Worth Reading: My Most Impactful Books of 2019
“There's a big distinction between selfishness and self-centeredness. It is okay to be selfish. I have to take care of myself. So, for instance, I have to say, gee, I have to work out today. I'm sorry, I can't be on the phone helping everybody with their problems.
I have to eat after a workout. I have to sleep, take care of my family. I have to be somewhat selfish so that I can be there for other people. But self-centeredness is when I think the world revolves around me, and I expect everyone to behave a certain way, and I want to manipulate them to behave a certain way that gives me what I want.
Self-centeredness is wrong. Some selfishness is healthy. You have to take care of yourself as you know, there are doctors, for instance, that are working in terrible conditions that could be in a hospital 24/7 no, they have to go home and go to sleep. No, they have to eat. You know, I talk to patients all the time who have family members who are very ill and terminally ill and dying, and I tell them, as a caretaker, if you don't take care of yourself, you won't be there for the person you're taking care of.
So selfish is okay at times. Self-centeredness is not.”
[00:27:49] Giving away unused items
[00:29:26] Living with less
[00:31:40] Picking up the phone
[00:38:25] Learning to pause
[00:42:18] This may not be working but how do you fix it?
“Instead of saying, this is broken, instead of just claiming that it's broken, ask the question, how can we fix it?
You know, how can we solve this problem in any situation? Whether it's a family, whether it's a family situation, emotional situation, a business situation. Instead of complaining, instead of saying to say, okay, here's the problem. How do we fix it? How do we work together to fix it? And, and magic happens that we need him in, in improv, we call it, yes anding, you just agree.
You don't say no to anything.”
[00:43:35] The power of comedy
[00:44:24] We are all flawed
[00:46:50] Failure and Labels
[00:48:34] Overgeneralizing experiences
“When you go, and you call your friend up today, and you talk about how you feel, and they say, Oh my God, I feel the same way. All of a sudden, there is a shared experience and a bonding and what that shared experience does, it basically ends the existential loneliness all of us feel.
I don't care how close you are to your friends, your spouse, your parents. We still feel alone and isolated. Nobody gets us 100%, but you can get closer to that. When you do share your feelings, and you sit in a group therapy meeting when people sit in 12 step meetings when you just call your friends, and they share their life and other people relate to it.
That's healing. That's where healing comes in. So that, to me, is about experiences. Share them as best you can.”
[00:52:45] Deeper Experiences
[00:56:10] Deeper questions and being humble
[00:58:48] Take your pulse
[00:59:38] Recommendation for others to get through these uncertain times
Osho also known as Rajneesh Books
A Man of Sorrows by Michael Greenberg
[01:01:30] One final story
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Full Transcript - Michael Greenberg: Dealing with Fear, Anxiety and Helping Others
[00:04:16] Erich Wenzel: Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of feeding custody. And today's episode, we're joined by returning guest, Michael Greenberg. Hi Michael?
[00:04:24] Michael Greenberg: Hi, thank you and, sorry, I have to be back on a subject like this, but thanks.
[00:04:29] Erich Wenzel: I know it. It's, I wish it was under different circumstances, but, as everyone, I will put in a separate intro, but Michael Greenberg is a dermatologist, and so he's really close to the current, you know, outbreak and things like that.
[00:04:42] But he posted a really interesting Facebook post kind of outlining reactionary things to how people are reacting to the situation and then ways to kind of help. And I thought it was a really good post and he offered to talk about it here. And so we're just kinda kind of unpack his situation as he sees it being closely tied to the hospital and then just some of his thoughts.
[00:05:03] So hopefully help people bridge the gap in this new normal, as I've been kind of thinking it is.
[00:05:08] Outlining the Problem
[00:05:08]Michael Greenberg: [00:05:08] Well, Erich, we hit we, you know, we have a problem. We don't have a crisis. Like people think we have a problem, the virus that's going around and we don't know that. The problem is they don't know much about it. We don't know what it's going to do, but you know, it's affected all of our lives for some reason.
[00:05:27] The world has gone bananas about this. it, the funniest thing is people are hoarding toilet paper. This it's not cholera folks. You're not going to get diarrhea from this virus. So, I think this is like a seed mentality. People are hoarding water and toilet paper. And I understand that in the situation where you're totally powerless to do anything, makes you feel better.
[00:05:50] But let's talk about some reality here. Let's first talk about the viral reality. This is not the zombie apocalypse. People are not dropping over dead like flies like they did in the black plague or the, you know, we've got 300,000 people every year dying of obesity in this country, so why don't we panic and take potato chips off the shelves of our grocery stores so that that's the reality.
[00:06:13] Okay? We have a problem. Everything's being shut down. The Dow Jones is going straight to hell, and our politicians aren't doing at a federal level, are doing a miserable job. Okay. There's the situation.
[00:06:25] Erich Wenzel: I mean, I agree. It's, it's just bananas. Like I've never, you know, in my lifetime, which granted is not that long.
[00:06:32] I've never seen this sort of reaction in my life where the world feels like it's collectively holding its breath, waiting for the hammer to fall.
[00:06:39] Combating the Fear
[00:06:39] Michael Greenberg: Right, right. And,now, this, get really philosophical and say, well, we're talking about fear and fear. Fear is an acronym. It stands for fantasized events appearing real.
[00:06:51] So everyone's got this fantasy about being locked in their house for six months and never coming out again, or dropping dead on the street from, from this virus. And that's not what's happening, you know? And, and the, the, the first reaction is to stay in the, in the moment. Every spiritual teacher teaches a stay in the here and now.
[00:07:08] By that, I define it as if two guys jump off the skyscraper at the same time, you know what's going to happen. Fear screams all the way down, and the guy who stays in the moment is you pass it by each floor. He goes, well, it's not too bad yet. It's not too bad. Yeah. It's not too bad all the way down.
[00:07:23] So that, that's the, that's the, the more the deeper spiritual message. For instance, let's talk about practical stuff. Okay. What, what, what you can do, what I see missing from people is peace of mind, which people don't have a lot of, anyway, these days the world is kind of crazy and the only way to get to peace of mind is to get the fear out of your mind.
[00:07:42] Get out of your head. All right. How do you do that? Well, first of all, you do a reality check. You really need two pallets of toilet paper, and you need 500 gallons of bottled water at home, and the answer's no. So realize we're in this together. Share with people. The second thing that I've found is as a doctor, for instance, we had a practice meeting over the weeks, and some of my partners are closed for three or four weeks, and I basically, although it's controversial because my partners can say, well, you're, you might be exposing people.
I might not be, and I'm in the office. I'm going to take care of people until they make me force money to close my office, or I get sick because that's what doctors do. I'm not doing as much dermatology as I'm doing, just hanging out with people and taking care of their fears and talking to them about that.
[00:08:33] And by the way, fear can also stand for F everything and run, you know, run away. Try and run. Right. But, but it'll, it'll follow you. Yeah. And so, so the other thing I'm doing is going down my, taking my iPhone and going down my list of people I know and care about and some people, you know, I haven't talked to Noah and calling everybody I know and just asking them how they're doing or what I can do to help them and talking about it.
[00:08:57] Cause the secret, Erich, is he got out of your own head. My head is filled with my head and you're filled with the same fears. All right? So I get out of my head and I go help someone else. It's a secret I learned a long time ago and there's always someone who needs help.
[00:09:13] Getting people to pause
[00:09:13] Erich Wenzel: I've, I recently did the same thing.
[00:09:16] I've been trying to think about. like personally speaking, I know I'll be okay. I have the luxury of being able to work from home. I have the ability to, you know, do things like this. That really gives me a lot of fulfillment where I feel like I'm helping people. But I've also been trying to look at the communities around me and think of ways to connect, you know, the people that may or may not feel as certain about things or able to just distance themselves, like you said, like help people.
[00:09:43] And it's, I think it's because a lot of people weren't prepared right for this. Like we get so stuck in our daily routines that all of a sudden when this type of thing happens, it feels like, you know, the world's going to hell in a handbasket, so to speak. And I think if you can get people to pause and look at this as a way to restructure your life, it will eventually pay dividends forward.
[00:10:05] Go like, you know, three, four months down the road.
[00:10:08] Michael Greenberg: Right, exactly. And look, well, let's look at the reality of the situation. I believe in a kind and loving universe or God or whatever you want to believe in. I don't believe in a punitive universe. So, so there's some lessons to learn here. All right. So what are the, what's the bigger lesson?
[00:10:23] We are the most materialistic country. Everybody wants 24 pairs of jeans in their closet, the newest iPhone, every little gimmick. And so, we, we, we want a cheap one too. So we've set it up so that we depend upon one major country, China to supply us with all these cheap goods. We need to change the supply chain in this world.
[00:10:41] So it's spread out all over the place so that we're not beholding to one country. And by the way, it's not the friendliest country to us. Yeah. You know, it's a slightly hostile country, so let's bring manufacturing back here of some of these things, especially our pharmaceuticals, so they can't cut us off or this can't happen again.
[00:10:56] That's the first thing. The second thing is people's personal finances. All right. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to talk to my granddaughter who is not going to be able to work for a couple of weeks, and she's working her way through college, so we were able to help her financially. And I said, you know, Madison, when do you get to be an adult?
[00:11:12] The people who are going to get hurt by this, the most are, the over consumers who are in debt, living paycheck to paycheck, not the people who are being paid poorly, living to paycheck by paycheck. I understand that they're in a different situation, but there's a number of people who do really well.
[00:11:28] But they never have money because they're buying more stuff than they need. So you can't live like that. You've got to have resources. You've got to have got to save some money because things do happen.
[00:11:38] You know?
[00:11:39] Shit happens. We say that you can, I don't happen. And if you have a, if you have some savings in the bank, you can weather the storm, but some people don't.
[00:11:49] Learning to respond not react
[00:11:49] They have nothing in the way of building up backup resources, but they have every new gimmick and every, every, you know, the, the latest clothes and everything. So that's a lesson to be learned too. The other lesson is you've got to learn to respond, not react. Right. And in order to do that, to get out of your head, the next step is turn off the news program.
[00:12:10] I don't care what channel you listen to, turn them off, listen to the news in the morning to find out what the weather is. Listen to the news to find out if there's any major changes. But people are addicted to listening to Fox and CNN and MSNBC, and it's the same fearful stuff all over the place. Right?
[00:12:29] Erich Wenzel: I think it does. Those cycles aren't, aren't made for, you know, quality of information to help quell fears. They're just there to stroke the flame or stoke the flame, I guess is the best way to word that. And I really, I don't like watching those things. I've really done my due diligence to try and find sources of information that are just there to give information to people?
[00:12:50] And, and that's part of the problem in this entire situation because there's so much. There. There seems to be like everything in our world does too polarization thing where it's either the end of the world or it's nothing and you downplay it completely and there was like no middle ground as of last week and I was like, what is going on.
[00:13:08] And so I, I had wrote an article trying to figure out where was the right way to stand or at least to be informed, cautious so you could make a decision that's informed and not panic induced or completely blowing it off.
[00:13:21] Michael Greenberg: Right. And there isn't a middle ground for me as a doctor, as a middle ground, I intend to go to my office every day and help people.
[00:13:27] That's what doctors do. That's why I became a doctor. So to balance that off in my own personal life, I'm, I'm eliminating my exposures to other groups of people like I do. I'm an improv after also, so I'm not, we're not having rehearsals. I'm not going there. We're not having classes because I want to limit my exposure to not necessary groups of people so I can be there for the necessary groups that kind of balances it off.
[00:13:48] We're going to do the best I can. And, and yeah, you know, maybe I will get infected, maybe we'll get sick and I'll stop work for a couple of weeks until I'm better. Yeah. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna respond rather than react. And then another important thing, very important, is do not go on your financial institution app and see how much money you lost today, because you will panic, you know?
[00:14:11] And, and. The, you know, I, I've talked to the financial people, I'm, I'm just not responsible for me. I'm responsible for our largest group prac largest derm practice in Illinois with practice. And I'm responsible for a profit and pension sharing plan that's in, you know, eight figures, I guess. And it's like, I don't look at it because then I assure everybody, and I grew up.
[00:14:32] Listen to the people at Merrill Lynch, the people at every financial institution say this is going to come back. It's not like this is a war where, you know, we're, we're not investing in mom and pop business, so just relax. It's okay. Don't look at that stuff.
[00:14:46] Leveraging what you have control over
[00:14:46] Erich Wenzel: So, yeah, my, my question here would be, how do we, you know, what you're really getting at is this is like old school human software, you know, survival mechanisms at play here.
[00:14:57] And it's just using new new vehicles to strike those survival mechanisms basically, you know, using food, water, and then economics as the vehicles for people to panic and look at something. And. When I look at that as we need to basically interrupt that cycle of survival panic and say, okay, how do we think long term?
[00:15:20] Like how do we think three, four, five, even six months from now so that you're aiming at the best possible outcome, not thinking about the worst.
[00:15:30] Michael Greenberg: Well, it comes, it comes from that old serenity prayer. You know, I have to realize what I, what I have any power over. I have any control over and what I don't.
[00:15:38] All right. I have control over if I'm going to walk out of the house today. And you know, the reason why they closed all the bars and restaurants in Illinois was because people wouldn't control themselves and spread this infection. So I have control over that. I have no control over the government, the stock market, and the virus.
So I'm not going to worry about those things. I have no control over it. What I can control is myself and plan for the future and learn lessons from this and realize, you know what, I got a plan for our plan for the next virus. I have to be somehow prepared emotionally and mentally and, and spiritually. It comes down to one thing to realize that I am powerless in the face of the universe. Things will happen and try to learn this lesson over and over again.
And 10 years ago, I had prostate cancer, and I'm fine, and it was caught very early for those people who are listening, I'm not going to be dying next week.
And, and I got depressed for about two days until I turned to my wife as if, you know, the universe is trying to teach me something. You know, this, the fear is I'm out. I'm not in control. And if this can happen one day, something worse, something's going to happen. I'm going to die. I'm going to have a stroke or a heart attack.
I have no control over those things. So I can either accept at this moment that I don't have control over these things. And stop worrying about them and be happy like the guy jumping off the skyscraper, or I can fret about the rest of my life. I have chosen to practice my life in the here and now.
[00:17:07] And I think I gave you my office, a little coin I made up, says, now if I didn't, next time you come in, I'll give it to you. But, when you're in this situation of what's going on, ask yourself what's happening now. Right now I'm sitting in a comfortably warm home in clothing, this food in my belly. I am not sick.
[00:17:23] I don't have a fever. I have some resources in the bank. I have a loving wife and a great dog and a wonderful family. A wonderful kid. It's okay. I'm doing fine right now, you know? But, but if I get in my head, worry about stuff I can't control, I'm going to be miserable and upset and find ways to, to, to kill that pain.
[00:17:42] You know, whether it be, you know, stupid behavior or over eating or drinking or drugs or whatever, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't, they don't want those feelings. So we try to kill them. It's okay. It's okay to feel free fall for a while and it's okay to feel scared, but just do a reality check.
[00:17:58] Making an impact in your community
[00:17:58] Erich Wenzel: I think that's a really good point.
[00:17:59] And again, you're bringing it back to yourself, which I think is really important in this scenario because everyone's kind of looking towards the experts, you know, the all encompassing day. that are, you know, either creating vaccines or testing drugs and telling us information or graphing things, or, you know, all of that, just information overload.
[00:18:19] And that's great, but I don't think that's the right way to look at this right now because at this point it's, we're all in it and we have to kind of focus on our own little sphere of influences and how do we make the biggest impact for what we can as the, as the world just exists with this thing.
[00:18:34] You know? And I think you're really hitting on really important parts of this.
[00:18:39] Michael Greenberg: Yeah. It's what I, what I can do and what I can do is, like I said, is I can call people, I can help my neighbors, one of my friends, in Chicago, put on Facebook that this is where he lives. And if anybody, any, you know, single parents or of your young, young parent kids at home.
[00:18:55] Don't want to leave and don't want to go shopping. He'll get their groceries and deliver it to them. I mean, little acts of kindness, you can do those things. You can go to the grocery store right now when you need food and buy what you need and not buy more than you need so that you think about the other guy.
[00:19:10] These tiny little acts that kinds of, one of the things I put in my post, which I love to tell people to do it, you know, if you have nothing that you can think of to do and you're all alone and there's nobody to do a jigsaw puzzle with or play Scrabble with and you're sick of TV and you've seen every movie in the universe and you're bored.
[00:19:26] Ghetto big white plastic garbage bag and a pair of gloves. Put them on, go outside and clean up all the trash on your block. It's amazing how that gets you out of your head. I do that by the way, under non-crisis situations. My wife goes crazy. She hates it because I'll get out of my car and go, it'd be a, you know, go to the food store and I'll either be returning carts that aren't mine just because they're there or picking a path that's not mine and throwing it in the garbage.
[00:19:52] And she goes, why do you do that? I go, cause it's there. It just makes me feel better. And my father in laws taught me that years ago we used to, I'd see him, we'd go to the restaurant, I take him to the men's room and he'd be done. He'd wash his hands and he wiped the sink, including the sink next to his from water.
[00:20:07] He didn't leave there. And I w I watched him do that and then pick up paper towels that were in his, on the floor. And I got it. I asked him, you said it. He said, it just makes me happy to clean up the area for the next guy that the rule is, we kind of remember, we're all in this together, Eric, you know, this is where nobody's really isolated.
[00:20:27] If you think about it, you may feel physically isolated. You don't have to be, you can go online. I've been, I've been gathering groups of friends together. We've been going on zoom. I, you know, I love it that I, that. That me at the age of 71 and figure out how to use zoom and, and going out ahead and having chats and talking.
[00:20:44] And I talked to one of the guys in my improv team today and said, you know, how can we do something online with a zoom type of thing where we can put together. A virtual improv show with all of us being in our own places and inviting people to the show. I'd like if somebody has an idea, I'd like to know because we'd like to be able to do that and we can do like scenes even though we're not in the same room and just make, make people happy with your humor, because for the next few weeks, our improv theaters closed down when we need some humorous.
[00:21:12] But just think of these creative thoughts, not what I can do for myself. What I can do for others. That's the secret. The more I do for me, the lousier I feel there might be for others, the happier I am.
[00:21:24] Erich Wenzel: Absolutely. I mean, I couldn't agree more with that. And, and you know, just to kind of update you on, on things here, like as feeding curiosity has evolved and things like that, and I have evolved, one of the core axioms that I've kind of put in place, at least at the personal level, was this idea of using knowledge with responsibility.
[00:21:41] And that's you're hitting on that huge thing for me because I feel like. We can learn things, but there's also a sense of responsibility to do better by that internal compass of responsibility. It's understanding that you may have a good, but you can always leave the world a little bit better than the way we found it.
[00:21:59] And why shouldn't we just try it as the very least? You know, even if we can't, like even if the amount that I can change the world is insignificant, the ripple effect, that compound, you know, by you, you know, picking up like a cart for someone at a grocery store makes it that much less crazy for the cart pusher who's been running around, you know, for the last six hours or something like that.
[00:22:22]Especially in this scenario where everyone is going crazy at the grocery store and there's insane lines and all of that stuff. And you know. I do think though, all those things go a long, long way.
[00:22:32] Michael Greenberg: And there's little things that you can do. My wife had this great idea years ago, and when we're out, instead of people are homeless on the streets and they need food instead of giving them money, her ideas to give them food gift certificates, like Donald's $5 gift certificate.
[00:22:47] And, and you know that, that eliminates the fact that you say, Oh, they're going to use the money to buy alcohol or drugs, or they can, here's food. Right? I mean, McDonald's may not be the best, greatest, healthiest food in the world, but it is food. So, think of creative ways you can help your brothers and sisters on this planet.
[00:23:03] Watch how peaceful you get. That's my, that's my point. And, and I, and, and you know the news media too. I blame them. except that I re there's a quote there long before you were around on this planet, Eric, there's a guy named Bishop Bishop Fulton Sheen and, and, and it, or he had a TV and radio show and I read one of his favorite quotes that I love is like, he used to despair when he read the newspapers until you realize the newspapers only print the exceptions can all spare when the newspapers print.
[00:23:31] The good news. As the exception. So, but I would like somebody, if there's somebody out there with any connections to any TV news producers or people talk to them and, and have them do segments on good things happening now, there's so many good things. You know, we want to talk about how to make America great.
[00:23:50] Well, I'm not going to talk politics that my own feeling actually I'm, and that we should isolate Washington, throw it out and start over again with all politicians because none of them are going there really. Serve. They're going there as, as, as careers. They've lost the sense of they're there to serve us.
[00:24:07] And, and both Republicans and Democrats are just spending their time calling them and trying to punish the other side. It's like, that's ridiculous. We have problems here. Go fix them. Stop worrying about just beating each other up. you know, it's crazy, but I, but I'd like to, I would really like to see the media every day, have a segment.
[00:24:26] If you really want to make America great folks, take care of your neighbors. Knock on their doors, see how they're doing. Be kind to people. Say hi to everybody you see on the street. Open doors when you go to a restaurant if you can afford to go to a restaurant and tip the servers, more money than you're tipping them now because they need it because they're struggling.
[00:24:45]Do, a couple of dollars here and there. It makes a difference in people's lives and, and the problem that we, all of us humans have this. Then the self centered selfishness that we all know about it, and at least admit it. Me too. I'm the same way. Listen, I'm not preaching like I'm some Saint here.
[00:25:02] The same. I do the same bullshit everybody else does. Okay. But I've learned to kind of catch myself from time to time and maybe do a few things that aren't like to herd, you know, not following the herd and, and it's like, it's time to wake up and realize that, this, this world could be an amazing place if we just will do.
[00:25:22] A couple of kind acts a day. That's all.
[00:25:24] Awareness, Selfishness, Self-Centeredness
[00:25:24] Erich Wenzel: I think you're really hitting on something for me too, because I don't know if you've heard of him before, but, Tony deMello. He was a priest and it's like,
[00:25:33] Michael Greenberg: yes, I know who he is.
[00:25:35] Erich Wenzel: He wrote a book called awareness, and I read it last year and it was probably the most impactful book I've ever read in my life.
[00:25:41] Helped me unpack many, many things. And in one of the sections of that book, he talked about this. You know, this human trait of selfishness that almost in any act you do, even if it is considered selfless, like, you know, giving to charity, it still makes you feel good. And so that's why you do it. So it's still selfish and to some degree it just also has positive benefits to it.
[00:26:01] And it's kinda one of these things that really slapped me across the face and I was like, Oh, wow. You know, almost to any degree things you do make you feel good, so you're going to keep doing them. and it's important to note that even if you are. Like we all can be selfish to some degree, but I think the differentiator is being in service of others.
[00:26:22] And you as a doctor, you know, you've had to take the oath to do no harm. I know it's much longer than that, but still, I think it's really hitting on that core ethos of just trying to do as much good as possible across the board.
[00:26:37] Michael Greenberg: Well, let me give, let me, let me give you a differential between words, cause I also am a, I do lots of stuff.
[00:26:42] I'm also a writer. There's a big distinction between selfishness and self-centeredness. It is okay to be selfish. I have to take care of myself. So for instance, I have to say, gee, I have to work out today. I'm sorry, I can't be on the phone helping everybody with their problems.
[00:26:57] I have to eat after a workout. I have to sleep, take care of my family. I have to be somewhat selfish so I can be there for other people. But self-centeredness is when I think the world revolves around me and I expect everyone to behave a certain way and I want to manipulate them to behave a certain way that gives me what I want.
[00:27:15] Self-centeredness is wrong. Some selfishness is healthy. You have to take care of yourself as you know, there are doctors, for instance, that are working in terrible conditions that could be in a hospital 24/7 no, they have to go home and go to sleep. No, they have to eat. You know, I talk to patients all the time who have family members who are very ill and terminally ill and dying, and I tell them, as a caretaker, if you don't take care of yourself, you won't be there for the person you're taking care of.
[00:27:44] Yeah. So selfish is okay at times. Self-centeredness is not.
[00:27:49] Giving away unused items
[00:27:49] Erich Wenzel: That's one of the things I keep thinking about and this time too, with everything being upheaval and stuff, I think right now is a really good time to focus on things that normally we don't focus on. Like getting more sleep, eating a little bit better, like we can't go out and drink and things like that all as much.
[00:28:03] And so right now is a perfect time to experiment with things that you've always been putting off because our lives are so fast and busy that in this intentional slow down, you can be more conscientious of the choices we're making.
[00:28:16] Michael Greenberg: Yeah you want to do something cool, go, go in your closet and take out all the clothes you haven't worn in five years and go give them to Goodwill.
[00:28:27] We, we moved about my, my wife is a pretty smart lady and she decided that we didn't want to, we've been in our house, our old house for four years and we have 40 years worth of garbage and Laos and crap. And so we moved, cause she said, I don't want to be here when we're old and can't use stairs. So we moved into the place of the first floor master.
[00:28:44] We got rid of about 60% of our crap. Wow. And our kids wanted us to, cause they said we don't want to deal with this someday after you die. And there was so happy. We have closets that are half empty. We don't have, we got. I have a stack of Goodwills and we gave a lot of stuff away. We had furniture that nobody wanted to buy.
[00:29:03] It was great furniture. So I gave it away on Facebook marketplace. I am so much happier with less and every, you know, stuff that I don't use and I don't where somebody else can use. So try that. If you want to get happy, go in your closet. Say Erich and I bet you have 20 pieces of clothing that you don't wear and you and somebody can use them.
[00:29:23] I promise you, watch how happy you get when you do that.
[00:29:26] Living with less
[00:29:26] Erich Wenzel: I'm laughing too, because I know, I know for a fact there's definitely a whole drawer full of stuff that I just haven't opened, you know, cause it's just when you're in your life, you're just kind of gravitate toward the things that you gravitate towards.
[00:29:35] And a lot of it gets forgotten, you know, 80% of it probably. and I think right now too, is if you, if you think about the scenario learning from moderation, as you said, America's the most materialistic culture we have in the world today. I think right now it's a harsh lesson to be learned. For those of us for moderation, like personally, I follow intermittent fasting, so if moderation is pretty common for my frame of reference, because I do believe in intermittent fasting and stoic philosophy and things like that, that kind of bake in being a beggar for a day or, surviving on the simplest meals.
[00:30:11] I self inoculate, basically living like a poor person almost, even though I don't have to wear, I like buy cans of chili and use that for lunches or something like that and I don't try not to eat a whole bunch because of exactly reasons like this, so that if things do go sideways and I can't foresee them happening, they don't affect me.
[00:30:33] It is really the way I think about that because I know what it's like and it's not like no matter what level I live at, I don't need to feel like I have to live a certain way or have a certain thing to be fulfilled.
[00:30:44] Michael Greenberg: Well, the life experience that I have, and, and, and I went through the whole other phases that everybody goes through.
I see these young doctors, and they're just so into buying, you know, really nice watches. And I went to that in my life too when I was younger, but I came to realize it's, I like stuff. Yeah, let's, let's be honest. We all like stuff. It's okay to have nice stuff, but stuff never makes me happy. It didn't matter.
Stuff never made me truly happy. As soon as I got something, it was like about a month later, it's like, Oh, well this isn't really making me happy. I need something else, or I need something different. And so you ask yourself what in life makes you happy? And to me it really, it comes down to what really makes me happy is when I do something nice for somebody else.
[00:31:30] Yeah. And that that's the truth. And people, you know, maybe young people will, will, you know, scoff the data. Say now these guys for bullshit. But that's what I really learned in life.
[00:31:40] Picking up the phone
[00:31:40] Picking up the phone to pick the phone today and calling people. I haven't talked to them awhile and hearing their response like, Oh man, thank you.
[00:31:47] I so needed their call. I feel so alone. I feel great. I mean, the difference, I'm just watching the difference in my wife who watches T watching the news a lot, and she's just worrying in her head, and I go, go call people. But she's, she's walking around and, and she's burst into tears spontaneously a couple of times and I'm walking on happy, like, yeah.
[00:32:07] Hey, great. We have a virus and I don't really care. I mean, I care, but I don't care because I can't do anything about it. And, but, but I, but I can do the things that I'm doing. I, it's so ridiculously simple. The great truths are always simple, like love one another. But Nope. Nobody seems to understand. And that is that it's so basic.
[00:32:27] Erich Wenzel: Well, it's because the simple things, they don't, they're so simple that you don't think they actually work, you know, and you think the solution has to be complex, right?
[00:32:37] Michael Greenberg: I've got a circle of guys that I hang out with and we, we study spiritual texts and we're really, really close to them.
[00:32:45] Brothers and call each other up all the time. When we're in trouble and in our heads, and one of my friends at every time I call him, his advice is don't bleed until your shot.
[00:32:56] I call, I call them up and I go like, this is going to happen. Nothing. Don't play until you shoot Michael. And if I call my friend Tommy, you, I've got a problem.
[00:33:03] He says, go find someone to help those two pieces of advice or two pieces of advice I can live by because we're all working, or we study a book called the course in miracles. What we're all looking for is inner peace. You know, and, and most people don't have it. And, and the thing is that we use a mnemonic of PTFD and.
[00:33:21] P is peace of mind. Okay? It's your birthright. You were given peace of mind as a kid. No one can take it away from you, but you give it away freely to the guy who cuts you off in traffic. So the person who you know cuts in front of you in line to your spouse or your significant other when they, when you're reading and they say, start out the garbage now.
[00:33:40] So first of all, you give it away. T is the teacher. These people are your teachers. They're going to teach you where inside you need to let go so you can keep your peace of mind is forgiveness. Forgive everybody, everything all the time. All right? I had a gentleman come into my office the other day and he was really angry because we were five people in an exam room with the virus, and he stormed out and he came back and he asked, he said, Oh my God, that was so silly of me.
[00:34:06] I was so stupid. He said, so will you forgive me? I said, I've already forgiven you the minute you walked out of the door. I got that. You were just scared and it was fine with me and he just felt so good. All right. And D are demands outrageous demands. If someone asks you to jump off of a building, don't do it. But if someone says, Hey, would you move?
[00:34:23] You move your chair over it, move your car, but just do it. You know, just do it to keep your peace of mind rather than getting upset and isn't peace of mind Erich, with everyone's looking for
[00:34:32] Erich Wenzel: absolutely.
[00:34:32] Michael Greenberg: It's a secret. There's a sacred, don't give it away at something. When somebody is upsetting you, just forgive them.
[00:34:41] Let it go. Stay in your mind. Stay in the moment. These are such simple things, but there are things that I, I forget all the time. By the way, I am not a master at this. You know, maybe, and maybe Tony DeMello is, maybe you think guys who write books are, but the reason why you guys write books are because they know they're not masters at it and they're just kind of writing books to, you know, get it out, up to go get it out there on paper.
[00:35:03] Erich Wenzel: They're trying to organize their own thoughts.
[00:35:05] Michael Greenberg: Exactly. You know, if you don't, if you don't think Jesus or Buddhists use four letter words and they stub their toes, you're out of your mind. You know,
[00:35:15] Erich Wenzel: it's a fun image. We're all,
[00:35:16] Michael Greenberg: we're all, we're all, we're all human. You know, we're all human and, and, and Zorba.
[00:35:21] But Nick, you know, Zorba the Greek Cotsen and has talked about living the full catastrophe of life. So the foot, this is the part of the foot. This virus is part of the full catastrophe of life. Feel your human feelings. Feel them, share them, get out there and let them out. But the gospel of Thomas says, what you bring out of yourself from the inside, that is what will save you.
[00:35:41] What you don't bring out of yourself inside the dead is all destroyed. You get them out there, help people, and I promise you, you will get, well, I'll get through this, but the question is you're going to get to this happier. That's my, that's the bottom line. Yeah.
[00:35:53] Erich Wenzel: That's so good. It reminds me of another quote I've been seeing around.
[00:35:56] It's, it's like, how do you, you know, deal with these uncertain times, it's, you know, you can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
[00:36:04] Michael Greenberg: Exactly. Exactly. And it doesn't, you think, final comment maybe, don't you think it's insane that the sales of Corona beer dropped 45% when this happened? Like how crazy are we.
[00:36:16] Erich Wenzel: Just because it has a name
[00:36:18] Michael Greenberg: that's because it has a name. Oh my God. You know, it's like we're walking around either asleep or crazy. And what we kind of need I don't, I mean, I can talk only from my point of view. I think that our governor in Illinois has done an amazing job. I think that he's an amazing job as a leader in standing up there and calling, calling people and telling the truth.
[00:36:38] I don't think the federal government has done very well at all. So we need to be, we need to create our own leadership. You have leadership within your family, within your business, within your friends. You can express these thoughts and keep people calm by just talking to them about it. Every one, every one of us is a hero.
[00:36:54] And every one of us as a leader may not be at a national level, but she can be a hero with your kids or with your friends or with my patients. just by being there for them. The one of my spiritual teachers for a long time, as I said, the greatest gift we give to each other is the quality of our presence.
[00:37:12] So just be there. That's all just I think going to do is show up and listen to your friends and be there for your family. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Let your feelings out and it helps them so much and it helps you to.
[00:37:23] Erich Wenzel: I see. Yes. I couldn't agree anymore. Like this whole scenario is just kind of made me appreciate, honestly, this, this crazy thing that is this podcast of having so many people now across the world and mainly the United States, but really globally, that I can reach out to and just kinda check in and make sure that they're doing okay.
[00:37:42] And then extending that beyond even that is just my friends and family and just trying to be this, this nexus point for other people so that they can. You know, take a deep breath and be like, all right, you know, we're going to get through this together. It's like. You know, if I, sometimes I was thinking about it like before we started talking, is this like if I could get all these awesome people that I've interviewed and talked to in the same room, I was like, that would be the coolest conversation.
[00:38:05] Like a dinner party ever.
[00:38:08] Michael Greenberg: But you can't have more. You can't have more than 10 people in a room.
[00:38:11] Erich Wenzel: Not right now after this is all over.
[00:38:14] Michael Greenberg: Yeah. You probably find, you know what? If you've got all of us in a room and we all tell the truth, you'd probably find that most of us are just the same old human jerks that everybody else is.
[00:38:25] Learning to pause
[00:38:25] It just had some more life experience that we're able to talk about a little bit more. I don't think we're any more evolved, like people say, are awake. Or just more aware to me this, this has been a lifetime of spiritual work, and all. The only difference is the difference between me as a young man who had a lot of anger, a lot of issues like that, and me as an older guy. I've learned to pause.
[00:38:48] I would have to pause before I let that first thought out of my head. And you know, the first thoughts always wrong. And the first thought ego will just show up and want to attack or do something. And I've learned to wait and say nothing wrong. I know theater experience has done a lot for me, especially doing improv.
[00:39:05] I've learned in a scene I always want to control the scene or direct it, which is what I want to do in life. And I've just learned that when I'm about to enter a scene, whatever idea I have, throw it out. And wait 10 seconds and then the great idea shows up, which really makes us scene. But if I always go with my first instinct, it's, it's usually crap, you know?
[00:39:25] So you get that with age, you get a two second pause that you can not let your mouth open up and, and let ego flow out. You can wait for your heart to speak. I really appreciate that.
[00:39:39] Erich Wenzel: I really appreciate that because it's a thing. I think it's something that we all could learn from and use a lot more.
[00:39:47] And part of doing this was to kind of just become a listener, right? Like we could all listen to ourselves or talk forever and monologue basically, and learning to exercise that listening muscle and be like, let me just learn from this other person for a bit.
[00:40:02] Michael Greenberg: why do you think mother nature gave us two ears and one mouth?
[00:40:05] So we should listen twice as much as we talk.
[00:40:10] Erich Wenzel: It's so poetic.
[00:40:13] Michael Greenberg: I didn't make any, by the way, all this stuff, I didn't make any of this shit up. You know? This is all stuff that none of this is original. It's all stuff I was taught and stuff. I've written stuff I've listened to, but just seems to make sense to me.
[00:40:25]Erich Wenzel: [00:40:25] I love it.
[00:40:26] We're all learning from everyone. There's really no such thing as completely unique because there's always someone else that may have thought a thought before had the same idea, but it's just a matter of how you mix, your things that resonate with you together.
[00:40:37] You know, your own, you need a tint of paint, so to speak. We're all our own unique mixtures. Just like.
[00:40:44] Michael Greenberg: [00:40:44] You've got to speak out to stay awake and listen. I was in San Francisco once and I was much younger going between two very important cause I had very important business meetings and as I was hustling down the street, there was a drunk sitting on the street by typical out of a Hollywood movie with a bottle of something in a Brown paper bag.
[00:40:59] And I heard him say slur as I went by. He said, you know a problem with you, you're in too much of a hurry. And I thought, that guy's right. And I sat down on the curb and had about a 30 minute conversation with a guy who was totally blitzed out of his mind, and it made more sense to me than what a lot of other people were saying is everything we need is right around us.
[00:41:21] If you just open your eyes. And now everything we needed, it's an, it's in music, it's in movies, it's in books. Seriously, the wisdom is there just pay attention, get out of your head and look around at the beauty and this world. There is, there is so much beauty here, and I know people will say, yeah, right.
[00:41:41] There's so much violence and hatred and anger. Yeah. Because those are the people who forgot who they are. But if you really look beyond that, you will find a world that is so beautiful and so loving and so full of wonderful people. We're, we're there to help. Instead of getting angry or upset with something, if you just ask people for help instead of being angry with them, people really want to help in this place.
[00:42:04] I really believe in the goodness of men, men and women, you know, I don't want to be sexist here. My goodness of people. We are basically good at the core. Some of us have just, we're just proved, forgot who we are and it's our job to forgive them and remind them.
[00:42:18] This may not be working but how do you fix it?
[00:42:18]Erich Wenzel: And I think to that point too it's so much easier to say why something is broken or why it's bad, but it's much more productive to my view, to look at something and say.
[00:42:31] This may be broken, but here are a group of people that are trying to make it a little bit better. You know, maybe it doesn't fix the problem completely, but they're trying to move the needle, however little that is,
[00:42:42] Michael Greenberg: right. Instead of saying, this is broken, instead of just claiming that it's broken, ask the question, how can we fix it?
[00:42:50] You know, how can we solve this problem in any situation? Whether it's a family, whether it's a family situation, emotional situation, a business situation. Instead of complaining, instead of saying to say, okay, here's the problem. How do we fix it? How do we work together to fix it? And, and magic happens that we need him in, in improv, we call it, yes anding, you just agree.
[00:43:09] You don't say no to anything. When you're on stage and you're in Hawaii and your partners to the scene partner wants to screw with you and says, Hey, look at those polar bears. You don't ruin the scene by saying, this is Hawaii jerk. They're not photos. You say, wow, look at them. They're really hot, man. And look at them.
[00:43:23] And there'd be kids, maybe if we'd had them last, we can take them, you know, and it gets really silly, but, but when you yes, and things. Things work, everybody goes out there and takes improv classes now.
[00:43:35] The power of comedy
[00:43:35] Erich Wenzel: I was gonna say, I think honestly one of, in one of these scenarios, like finding the silver lining and especially something like improv and just jokes in general cut through a lot of this, this what is going on right now, this uncertain times and being able to step back from our situation and kind of laugh at it, right?
[00:43:52] Like it cuts through all the tension and I think having something like that that's an outlet is really, really important.
[00:43:58] Michael Greenberg: Do you know there was humor in concentration camps in world war two? There were, there was humor among the inmates, believe it or not. Yeah, maybe we wouldn't find it very fun today, but people survived through humor, laughing at the humor at this situation, and we have to, we have to laugh at this too.
[00:44:15] So you know, I laugh at every time. Every time one of our politicians opens their mouth, I go, really? I find it funny. Yeah.
[00:44:24] We are all flawed
[00:44:24] Erich Wenzel: I think honestly, in this scenario of all scenarios, it really just shows that how much our elected officials are just like me or you, they don't know they have any special access to information or reactionary things.
[00:44:37] They are just trying to do the best that they can with the information at play. So I think, I think it shows just the limitation just to, just to how I want, I don't really want to say flawed because it sounds a little worse than it should be, but that's. Kind of the first one that pops to my mind.
[00:44:55] Michael Greenberg: Just just say human.
[00:44:57] Yeah. We're just human. And by nature and nature, human beings are flawed. But here's the difference. You know where the word sin comes from?
[00:45:05] Erich Wenzel: I actually don't.
[00:45:06] Michael Greenberg: It comes from archery. It means you miss the, just like the word love in tennis, you know, it means zero. Well, it comes from the French look egg. The zero was an egg shaped symbol.
[00:45:17] So you know, that's where it comes from. Sin comes from archery. When you miss the bullseye, the the, the guide down by the target would yell sin, you missed. And so every time you do something in life that you miss the Mark, think of it in this way. It's an opportunity to learn how to do it better.
[00:45:32] Next time. We're all gonna make mistakes. We're all, we're all learning on this planet. Nobody's perfect. I have news for it. Nobody. And maybe me, but no, no, no. Nobody's perfect. And so every time something happens. it's like, wow, I get to choose. Maybe I get to choose better or choose a different way or choose a different way of looking at it.
[00:45:55] You know, that phrase in the Bible, turn the other cheek doesn't mean that somebody beat you up on the other side of your face. It means if you're looking at somebody from a certain point of view, like that guy's an idiot, and you turn from another look at them from another point of view. The guy's not an idiot.
[00:46:10] Fearful. He's acting out of fear. He's acting out of something else. And you can, you can relate to them. Suddenly when you look at them from another point of view, when you turn the other cheek, you know, and so sin is like, yeah, okay, I made a poor choice here. I'm going to ask for forgiveness and I'm going to maybe learn better for next time.
[00:46:28] Right? Maybe I'll keep my mouth shut next time. And sometimes I've gotten to situations where it's costing me money. And one of my student teachers is, that's just tuition. You know? That's just tuition, so, so just hold on and live long enough. And if you stay wider enough awake and you realize these things, you can actually end up pretty happy in this lifetime.
[00:46:50] Failure and Labels
[00:46:50] Erich Wenzel: There reminds me of two things here. One is, if it's basically failure is one word that reminds you of it, like changing a relationship to it. And then the other one is labels. We, you know, being finite beings, we have to categorize and label things. And a lot of those fears and sinning for that matter.
[00:47:09] It comes through, you know, false labeling or, or just being not comfortable with failing, you know, pointing the blame for other people. Like you were saying earlier with the economic side of it, don't look at your bank account or your 401k is, or whatever it is, where you have money invested in places like you're going to blame why it's going sideways right now.
[00:47:28] Whereas. I got on the flip side of that, we, if you invested in the stock market and everything was going great, you'd be like, look at how good I am. But. As soon as it goes bad, you blame other people for why it's or other events, why it goes sideways.
[00:47:41] Michael Greenberg: Well, yeah. Two thoughts there. Number one is a friend of mine, his name is Steve Feldman and Steve's a dermatologist, and he's written a book, I think, I forget the name, I think it's called compartments or something, but basically the idea is that dermatologists used to say that a general practitioner should not be treating skin diseases because they do a miserable job. Because we will see all their failures in our offices. But Steve says, wait a minute, you're sitting in your own little office. You don't see all the successes that are going on. You only see the failures. So you get a pop out of your little compartment and look around and pick a view of the world and see what it's really like.
[00:48:14] We make judgments based upon what we see, but we don't see the whole picture. Yes, we've gotta get out of your own little space, and do that. So I think that that's really, really important. Also. and I forgot the second thing I was going to say, it must not have been that important. It'll come to that. That's the trouble when you're over 20 you forget stuff.
[00:48:34] Over generalizing experiences
[00:48:34]Erich Wenzel: One of the things I've thought about lately is this, this idea that we forget that the possible experiences one could have is not our own. We inadvertently. Over generalize to say that how I've experienced one thing means that's how the entire world usually experiences it.
[00:48:52] And I think in this scenario, again, even though the entire world is experiencing this, this pandemic, it's unfair to treat it as a blanketed situation and coming at it with more compassion or just understanding that your experience for any given situation is not, is only a tiny, tiny, tiny slice of the total possible available experiences. You know, and I'm sure you have a lot to say on this because it just sounds like you would, you would think about this sort of thing.
[00:49:21] Michael Greenberg: Oh, I do. Well, you know, your experience is unique and nobody, I, I love in life when people say things like, Oh, I don't love it. But people say things like, they'll go up to a friend who's lost a parent and they have lost a parent.
[00:49:35] They'll say, Oh, I know how you feel. No, you don't. You don't know how anybody feels. You have no clue what's going on inside of anybody. That's the first thing, but we presume that we do. Like I know what they're thinking. They must be thinking like me because they look like me. That is so wrong, and that will take you down.
[00:49:52] Such a bad pathway. Share your experience. First of all, it's hard to share experiences. You can share knowledge. You can't share an experience because it's like you can't describe the smell of a Rose to someone who's never smelled money. Or as my spiritual teachers say, you can't describe an orgasm to someone who's never had one, but we don't want to put that name when we get to it anyway.
[00:50:15] You can never praise. Never presume that you know what the other guy is feeling or experiencing. Ask them. You know, and if they're in touch with themselves, they'll tell you, I'm experiencing fear. I know like this, or I don't like that, and listen to them, you know? And, and once I, I was thinking about the labels who always want to look back and say, well, I was on the label people, we want to put people in categories.
[00:50:37] The mind wants to figure it out and you can't, what's you're really doing? Labeling is the highest form of projection. When you label somebody to start, remember the spiritual laws, what you like and don't like about other people is something you like and don't like about yourself that you're putting out there and being human.
[00:50:55] And then I know we're going to get people saying like, well, wait, I don't lie. And I don't know. I don't. I say, yeah, right. No, you've never lied in your life to your parents that you knew when you were young or you never took something that wasn't yours. You know? So it's like, and if even if you didn't like, I don't, I've never killed anybody.
[00:51:13] You know, but I don't like the fact that I'm human and that I could under the right circumstances. I don't like that. I'd like to pretend that I am just perfect and under a situation of world war II, I would hide Jews in my attic and not worry about it. Of course, I'm Jewish, I pride myself, but, but I don't know what I would do.
[00:51:34] I have no clue what I would do under that situation. And I don't like that. I don't like the fact that I'm human and I'm, I might be, I might, you know. Just become a trader. Who knows? And the thing about experiences, it's all our experiences are unique, but there aren't shared experiences that you can have.
[00:51:53] Okay? You can't win. When you go and you call your friend up today and you talk about how you feel and they say, Oh my God, I feel the same way. All of a sudden there is a shared experience and a bonding and what that shared experience does, it basically ends the existential loneliness all of us feel.
[00:52:13] I don't care how close you are to your friends, your spouse, your parents. We still feel alone and isolated. Nobody gets us 100% but you can get closer to that. When you do share your feelings and you sit in a group therapy meeting, when people sit in 12 step meetings, when you just call your friends and they talk, they share their life and other people relate to it.
[00:52:36] That's healing. That's where healing comes in. So that to me is about experiences. Share them as best you can.
[00:52:45] Deeper Experiences
[00:52:45]Erich Wenzel: I experienced this for myself. It's really powerful because it's, it's through experiences that we understand the world, right? It's like they're the sum total of everybody around. We get to paint this picture and the story of the entire thing, you know, it's humanity is a collection of individuals and no matter, and how the fabric of those individuals come together is what makes.
[00:53:09] The humanity, what it is.
[00:53:11] Michael Greenberg: Right? And I thought, if I can make a suggestion here too, like I guess, I don't know if I told you, but I go, I go to Paris every year and I teach at one of the medical schools. And to me it's like, I think I'm trans-nation, but I should have been born in France. I would love to move to Paris.
[00:53:26] It's my favorite place there. And one of the favorite things that I'd like to go see is as a series of tapestries. It's called the lady and the unicorn. Everybody's seen these images on Christmas cards. I know. If you go look it up, the lady and the unicorn, you'll say, Oh yeah, I recognize that. Okay, and they're the first five tapestries are about the five senses, sight, sight, sound, taste, touch, and they're beautiful.
[00:53:50] Things are done in the 15 hundreds I live with the 14 hundreds then there's a bigger tapestry. And the lady is taking off a necklace and putting it into a jewel case and a bullet in French. It says, I'm also Daisy, or it's my only desire. And what it represents is moving beyond the five senses into that level of, I don't know how to describe it, but, but beyond what you can see here and taste what you can feel.
[00:54:17]Oh, you can't trust your senses for experiences. You have to go beyond those senses and look at what's beyond that. Those five senses into what, what your, what emotion is there, or what feeling is there? And, and, and I know that. When I'm sitting in a room with these guys who are my brothers and we're really connecting, all of us describe this feeling that we just feel this, this joy and bliss around our hearts.
[00:54:43] Like you really feel like brothers and we're really connected, and that's nothing that you can sense with five senses. So the thing is, as you do move to the world, look for those experiences that are beyond what you can say, you know? And it gets fun after a while when you, you have, you know, you get weird and you have this intuition and, and, and.
[00:55:04] No, three of you stayed the same thing at the same time. That's what happened. That's what happens in improv. We developed a group mind and the audience is astonished when we're doing something on stage and it's a guessing game and it's the hardest thing to guess, and one of us just pulls it out of their mind because we heard it.
[00:55:19] I mean, from one of our partners, although they never said it. That's what those are the kinds of experiences of connectedness that, that make you say there's, there's more here than just the material world.
[00:55:29] Erich Wenzel: There's a certain ineffability about human experience that it defies scientific understanding or some sort of logical explanation.
[00:55:40]For lack of a better term, it just is. And you just have to, you know, take it for what? Like what it made you feel right. Like a certain level of bliss or connectedness that you never thought you would ever be possible. Like connecting with someone deeply. When you say it's like. You might just meet someone.
[00:55:57] It's like, I feel like we've always known each other. That said that sentence that people say, it's like, those are really important words or really important feelings to kind of hone in on and be like, okay, that person needs to stay around. You know?
[00:56:10] Deeper questions and being humble
[00:56:10] Michael Greenberg: Well, that's, that's how I met my wife. Yeah, I mean, I was in my first year of college.
[00:56:15] She was in the last year of high school and I was fixed up on a blind date, and I walked into her parents' apartment. I looked at her from about 20 feet away and the earth ship that I knew could, she was going to be the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with, and this April, it's going to be 50 years of marriage.
[00:56:28] So it's like, I guess I was right. Thank you. But something shifted. I knew it. It was, there was knowledge, it's like. in James and Highlands, Robert Heinlein's, stranger in a strange land, they use the word grokking. You grok it, you know it, which means you get it. It's beyond knowing it. You, you, it's some, some deeper thing of just having it.
[00:56:55] All right. We've been talking about human life, and the truth is we don't even know what that is. We don't know what life is. You know, we're walking around, we're in a human body. It's just the doctors and people all the time. Well, okay, we've been with people who died, and one moment there's a human being there and there's light and they're alive, and the next moment they're not.
[00:57:14] And what is it in that human body that is not there now? And people start to sweat and they go, I don't know. And the truth is we don't, we don't really know what life is. You know, we know what the result is or what we're seeing or feeling. But as you can, you have to ask somebody truly what life is. It's not electrical impulses going through this body.
[00:57:34] Cause we can just plug people in the socket, keep them alive. So, so if you really, really want to get nervous, just, just, I, if I wanted to get nervous, I'd do two things. I look up at the sky and I go, this goes on infinitely and my mind gets blown, or I say, so say what? What is it that 's inside of this body, which is really made of dirt and the planet anyway, that's alive and I don't know.
[00:57:59] So I can talk about labor experience to all I want, but it humbles me. And we need to walk around humbly in the face of, we really don't know anything. We don't know who we are. We don't know what we're doing here. We don't know where we are. And when you get to that level of humility, then life gets really interesting.
[00:58:16] I would invite your listeners to like just ponder some of those questions, those unanswerable questions. Yeah. I am. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity today.
[00:58:26]Erich Wenzel: I really appreciate you but I also see it as a way of looking at the world a different way. You know, I think a lot of the people who listen to this thing think about life in a deeper context that would resonate with what you're saying. And I do too. And for me it's like how you organize your inner life to reflect your outer representation. Right?
[00:58:48] Take your pulse
[00:58:48] Michael Greenberg: I remember that. That's simple, Erich. That's simple. I figured I would learn how to take your pulse every four times during the day, and I go to my say to myself, any one of these hard dates could be my last. Now what's important, that's how I organize my life.
[00:59:02]it is important for me to be important here is important for me to be recognized, acknowledged to get money, or is it important for me to do something loving in this moment right now to help somebody out to make this world a better place in case I'm not here tomorrow.
[00:59:16] That's the bottom line for me. Because I might not be tomorrow.
[00:59:19] Erich Wenzel: It makes a lot of sense why, why you're still doing what you need to do. Even if you're not doing dermatology, you're still taking patients and listening to them and helping guide them through this uncertainty of their life. And I think it's a really important thing to do, to be of service in that way.
[00:59:38] Recommendation for others to get through these uncertain times
[00:59:38] And how would you recommend it? Someone who's maybe just stuck at home and is trying to just figure it out. Maybe they don't know what they want to do or you know, how they best serve, you know, a greater purpose. What would you recommend? Do you, even if it's a book or some sort of activity to help search within themselves.
[00:59:59] Michael Greenberg: Well, never ask a writer because they'll always tell you his book. You know, I'm not going to do that. there, there's some wonderful books out there. I would start with something either from Rom Dass like Be Here Now, or several, some of the basic textbooks of spirituality and things written by Osho.
[01:00:16]What I would use, what I used to do when I used to read books as were paper books and not, you know, not books on my, on my iPhone was I would go to the bookstore and go to the spiritual section and run my hand over the shelf and wherever it would stop, I'd buy that door and read it. And it was always, it was always, it would always was always the right one.
[01:00:35]so go online and look at spiritual books. I'm like, you know. That. That's all I can say.
[01:00:41] Erich Wenzel: Yeah, that's fine. It's okay
[01:00:43] Michael Greenberg: if you want to read my, if you want to read the novel I wrote, it's called a Man of Sorrows and it's about the other doctor actually has the power to heal people and tries to run away from it, and it's a spiritual book about the terrible price we pay in life to try and stay safe.
[01:00:55] There I plugged it.
[01:00:57] Erich Wenzel: Shameless plug.
[01:00:59] Michael Greenberg: I get about a dollar 50 every quarter on royalties from books. That's great.
[01:01:05] Erich Wenzel: That's okay. You're selling yourself just by being here, so you don't need to feel it. You don't need to feel so shameful for doing that. It's for me that just to be sharing your words and your wisdom of just learned experiences is enough in its own way.
[01:01:21] Right? Like, you know. Being able to do something like this allows people to step outside of their own frame of reference, hopefully, and to
[01:01:30] One final story
[01:01:30] Michael Greenberg: all, well, okay. I know things keep coming up on my mind, so I'm so creative. Let me tell you one last story, and I gotta go. Okay. So you know.
[01:01:37] People read the Bible, and it's a great source of spiritual literature. I love it, but you gotta read it. Okay? So, here's, here's the deal. That gives me a lot of comfort, right? The story of Noah. All right? God says, the world is so corrupt. I'm going to destroy everything and save one perfect person.
[01:01:58] All right, great. So. Here comes, you know, we all think of the animals by Tuesday, two of these and that cute story. All right, forget that part of the story. Read the Bible because it's all there. And what happens when Noah comes off of the art, when he's the only righteous person with his family left, he builds a vineyard and he gets totally blind drunk.
[01:02:19] It gets drunk and he goes into his tent and, and unless you understand Hebrew, people like gloss over this, but it says in his son, something happened where some came in and uncovered his nakedness, his son that basically probably molested him. That's what the Torah doesn't talk about sex.
[01:02:37] So he gets paid even if he just gets blind drunk and blacks out. So isn't that a wonderful message? You can be the most perfect person in the world and you're still going to screw up.
[01:02:46] Erich Wenzel: It's a perfect, it's a perfect analogy just to, you know, what is human experience?
[01:02:51] Michael Greenberg: God says, I'm saving you because you're the most perfect person, and look what he does five minutes out of the art.
[01:02:56] So hello. I don't have to be perfect either. That's the first step. I would, I would tell anybody to realize your imperfections and laugh at yourself. You know?
[01:03:05] Erich Wenzel: That's awesome and that's probably the best way we could end this. Thanks Michael, and
[01:03:10] Michael Greenberg: thank you, Erich.
[01:03:11] Erich Wenzel: If there's any way you want to plug how people can connect with you or reach out or anything you want to share on that end, please do.
[01:03:18] If not, that's where we'll put this conversation for right now.
[01:03:22] Michael Greenberg: Well, people know how to connect with you, right? Yes. All right, I'll, how about they connect with me through you because I really. I dunno, I don't want to put my email out there and thousands of people or hundreds or tens of people, you know, calling Tommy's saying like, you suck.
[01:03:38] I hate to say, and then, then I'd feel terrible. If somebody wants to reach me, they can reach me through you. Okay. and I'm glad to talk to anybody even on a one to one basis. I'm glad to help anybody who wants help. All right. I'm not some guru. I'm not some great spiritual teacher, but I love to help people.
[01:03:55] Erich Wenzel: It sounds good.
[01:03:56] Michael Greenberg: All right, thanks. No problem.
Today on the podcast, we are joined by Joe Jackowski. Joe is a Marine Corps veteran and current graduate student at Vanderbilt University in the Cognitive Psychology in Context program. His primary interest is meaning in life, which broadly extends to problems in ethics, A.I., and culture.
In this episode, we sit down to discuss his first long-form article on his new sub stack, Apotheosis: A Philosophy for Influencers