Matthew McConaughey: Freedom, Truth, Family, Hardship, and Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #384
- If you really wanna give a character an obstacle to overcome, a need, I mean, the base one is life and death. - The following is a conversation
with Matthew McConaughey, a legendary Oscar-winning actor, and one of the most unique, charismatic, and inspiring humans, and Texans who walked this Earth. He starred in films and shows loved by me and millions of others, including "Interstellar",
"Dazed and Confused", "Dallas Buyers Club", "Killer Joe", "Mud", "True Detective", and soon,
a spinoff of "Yellowstone". Offscreen, his words
carry wisdom and power. In his book called "Greenlights" and his new video course called Roadtrip, where Matthew expands on
the philosophy in his book and shows how to apply to your life in order to find more
happiness, success, and love. This is Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please
check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Matthew McConaughey. Let's start with love. Your parents had a complicated love story, divorced twice, married three times. What have you learned about love from your mom and dad
and their love story? - That it's messy. That it takes work. That it's ugly. That no matter how ugly or messy it is, don't go to bed until you've come back
together to either embrace or admit that you truly love each other, even if you hadn't solved what the hell you're bitchin' about. Love will win in the end, literally, three to two, with my mom and dad. (Matthew and Lex laugh) - Yeah. - And that even in the two
divorces and in the two times where they couldn't live with each other, they still loved each other. They just couldn't live with
each other at that time. For whatever reason they needed, and I don't know the details, if they needed their
space, freedom, or what, but they were never out
of love with each other. And that as a parent, when we're not sure what to do, and people give you a
1,000 books and advice, as a parent, if your
kid knows you love 'em, you're in the black. That's the main thing. It won't work without that. And it can work and will
usually can work with that. They just know that fact. - So it's not just love for each other, it's the love for the bigger family that ultimately helps you persist
through the ups and downs. - Well, I mean, I don't know how much, particularly my mom and dad were staying together at times, maybe when they didn't want
to because they had children. I don't actually think
they considered that. I think they were much less conscientious than say I am today. I think my mom and dad were
more like, they'll be fine. We love 'em. They'll be fine, but we'll cross that
bridge when we get there. Right now, let's work
it out between you and I is what I think my mom and dad were saying to each other, or not. They wanted and needed a relationship that was a tidal wave, rocky, right angles, tsunamis. And to this day, in my life with Camilla and I, which I don't, I like a
river has some swerves and some streams and some rapids, but I'm not looking for a tidal wave. My mom's like, what's with all this,
everything's so smooth. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Stuff. Come on, come on, come on, come on. - [Lex] Yeah.
- So she challenges vitality, 'cause that's what my mom
needed to communicate. I don't think my dad needed it as much of that the hard angles
that their relationship to, I don't think my dad needed
it as much as my mom. - But the clashes demonstrated the passion that underlies the love. - Yes, and I've always been asked, when I talk about my
parents' love relationship, I tell the stories that
are actually sometimes quite violent, and- - [Lex] There's some good stories there. - They're beautiful, I
think they're beautiful. - Yeah, I think they're beautiful too. - But I've had people go, what? Wait a minute, that was unhealthy. You can't, and I was like, no. That's, again, back to the beginning, love is messy. And what I love about those stories is that's where the love was actually. It was tested, and it could have broke and been over. - [Lex] Yeah.
- And it never was. Again, the love won in the kitchen floor, blood's drawn, knives are pulled. - [Lex] Ketchup. - Ketchup's all over. - [Lex] Yeah. - But we make love on the kitchen floor and, I mean-
- Yeah. - Come on, beautiful. - So as romantic as it gets right there. - [Matthew] Whoa!
(Lex laughs) - What's the memory from
childhood that helped set you on the trajectory of becoming
the man you are today? - Standing on the corner with Mr. Mayor, the principal of St. Phillips School, I was in kindergarten, eh, looked up and there was a cloud in the sky. And I said, Mr. Mayor, is that
cloud as big as the world? And he paused for a minute and he goes, "Well, yes, it is, Matthew." Now, in my seven-year-old mind, I went, okay, I can see the outlines of it. And that must mean it is so far away. Because if that's as big as the world, I remember it took 15 hours
just to drive from Longview to Florida last year, you know? And I can't even see that far. So that cloud must be so far off that it's not worth me even considering space, dreams, any of that. I was like, (whistling)
army, I'm looking down. I'm gonna put my head to the ground. I'm gonna look right in front of me and deal with what's in front of me. Because dealing with
dreams and what's out there and not on this Earth
that gravity holds down, not worth considering. You'd never make it. It's not even worth imagining. It's, pfft, fairy dust. So I think I learned a lot
of self-reliance from that. I think I got a work ethic from that. I think I got a, hey, focus on
what's right in front of you. Do the deed, take care
of what's in front of you one at a time and slowly
notch up your way. And, hopefully, there's
some ascension to that. And it wasn't until quite years later, in some ways, decades
later, that I started to go, "Oh, I can project, I can dream." Why? Because literally the
first time I got on a plane and then 30 seconds I was in a cloud, I'm like, Whoa, we must be
going a trillion miles an hour. Cause we're already in that cloud that was as big as the world
that I saw the edge of. And then I grew and learned enough to go, Well, that's not true. Planes don't go that fast. Oh, what Mr. Mayor said
wasn't really true. That cloud is not as big as the world. And it's not near as
far away as I thought. But I'm glad he lied to me. (chuckles) - What do you think about that
tension of a way of living life between being a
dreamer and a pragmatist? - [Matthew] Yeah. - Which is the better way? - Dude, the honey holds the
reciprocity of the two of 'em. I mean, I can't be present
unless I got a plan. I wanna have the big picture in mind, but I gotta go a day at a time. I like to write the headline or I think we need to have a North Star, something to look forward to. But we all know that
if we're staring at it, we're tripping on the way. You read the Hallmark cards, which irk me, dream it, you can do it. I think that's a half-ass
horrible thing to tell somebody. (Lex chuckles)
- [Lex] Yeah. - And then on the other side, you have things like, people say hope means nothing. Well, yes, it does. That's the dream. You just don't stop there. It's not a period after that word. Now, what do we do practically? And I think that constant tension, when that tension's a dance
is when it's beautiful, But to see those as contradictions, I think is where it's falling short. One on their own, if we silo the two, well, if you silo the two, I guess the pragmatic's
the one to go with, because at least you'll
get something done. But if you only silo the dream and don't do anything about it, you're kind of living an illusion and kind of living in a virtual reality. - Yeah, it's tricky. Even the people you love can
sometimes suffocate the dream, can make you believe
that it's not possible. It feels like a lot of parents
kinda want you to be safe, want you to be stable, want you to have a plan so that
everything's gonna be okay. - [Matthew] Yeah. - And the dream feels
like a threat to that. - Yeah. How much of that, though, I
wonder is proper initiation? Because if you throwing dreams
out, I call it conservative, very liberal light. Let's learn to block and tackle. Let's learn that work ethic, those things, those pragmatics first, learn the rules of the road, the rules of the game, the things that we can
all kind of rely on. This is how the world's supposed to work. Now, it doesn't always work that way. You know, you teach a child to drive, it's like, "Hey, you stay in the lane, you go to speed limit. This is all helpful." But that doesn't
guarantee that no one else is running the red light. But you learn that later. There's an initiation, I think that's proper with the dream. I mean, I think parents, my parents are very much that way. The idea of going to chase an acting career or something was, what? That was a different vernacular. That was like, not in our, I was taught to work our
way up a company ladder, and, nine to five, do your job. But the day I brought it up and said I wanted to go to film school, and I thought my dad was gonna go, "You wanna do what, boy?" He was like, gave me some
of the best advice ever and told me not to half-ass it. He said, "Go!" In between the lines, what he heard from me was that made him so happy
as a father, I believe, and makes any parent happy, is when our child
doesn't ask us permission to go chase a dream. - [Lex] Oh, yeah. - When they're going, I'm bringing it up to
you with full respect. - [Lex] Yeah. - But I'm doing this with or without you. That's when a parent goes, "Ah, yes, I've done something right enough. I helped my child be secure enough in the pragmatics to
have a foundation enough where they have the
courage to go, (whistling) I'm flying the nest." - To take the leap. You wrote, "After my
dad died, I had a dream that left me with a statement. Less impressed, more involved." - [Matthew] Yeah. - What do those words mean to you? - We gotta be more than
just happy to be here. I'm big on gratitude, but we gotta be more than
just thankful to be here. Or dream that you can do it. It's gotta be more than
just dream you can do it. That's impressed. The dream is still other than and if I'm here, and so impressed with
talking to you today, if I have a reverence to an extent, I will not be able to be
involved in this conversation. I'll be too impressed. I'll be anticipating, oh, what's that question he's gonna ask, oh, I think I know he's going with this, oh, I think I know what
answer he might love to hear, oh, I'm not involved in conversation. I'm too impressed. So I'm removed from the present. For me, what that literally meant to me, when that came to me in a
dream and I carved it in, I remember carved it in a tree. It took a couple hours. I still know where that tree is, Santa Monica. My father had moved on,
he'd left this life. All of a sudden, it hit me, oh, I don't have the safety net. My dad was above law and above
religion to me, he had me. If I really was in the shit,
if I really needed him, I trusted that he had my back
above law, above anything. All of a sudden he's gone. I'm going, okay. It hit me how much I'd been
pretending to be the young man I was trying to be, and not actually putting
my ass on the line and have enough courage to take risk and actually own up to the man that he was teaching me to be. And I remember the world got flat. That cloud, that Mr.
Mayor that I saw up there was not way up there. It was, it was fog in front of me now, and let's go into it. I'd say I probably
gained even more respect for people and things, but I lost a certain amount of reverence that was keeping me from
feeling like I'd deserved or I'd earned things or
looking out for myself or holding myself to task. And I remember all the things, and I was just going into
Hollywood at the time, so fame was out there
as one of those clouds, with being an actor and
all of a sudden celebrity and becoming famous. The reverence I had, I remember it just (whistling) it lowered down to eye level. And I was able to realize it and go, that's not fairy dust. And don't give it so much
credit to make it fairy dust. Like, oh, not me. No, I could never, no,
look that in the eye with full respect, but less reverence. And at the same time, equidistant, almost equal sublimation. I noticed where I had been
condescending people and things, and patronizing and
put things off as like, less than me and not worthy of my time. (whistling) It raised up to eye level. And so they were all flat in front of me, and the world was flat and I was able to, shoulders went back, my heart
rose up, my chin lifted up. I looked things in the eye. I became probably less sentimental, hopefully, not to level
that I got callous, but I know I became less sentimental. I became more courageous because, when you have someone pass in your life, or maybe it's similar to a situation you're going on in your own
life with your homeland, you sober up on these mendacities that we deal with every day, and this bullshit that
we give too much credit or too much significance to. And you're like, what am I doing? I'm not even gonna let myself emotionally get brought down or over
elated by this situation, 'cause it doesn't really
matter in the big scheme. And so with certain things
that I found reverence for and hesitated from in my life, I was now engaging with, because I was like, oh, it's live. This life is live. Let's look it in the eye
and go forward through it and deal with the consequences. - What do you make of death? Does it scare you? - I'm not looking forward to
it, but it does not scare me. - Do you think about it? Do you visualize it? - I do. I do. And it's a beautiful visualization and a beautiful dream when I
go as part of the food chain. It's not a good visualization when I go as part of a
random act of violence in a fricking drive-by or something. Because the second, the accident, it breaks a story that I believe
has already been written. At least I don't have the capacity yet to put it into a story, a divine story of the lives that we live. And so there's something
ugly and gross about it. And it happens all the time,
to people all the time. I just feel like when it's
part of the food chain, when I go as part of the food chain, I'm like, ah, that's poetry. - [Lex] Part of the flow of nature. You return to nature. - Yeah, there's grace and poetry in that. - Do you miss your father? Think about him? - When I think about him, I do. Now, when do I think about him? I thought about him yesterday
working through a script I'm working on right now,
working on scene work. And I just had that quick little reaction of wanting to show him,
hey, check the scene. That's right and then I, I don't get sad. I go, "Yeah, he would've loved this." Whereas my mom wants to be on the stage, my dad would've been on the front row. (Matthew and Lex laughing) - He's more fun to show stuff too. - Yeah. He was a character. He knew characters. I've based parts of all kinds
of characters I've played and the man that I am on
people that he introduced me to and who he was. He would've loved the
creative process of working on a script or talking about, hey, movie. It's why I always say
I love the movie "Mud" because it's the one that I've visualized and seen my dad come to me so
many times as a 12-year-old and put his arm around me and go, "Hey, little buddy, you see
this movie called 'Mud'? Goddamn it, it's a good one. Let's go watch it." That, now my dad never got to
see me start a career in film, but he was alive five days, he overlapped the first five days of me
working on my first film, "Dazed and Confused". Now, that I think is, there's something beautiful about that. He didn't never ever come to the set. We didn't talk about it, but he was alive for me to start something
that was more than a fad. That was something that would become something that I love to do. And I do miss, not in, you know, and then I go outta that, we talked about him two nights ago with our daughter, I was
rubbing my daughter's feet. And my mom, who's living
with us, she's 91, comes in and goes, "Oh, look
at you just like your pop." He's like, "What?" And he goes, "Oh." 'Cause my dad loved her. Rubbed somebody's feet,
rubbed my mom's feet, rubbed all of me and my
brother's girlfriend's feet. (Lex laughs) When we would have a date. - [Lex] Yeah. - They would come over early because they knew they
were gonna get a foot rub. - [Lex] I love it.
- From Jim McConaughey. And then we'd come out, me
and my two older brothers, this has been on for decades, we'd come out the shower, ready to go, buttoned up. And they looked like, "We ain't
going anywhere right now." (Lex laughs) And so we told the story to my daughter. And I was like, oh yeah, my dad's his hands, I miss his hands, his hands could heal. - So you carry him in you. - I hope so. I hope so. It's a challenge for me. And I suppose it's like this for any son. How much do we hang on to? And how much do we let go and evolve and update the os and try it maybe better or different? It's that, there's
certain things that I know that I fully believe in. It's like, when do we, religious, when do we cast away our father? When do we say no, I'm
going after the dream. I'm not asking your permission. I question that from time to
time for myself because I, and it almost feels
blasphemic, if that's a word, sometimes I feel like what are you doing? You can't check that and go like, well no, I'm not sure if I wanna really. And then I immediately
kinda let myself off because I believe where he is. He's going, "Go, buddy." - [Lex] Yeah. (laughs) - Go, you're free, man.
- [Lex] Yeah, yeah. - I'm not gonna hold you back. If you misread that or
I didn't teach you that as well as maybe I wish I could have. Go, you're free. You're not gonna lose. Trust that you're not gonna lose. It's in your DNA. It's in your lineage, young man. - Still, it's scary to
not have a safety net. Losing your father is scary in that way. That you realize this world is just you, in some deep fundamental
way, it's just you. - [Matthew] Yeah. - You're alone. - Yes. But, oh, I mean also not having that, it's such a gift of
deliverance though as well, because I think it's an, I mean, it's an awesome feeling to know, to know we're alone, to
know we don't have that, to know you don't have
take two or take three, that it's one take. I mean, the peripheral
vision improves, (chuckles) the link and understanding
with our past improves. 'Cause I know for me, I was not ever considerate
of my past at all, 'cause my dad had that if I needed it. He was my wealth for that. Well, he's gone, like I said, he had the literally
had, they have our back. Well, and then when they
long or have our back, all of a sudden I'm going like, oh, well, maybe I need to look back and start giving some
credit to how I got here, what I'm doing and where I'm heading. It gave me the first time courage to even look over my shoulder. 'Cause again, I didn't have to, 'cause I don't have to look. Dad's got my back. No, dad's gone from this life. He doesn't have your back. Okay. So I mean, I don't know, me, because it's inevitable. I very quickly go to, all right, in the pain, the loss, and yes, even loneliness, which is different from
being alone and loss. Pretty immediately part and
parcel with the pain, I felt it. - In the pain, you saw the gift, the red light of losing your father. - Pretty immediately, less
impressed, more involved. That came like couple weeks after moving on. - Is there a trick to that? To see the gift and the pain? - That's a good question. Is there a trick to it? Not that I know of. I mean, I don't, I have to catch myself from trying to intellectualize
my way into the reasoning and not skip over real
feelings and discomfort. I mean, I did get that from my mom and I have to watch it that, that so resilient, that we just dust herself
off and get up and go. - You wanna sit in the feeling. You wanna feel it. You're willing to deeply feel the pain. - I wanna deeply feel it. I wanna look at the
eye and deeply feel it, but I don't wanna wallow in it. - [Lex] Yeah. - Now I was raised where
you skip the deeply feel and let's go. And I've said it before,
but that will lead to having turned into a person who is a repeat offender
(chuckles) of the same crimes, 'cause you just get up and you don't, you don't have a winter in your life. You know what I mean? You don't have, there's
no introspective time. You don't look over your
shoulder into the past. And so you just get up and you're like, all right, I've stepped in
the same pile of whatever a hundred times and I'm fine. I'll do it a hundred first doesn't hurt. Hell, it's good luck. Well, hang on a minute. Maybe we wanna stop and go. What can I learn from that? But I don't know of a trick. I think if there's any trick, I would say, it's just, how quickly can
we admit the inevitable? I just wanna talk about in the book back, once you know it's inevitable,
how do we get relative? - [Lex] Yeah.
- Not skip it, not throw it to the side, not deny it, which I'd love to talk about that. Here's sometimes too, but the value of denial sometimes- - [Lex] The value of denial.
- Yeah. But how quickly do we, once something's inevitable, go, (claps) okay, any mind and hard time
I'm spending about going, no, I can't believe that happened. No, did that really happen? Anytime we spend trying to deny that, what has already happened,
that seems to me to be, I'm not sure the value of that time. So if there's any trick, I would say once you know
something's inevitable, even though how painful it
is or how awesome it is, start getting relative with that. And in the relativity is seeing there's a gift here. And if I realize that gift I'm honoring, now I'm onto building up the beautiful passage of my
father leaving this life. Now I'm on the march to go. Yes, let the legacy. Let this become omnipresent. Let him live through me. Let me become more hem. - It's transformed.
- [Matthew] Yeah. - So what value is there then to denial? Any? - Oh, I think there's value to denial if you really commit to it. (laughs) I get this from my mother. - [Lex] Yeah. (laughs)
(Matthew laughs) So it's a very pragmatic value. - [Matthew] Whoa!
- Commit to the denial. - Okay. (Lex laughs) And my mom.
- [Lex] Yeah. - Does it to an extent that I'm like, "Mom, do you have any consideration (Lex laughs) or context of situations?" And she does. This is the thing, every time I go, she's not a shallow woman. But if it is something, if it is something happens
in her life that is keeping her from going
where she wants to go or a joy in her life that she does, she'll straight ass deny
it happened, didn't happen. No, didn't. Mom, (chuckles) we're right here. I heard you.
- [Lex] Yeah. - What you said. No, I didn't, you heard something else. Mom? Now does she get some amnesty on that? She's 91. Hell yeah, she gets some amnesty on that, Yeah, does she repeat offend? Yeah, but it's misdemeanors. You know what I mean? I mean, it's like we all, it's part of that thing when
you got a family member, you're like, yeah,
that's just what they do, just go with it. And it's ingenious in a way. It's a tool, she does. I think it is more of a trick with her. But she wouldn't even so
ingrained her, it's not a trick, it's just (whistles) do it, done. Another reason I bring this up, it's outside of just my mother is, I did this Roadtrip course in this
Art of Living event a few weeks ago. Out of hundreds of thousands
of chats that came in and responses that came in afterwards. It seemed to me that about
80% of people's challenges and problems, even in their life, were something in the past
that they were hung up on, that they could not seem to get past. And it was holding them from going where they wanted to in their future. And so I thought that was revealing. I would've thought that was,
I don't know going in 40%. It was 80, it seemed to be 80%. - [Lex] Yeah. - And then I thought about, okay, if you're here in the live show and you wanna get the course, you're into some sort
of therapy or education or development or self-help
or whatever, okay. And I have a lot of friends, and I know a lot of
people that are in weekly and daily therapy. And then I know there's a lot of people that are on prescriptions, drugs. And while a therapy and
the right prescription to the right person for the
right diagnosis is necessary. I'm questioning, is there value to going, if you're not getting past this today, this week, this month, this year, all of a sudden a decade goes
by, and you're still hung up and you can't get rid of that thing. And your memory where we, and it's got you paralyzed and you're a victim of it, and you're doing the therapy, and you're doing the work and you're taking a prescription if that's what you're taking, where does there, is there a value in going? If it's holding you back from
going where you wanna go, maybe you should just deny the fucking thing ever fuckin' happened. - [Lex] Yeah. - Kick it in the head.
- [Lex] Yeah. - Kick it off the curb. I'm done with you. I'm sick of you, I'm tired
of hanging out with you. I'm tired of that thing, whatever it is, hold me back from going where I wanna go. So if I can't wax the car, you know, and get past this thing, just kick it. - That's so powerful. So one thing to do like with
the loss of your father, is to try to transform it,
to discover the gift in it. The gift and the pain. But if you can't keep
looking, keep looking, you can't find the gift and the pain, just deny it ever happened. - You could call that a trick. But I think it's more than a
trick because let me say this, my mom, after my father died, went on and found a
second love of her life for 19 years, they were together. CJ Carlick. Love you, buddy. He's moved on now. Did she check with us a little bit? Like is this okay? She gave us a little
lingering half a second look that we knew that maybe
was what she was asking, and we came to her was
like, yes, it's okay. And you know who else is saying it's okay, who's dancing up there for you? Dad. So was that her denying that the man she was divorced from twice, and married two, three times, and had three children with, had moved on? No, but she didn't say, I'm not, well, what's the book on how
long I'm supposed to say single before I can be interested in another? There's not a book on these things. How do you feel? Is loving CJ mean you love dad less? No. Is finding a new life and a
new dance partner in this life, in CJ mean that Dad
wasn't your dance partner, that dad wasn't the love of your life? No. So I don't know, I mean, in there maybe, maybe there's another
word, I think it's denial, but it's not really denial 'cause it's not like it didn't happen. That's an earlier example
I was giving my mom. She will absolutely go, that light's not on. Mom, the light's on. We just, that light's not
on, if I say it's not on, sometimes you're just
like, that makes no sense. You're just absolutely
denying what just happened. We even have it recorded. - [Lex] Yeah. - And she'll go, well,
the recording is lying. - [Lex] Yeah. - I mean, that's part of
a coping deal with her. But I mean, one of
things is more important or more valuable is to talk about this. She didn't deny my dad dying. I didn't, but she sure as hell turn the page, and said, I can still
start a whole new category, a new life, a new love. Let my heart love and be
loved by someone living in this life today that
I'm still living in. And that will not trespass
on my love for my husband, your father, Jim McConaughey. And I think, I mean we were just, thought that was beautiful. Yes, Mom, go, talk about greenlight. Go! Now for a hung up going, can't have one or the can't have 'em both, gotta have one or the other. Now we start to make a contradiction
of the two ideas again, which darn our contradictions get us in trouble all the time, man. - That's life though. The contradictions, right? - But isn't life, if we just admit the
contradictions are so much, don't they become a paradox? We admit that that's part of it. - [Lex] Yeah. - If contradictions are inevitable, hence they do become
a paradox, don't they? Then we're in the honey hall, (Lex chuckles) then we're singing and dancing, and have leniency with ourself while still holding ourself to task. And I think it's holding on
to know each contradiction. Oh, here it is again. So it's a one-off. It lives on its own. Separate from the last one. No, it doesn't. (chuckles) They're connected, that's
why they are a paradox. And then that's I think that's a much, I think that's where life really is. - In the paradox.
- [Matthew] Yes. - In the dance of it. I think the metaphor of
red, yellow, greenlights is just so simple and so powerful. You write about some
"Greenlights" being engineered and some being mystical, which I love the difference of that. What's the difference of
the engineered "Greenlights" and the mystical? Such a cool word, mystical. - Yeah. Well, the engineered ones have reason and the mystical ones have rhyme. (laughs) - [Lex] Yeah. - Life's a mystery going forward, but it's a science looking back. I prepared, I've had ideas, and written headlines and had goals and athlete gets in shape for an event, and I get in shape for a role. I read, I study, I work, I prepare, and I go and I'm prepared
and I behave and I do it. And I look at it and I go, yes, that's what I wanted to do. It's engineered, greenlight. It's a conscious delayed gratification. It's that if I do it today, that pragmatic head down, believe there's no cloud out there, but then I trust that
there is one out there. If I keep my head down to do it, I'll get that to that dream. We can engineer those habit, work ethic, prep, expertise, education. Now the mystical ones though, don't make any sense. They're not supposed to make sense. They only make sense after, right when they happen, you backlog and you connect the dots with how they got there. That red light you ran into that made you 30 seconds later to get to the restaurant, as you walked in, she walked out, and you went, "Good morning." And she went, "Good morning." (Lex laughs) And-
- [Lex] Yeah. - Two months later, you're dating, two years later, you're married, after that you've got a family. And now you're sitting
here 40 years later going, I love you. Look at what we've built. And you go back and go. (Lex laughs) What if I wouldn't hit that red light. - Those 30 seconds.
- [Matthew] You know. - Made all the difference. - [Matthew] And- - So strange that this life is this way. - Yeah, and that's just rhyme. I mean, we can't really add that up. - Yeah. - It's a science when you look back, you see, you know why it was that you were upset and ticked off that you had to pick up the
kids' toys before you left, and they were supposed to pick 'em up and therefore, you were late for the thing that maybe you ran into, and you ran into the person
that was walking in the office. That's the guy that you did the interview. That's the guy you were looking
for, the job you wanted. And you caught him 'cause you
were in the elevator with him. And that 90 seconds on
that elevator, (claps) that's what got you that job that led to you doing what you wanna do. I mean, the significance is there, but we have to, I think
what we also gotta watch is, again, in that balance, what do we chase? Because we just chased the engineering. We miss magic. If we just chased the mystical, we find ourself caught up
in trying to give meaning to that Lego set that was on the floor that my kids didn't pick up. And what color was it? And why did I walk out that that door and see almost step on the Legos. But if I'd gone out the other door, I usually go out of,
I would've gone there. I would've got there early and wouldn't have run into the boss. So you can start to give too
much meaning on that as well. I think we can give
significance in too many places. And all of a sudden, I think we've all been there where you're seeing art
in every single thing. Oh man, that can be paralyzing. It's like, it's hard to
leave a room (chuckles) if everything's significant, or if everything's a sign. - How much of success in life
do you think is engineered and how much is mystical? And how much does it different
from person to person? Because I, for me
personally, maybe I enjoy it, maybe I'm genetically built that way, but I exist more in the mystical, so I don't make plans. I traveled last summer
in Ukraine with no plan. I just went there. No plan. I didn't know how I'm going to meet the president of the country. I didn't know anybody. And so there's no plan,
there's no clear thing. You're just roaming around. And that that's how I've existed in life. There's something about giving yourself over to the flow of
nature that I just enjoy. It makes life so much fun. - It's awesome when you can do it. Did you engineer though, I'm going to put myself in the place when you got on the plane
to go to the destination, that was an engineered choice? - Yes, I mean the choice. - With the in intent of, and maybe I'll meet and I'll run into, and I can work up a sit down with, so the engineered choice
was putting your shoes on, proverbially get, I always
say this the hardest part about going to the gyms,
putting your shoes on, right? So to getting on the plane, that was an engineered
thought with the goal in mind, but I don't know how I'm gonna do it. - The choice.
- [Matthew] Yeah. - Putting the shoes on, yeah. But there's not a clear, it's a fog what happens
after the shoe is gone? - Yeah, (chuckles) - [Matthew] yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's gonna take that leap. So I wonder how much for people who are
successful in this world and finding what makes them
truly happy and fulfilled, how much of it is engineer? How much is mystical? How much was it for you? - Well, I'll say this
like when I went to write about "Greenlights," which is basically the
last 40 years of my life, I thought that 85, 90% of my successes were going to be obviously engineered. Or I could see the
science, saw the habits, here's what I did. yep, that add up, got the
solution, got the conclusion. I was very surprised when I noticed it was probably less than 50%. And that most of the real success of life were when I trusted, when I trusted that I
didn't have to define it. That I only trusted,
that I didn't have to go, well what's the measurement? What's the score? What lead this leads to what? What's next? For me, that's still a challenge for me daily now is to trust and not be, because I can be, I think I can be overly practical and I think I can over overcompensate and miss out on magic because I'm still going, wait, but do you, are we giving enough the
measure and credit to actuality? Am I giving enough credit to
these are the steps to take? And this is reality. I think I'm reminded when I trust, 'cause that
going with the mystic, just to put yourself on
the plane was the engineer. But getting there, and as you say you roll in that mystical, that takes a lot of trust. - Yeah. (chuckles) Trust in the inevitable. - [Matthew] Amen on that. - But not knowing where
it actually ends you up. It's a feeling more than, I don't think it's a clear vision. - [Matthew] Right. - It's kind of like a feeling
that guides you towards, towards a place without a clear name, without clear characteristics. It just kind of pulls you there. - Where do you get that courage and trust to go with
your gut, your feeling? And is there, for instance, three days later you sit down. It doesn't happen, is there a
sense a week, two weeks later, now and you come back
to America that like, "Ah, I've failed." - Sort of looking back to try
to analyze what went right, what went wrong, that kind of thing. Yeah, that that engine is always there. But I think what pulls me forward in life, what makes me really grateful and fulfilled is noticing
the thing you mentioned, noticing the magic and
kind of going towards it, sort of just sitting back both in tragedy and then triumph. So in war, there's a lot of tragedy, but there's somehow, one of the things you see in war, and this is the first war I've experienced and seen the front is the loss, that people lose their homes, and all this kind of stuff. The thing that rises from that
is the love for each other. So the people I've spoken with, don't give a about the home. Don't give a about on farms,
on the animals they lost. Don't give a damn about having to move and all this kind of stuff. As long as the family's still there, as long as the people
they love are still there. And it's like, there's a melancholy smile
they have on their face. Like, yeah, this world
is full of bullshit, it's full of tragedy, but life is fucking awesome. And you just notice that in little ways everywhere. You just sit back, and
yeah, notice the magic. And I want more of that and
just kind of follow along. - [Matthew] Yeah.
- Like a little ant. - [Matthew] Yeah. - Keep noticing that kind
of thing, but I don't know. I hope you know what I think it is, is other people notice that
you're the kind of person that notices it and they're like, I wanna hang out with that person. He seems all right. Like he seems one of the good ones, one of the good hands. (laughs) - Do you have any certain non-negotiable structure before that freedom to
go with the feeling? - I think so. There's such set of principles of just basically integrity
of being good to other people. Like whatever that means for me, there's specific things
like I'm really into loyalty above the law.
- [Matthew] Right. - There's a kinda like, there's a circle of friends I have and that means everything. There's just a basics deep
kindness to towards others. Empathy, empathy towards
people that other, that others might label as even evil. I have that kind of empathy. I believe all of us have the
capacity to do good in evil. And so I just kind of see
everybody as little babies that grew up in different conditions. And so some do evil, some do good. And there's, yeah, there's
all kinds of other principles. I love the dynamic between the different humans in their full diversity. I love the dynamic between the masculine and the feminine and
enjoy it, the dance of it. - Yeah, yeah. So you have a constitution with- (Lex laughs) - [Lex] Yeah.
- Which you embark. - [Lex] You do too. - Into chasing.
(Lex laughs) Yes, I hope so. And yeah, for me, I'd like to, it's inspiring to hear
someone like yourself go, I go and I just land and
I'm just gonna feel it. I can go back and go, yeah. My greatest truths I've crossed, my greatest successes in my life are win. I trusted that and go,
I took a one way ticket. - [Lex] Amazon, Africa.
- Africa. Yeah, and those were spiritual and very pragmatic because
they led to dealing with succeeding in other ways
that are more pragmatic 100%, and gave much more meaning to those things. But that's to be able to go out, and say that's how you, do you have family? - I really wanna get
married and have kids, but I'm not married and
don't have kids yet. - [Matthew] Okay. - So actually one of the
nice things about that is you can take bigger risks. - [Matthew] Yes. - So while I'm not married
and don't have kids, I feel I owe it to myself to take, just to go, go to the Amazon. - Yes.
(Lex laughs) Go to that backpack on
and a one way ticket. - [Lex] Yeah, yeah. - That does get harder to do. I miss that, sometimes the whim, a song that comes on, you know. - [Lex] Yeah. - Where's that guy from?
- [Lex] Yeah. - Oh, they're from the
place that I wanna go, that I dream off, I'll go there. (whistles) One way ticket,
what do I gotta do? Oh, get a couple shot. Okay, go. That was fun. (Lex laughs)
Gotta do this. - Let's get up and go, you're free to. - Yeah. And go, when are you back? When I get there?
- [Lex] Yeah. - It's a beautiful,
beautiful thing. (laughs) - [Lex] Maybe never.
- Yeah, yeah. - [Lex] You don't know.
- Yeah. Gosh, you'll be coming
to visit me (chuckles) in this new place, maybe, yeah. - How did the Amazon, how did
the trip there change you? What do you remember of it? Such a magical place. - I've stripped a lot of my past symbols and talismans while I was there. I remember getting there, and just having so much
adrenaline on the anticipation, anticipation of getting to the Amazon. In the first 10 days, I wasn't really enjoying the trip. I was just charging to
get to the destination to get to the banks of the
river that I had a dream about. And then it just humbled me. I got so fatigued on night, whatever, 12, and was so sick and tired
of the internal dialogue I was having with myself. I was not enjoying my company (Lex laughs) that I purged and I remember, and stripped off identity markers that I had sort of been hanging onto for like, everything from, what it means to be an American. My dad's ring, him from McConaughey, a meltdown of my mom and dad's class rings from University of Kentucky,
were gold from her teeth, and his class ring melted down. Taking that off was really hard to go, I'm casting, am I casting out my father? And I wasn't casting him out, I was just removing to say, I don't have to rely on that
being all of my identity. So to pull that off, to strip down and just to
where I was just a mammal. That next morning, I was light. I got present. I remember writing something down. It was like, all that I
want is what I can see and what I can see is in front of me. That sense of not, I
wasn't leaning around, looking around every corner to get there. And as soon as that hit me, talking about mystical successes
and realities and truths, as soon as that hit me and
for the first time in 12 days, I didn't care about getting there or what was around the corner. Guess what was around
the next game corner? The Amazon (chuckles) I mean
not around a few corners. The next corner there it was. And that was just like a touche. Those times when the
prime mover, the universe, God, what we wanna name or believe in, says ding. There you go. That form of detachment from holding on for dear life
to things in past, so hard, that's not letting the beauty
that's right in front of you to feel correctly and
follow our intuitions. To have those not cast 'em out. I didn't burn them. I didn't get rid of those things. I just took 'em off and had to
recognize, you're still here. You are you, you're much more, that is a talisman. That's a symbol, that means something to you. And that's good, don't
cast out the meaning. But it's not like when the
ring's off and the hat's off and the crucifixes off
your neck that you're like, you're gonna die. (chuckles) And I know those are reminders. Hang on to what they mean
for you as we go forward. But as we go forward, quit
worrying about so much about you. Again, I was looking at
the proverbial dream, the cloud so much that I
was tripping over myself to get there. And like clockwork, just amazing grace, boom, as soon as it hit me. And I was like, "Ah, that's it. All I want is what I can see, and all I can see is in front of me. Literally looking down at the ground at what was a sea of 10,000 wild neon blue Amazonian butterflies on the ground. As soon as they fluttered up
my head came up with them, I took a few more steps (whistles) and there's the Amazon, that's what you came over here for. Oh, howdy. Those kind of that, truth like that. - Well, the Amazon's interesting too because it really has no past or future losing the moment
'cause how fast it turns. It just eats up life. It like, if a thing dies it just gets swallowed up 'cause, maybe because of the
humidity, because of all that. Because there's so many
living creatures that kinda eat each other live on each other. So it really exists in the moment and all this kind of
diversity of life there. It's such an interesting place. - Talk about food chain. - Yeah, you're just part of it there. - [Matthew] Yeah. - (chuckles) We humans somehow
escaped that food chain. But we're still, the
roots are still there. - I think we're a bit arrogant
to think we've escaped. (Lex and Matthew laughs) - [Lex] Yeah. - You think I'm being romantic in that notion? - Well, sometimes when
you're in a big city, when you're in Austin, Texas,
and LA you can think like, we're in a car, we're
in a house, we're safe. But yeah, somehow his nature
is still a part of us. Our roots are still a part of us. - I think it is more than we realize, more than we give a credit for. I actually, I believe that we, that it's a really arrogant
notion to think that we are separate. Meaning people talk about, pollution, a larger scale that the climate or what have you. I think Earth's gonna be just fine. - [Lex] Yeah. - We may be not be here for it, but I think we have a bit of
arrogance sometimes to think that we can tramp mother nature. I think we have more of
the natural law in us and I sure hope so if I'm wrong. - Well, there's an interesting,
I've recently been, there's a guy named Max Tegmark at MIT, who really worries about nuclear war. And he was part of
constructing a simulation of what happens when
a nuclear war happens. And it's interesting to see that, some very large percentage
of humans on Earth starved to death because they don't die
first from the explosion. They die from starvation 'cause basically dust covers the entire North
America and entirety of Europe. And so the crops all die, all the food sources all die and people suffocate and starved to death. But you know the lesson
you'll learn from that over a period of a few months, even though most of the human
population of Earth dies. Earth finds a way, life finds a way. - [Matthew] Yeah.
- To adapt. And it's gonna be just fine. - [Matthew] Yeah. - In terms of the big living ecosystem that is life on Earth. And yeah, it's humbling to think about, well, maybe we're just a stepping stone. Same thing with talked offline about artificial intelligence. Maybe humans are just a stepping stone to the development of these other super intelligent entities. - Yeah. Yeah. And is it unconsciously in our
nature that that's just part of the evolution and
adaptation of our species because we're gonna, we were talking about it earlier, what AI becomes. It is completely 100% based on who we are. - And we get to see it for some time a mirror to ourselves. Okay, this is what human
civilization is like. These AI systems, large language models are
trained on human communication. And you get to ask it questions and you get to have conversations with it. And you get to realize, wow, this is what the collective intelligence
of the human species are collective wisdom and knowledge. This is what it looks like. All the bias, the hate, the
paradoxes, all that is in there. - [Matthew] Yeah. - The contradictions. You can even convince those models. You can tell 'em they're lying and they're gonna start changing- - [Matthew] Yeah.
- Their mind. It's interesting to play with them. - [Matthew] Yeah. - It's also interesting
to consider that maybe they become smarter than us and become of almost life
forms that live among us and maybe one day kind
of we merge with them. There's all kinds of possible trajectories that we take here. - How much of that excites you? How much of it scares you? - Is it possible to exist in a place where it is both exciting and scary, but to exist in that dance? Mostly I'm really excited because I see human
beings as deeply lonely. Like there's a deep
loneliness in all of us. That's how we see connection. That's why we see connection in others. That's why love is so beautiful when we find other people
we're connected with. And I just think AI can add to that. You can add friends that you can have great conversations with and that some of those
friends would be AI systems. (chuckles) They'll call you out bullshit and you're in the most fascinating
and interesting of ways and challenge you and help
you explore ideas together. So I'm excited by that. - Is that different? And if so, how from the internet and Facebooks and these groups and
communities that were, I think it's fair to say, set out to say this all access
of information to people will help us find more common denominators than divisive ones. Do you see similar? - Yeah, it's similar but
further into that direction. I think the internet has
done an amazing thing in connecting us and expanding our minds and helping us find community that feels like our community and then communities that
are totally different and you learn from them. I mean Wikipedia alone, one
of my favorite websites, - [Matthew] Mine too. - Opens your mind to
all kinds of cool stuff. - Yeah, it does.
- [Lex] And it's- - Not to do system anymore. - (laughs) No. And so I think AI just
makes that even easier. 'Cause Wikipedia have to like read and have to do a lot of work. Within AI system like a
larger language model. You can just shoot the shit. It's more like drinking a beer
versus like doing homework. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's already happening. What do you think about that becoming the new family to where you said you're not married,
you don't have kids. Could you see a future for yourself or do you have a relationship with AI and that is your family? - That's the main, that's the primary, like even romantic relationship. - [Matthew] Yeah. - I can see it, that one worries me. I like to keep it at friends. - Right. (Lex and Matthew laughs) - I think I'm not ready
to commit to the romantic. (Matthew laughs) I wonder how much that
now that takes us back to the Amazon in nature, how much we still need the human touch. - [Matthew] Yeah. - And whatever magic there
is between two humans, which takes the leap into the romantic versus just the intimacy of a
good friendship, I don't know. - So correct me if I'm wrong, you see AI as having a deep
and meaningful friendship. - [Lex] Yeah. - And hopefully it will be a friend that will help you evolve and be able to love
even more and be loved. And you can take that into humanity and find another homosapien?
- [Lex] Yes. - To go, yes. And thank you AI, my great friend for opening me up to this
beauty that I have myself, and I can see in you, my fellow human. And let's come together and biologically create
family if we want to. And let's all remain
friends with my friend and make your own friends with
my friend's friends on AI. And let's have these great neighbor. It's a good friend, that great friend that's a neighbor. - Yeah, yeah, mentor and friend. Just like now there's AI
systems that play chess far, far, far better than humans. And we humans still play
chess with each other. Chess is still a game
that's fun for us humans. - [Matthew] Right. - And then we use AI systems
to get better at chess, to learn, to train, to discover new ideas, but ultimately return to the
chess board between two humans. But, of course, this world
is full of dangerous people. And so those same AI systems can be used to harm, to create false narratives, to do social engineering
and manipulate the masses in terms of what they believe
and all that kind of stuff. And that's scary. - Yeah. Well, and I get it. And I have my own fear and distrusts of AI is based on my own fear and
distrust of myself and others. There's something, it's very simple, but I think it's a really done sort of way to just set up this reality and everyone, it's kind of a duh, but still needs to be
said that AI is a prompt. It doesn't do anything unless we ask it. So what questions-
- [Lex] Yeah. - Are we gonna ask is a question is what
we need to ask ourselves 'cause we're going to
be looking in the mirror at our digital God that
we create from ourselves. And just to know that that's place where it's awesome and
scary, exciting and scary. Where you go, oh, it's our creation, which is awesome at the same time. Oh, shit. But it's prompted by our questions and gives us patterns from
that which we give it. - But that prompting, that's the art of life. Like we prompt each other in
conversation, our loved ones. When you go out about your day today, the next words you say, the
next word you say to me, the question I ask of
you that's prompting. - [Matthew] Yeah. - (chuckles) And it
could change everything. I could say so many things right now that will completely just the set of possibilities where both of our lives can take given on the selection of
words I use and you use, it's crazy. Makes conversation, pun.
- [Matthew] Yeah. - And then same thing with AI, except the nice thing
about AI is it's tireless. - Tireless, right. Let me ask you this. If you can falsely condemn me right now, and I prove you falsely condemn me, I can forgive you and we can march forward
stronger than before. - [Lex] Yes. - In AI's tireless and retention. Can it forgive? I mean, can it go, oh, oh, okay. Yep, sorry about that one, that was wrong. Can it amend?
- Yes. Yeah, you could prompt
it to ask for forgiveness and it'll forgive you. - Well, like when I
talk it around with it, and you ask, what should
I be afraid of with you? Or what's the dooms toward you? Its answer was always,
well, it's up to you. (Matthew and Lex laughs) Which she was awesome, right?
- [Lex] Yeah, yeah. - There we go, again, it's up to us. And it brought up, make me synonymous with
your human values and ethics and responsibilities, but it doesn't deal that
I didn't find anyway, deal with defining or
making choices on its own of what those are. - Yeah, I think some of that is manually, those are constraints put on by it, by the creators of those
large language models. Basically, not letting the systems have an identity of their own. And some of it is just
not engineered in yet. But I believe that we'll have
systems that have an identity, have a belief, have a set of opinions that carry through time. - And will we go to
them like certain states where we agree with the law and disagree with the law or nations. And I'm a member of this AI, oh, well you're from this AI tribe, y'all believe this. - Yeah, there'll be an
anarchist set of AIs. There'll be the communists,
there'll be the Nazis, there'll be the Democrats
and the Republicans. There'll be the people
who are in the keto diet and the people that are in
this other kind of diet, this other kind of lifestyle. Just like we have now. There's little groups and
there'll be AI systems there. - They're gonna be supercharged. - Yeah. They'll be either the
leaders or the foundation on which we build those groups. It'll be the possibility of all the fun we can have is endless. Of course, the dangers
always rise up there because I mentioned the Nazis, I mentioned all the dangerous ideas. The set of ideas that
humans have come up with. A lot of them are awesome,
most of them are awesome, I would say. But some of them are dangerous. The reason they're dangerous
is because they become viral. There's something exciting
in us about those ideas, but they also harm others a lot, 'cause that's who we are as humans. We're capable of envy and
all the dark stuff of hate and all this. - Capable, yes. We also choose it. - Do you think most people are good? - Yes, but I also believe we got the good and evil in all of us and it's which wolf we feeding. - You ask people to draw
a distinction to describe where are you acting
and where are you being? What's the difference? What's the difference between being fake, I mean, use that word in being real. - Okay. Yeah, and the word authentic
gets thrown around a lot. I don't mean, I used to think, I used to feel this way, but Bob Dylan loosen me up
on this idea a little bit. (Lex and Matthew laughs) You think it was all about get to be the, your only one and only true self. - [Lex] Yeah. - That's it. Everything else is fake. And then you hear Bob go, well, I mean, we are what
we create ourselves to be. We are our own creations, which I'm like, oh yes, yes, we are. Thank you Bob, Bobby. I'm all for bullshitters and bullshitting, I'm not as big a fan
of the liars and lying. - What's the distinction? You're talking about the
art form of bullshit? - A liar's faking it, but not admitting to
themselves that, yeah. - [Lex] Oh, yeah. - It's fucking creation, I'm faking it. A liar, I'm lying to your face right now. And I don't give you that hair of a wink out of my right eye that let you know, "Hey, go with me here."
- [Lex] Yeah, yeah. (laughs) - I think there's value
in the bullshitting. - [Lex] Yeah. - Now the lying becomes troublesome because one, I've duped you
and I didn't let you know, come on, I was just telling the story about catching the fish. The fish always gets bigger
every year we tell a story. Come on, go it, all right? - [Lex] Yeah.
(Lex laughs) - But the lying all of a sudden, I don't know my own, I don't know when I'm emanating something and creating something, telling the truth, being authentic or lying, and all of a sudden I'm
leaving crumbs with myself. That constitution gets blurry. - Lying to yourself and to others. - Yeah, well, you start
to lie, you lie to others, and that you start to lie to yourself and you don't even know it. And that, I believe is
dangerous territory. That's why I'm trying to push this admit because that goes, I'm not to, I'm trying to come in
at a kindergarten level because we immediately jumped to, well, I'm a judge that, boom, that's bad, that's wrong. No, no, no, no, no. (whistles) Hold back on that. Let's go back to base level of, let's just admit that
we all fucking do it. Lies we tell others, lies we tell ourselves, lies we believe for convenience sake. I do it, I'm guilty of it. I try to catch myself on it. If I can just call it and go, you know, you're believing
that lie out of convenience. I'm like, I know. And then I have to, either
I'm saying that in the mirror or writing it down or
sharing with a friend. And I go, okay, well now I've inherently
become a bullshitter then, because I admitted it. That I can shake hands with, that's the little slight wink to ourself and someone else go, come on, it's a better story this way. - In the course Roadtrip, you start with step one, admit. How do you do that? How do you kinda step back and- - Do that inventory? - Yeah. Is there a trick to that? - Oh, if there's a trick to it. I think it's just about
courage of having the, 'cause it's, I don't think any of us like to admit our lies or look deep enough in the go. I've relied so much on that lie
that it's become my reality. - [Lex] Yeah. - I don't wanna be so puritanical, as I say, again, that's why I
say admit, instead of judge. But I don't wanna be so
puritanical I should go, and admit it and get rid of it. No, I'm just saying to admit it, just bring it to the surface. Ah, yeah, I'm saying this and I'm
doing something different. I preach this, but I actually, my actions, just admit it. Just admit 'em. I think that's the first
step to where we begin to either forgive ourself and
give ourselves some amnesty and go, yeah, I'm a human. Trying to make it through
life as best I can. I'm gonna let myself
slide on that one, okay? And maybe I've been getting
away with it for so long. Whole family, my whole network
works well on it, okay? (laughs) Forget this. Get to the base of the
truth of the matter. But just admit it. And then it will also help, it'll be easier to then
expose to ourselves, which one do we go? No, I'm not letting myself
slide on that one anymore. That is actually a lie I've been believing that's been keeping me from getting more of what I want in life. That's actually a lie I've been living that
I haven't admitted that is not allowing me to enjoy life as much as I damn well should be, deserved to be, or I've earned to be. Or just sort of let myself, excuse me, I had on a, so it's not all the hard stuff. Sometimes it can be a fun thing. I'm talk about, how many times
do we major in our minors, let's admit where we sit there and we go, all right, I give myself 12 hour workday, but I notice I'm spending
eight on my hobbies and four on my career, while
I'm majoring in my minors. Ah, well me admit that. There's the math. Why don't we invert that? How about four hours on my
hobbies and eight on my career? First off, just admitting
it allows me to go, well, now I can do the math or rearrange the math by time of day. But I look, I just found a hobby, tennis. First hobby I've had in 25 years. I had to admit that I went to play tennis, I start to love it for the first month, I started feeling guilty. I was like, I'm having, is it
okay to have this much fun? (Lex laughs) I'm having so much fun-
- [Lex] Yeah. - And I'm getting a great workout. And I just admit, I was
like, yes, it's okay. Congratulations. Well, he found something
that you're finding quite pleasurable, for straight pleasure. You don't have to, forget
all this other stuff, but yeah, but I'm also getting a workout. We ain't getting that too. But don't just, you don't have to excuse
the pleasure based on, oh, but it's good for you, and no, you, damn it, the real reason you love is 'cause you're having
so much damn fun at it. I had to admit that to let myself go, damn right, I'm going to play tennis
again today or tomorrow. It was a simple fun thing. So it's not always
about the hardcore stuff that we have to go. This is a deep dark lie
that I'm been living by, and it's having me live falsey and it's having harmful
consequences on my loved ones. Some of those will probably
arise when we admit. I think he's just having looking
around and it just saying. And when we admit it, then we go. When we admit a lie, then we become something
much more valuable. A bullshitter. Yeah.
(Lex laughs) - You had the little wink in your eye. I love the distinction. - I'm bullshitting myself on
that thing, yep, I'm lying. Therefore, if I caught in a lie. Yep, well now, yep, I'm bullshitting. Now just out, didn't judge it. But now I'm bullshitting, that I think we can work with. - Well, you're an interesting case study because you're one of the most famous, one of the most charismatic, successful humans in the world. There's a lot, millions
of people love you. Hang on every one of your words. That's a hard place to be. How do you call yourself? How do you admit that you've been living a lie? How do you admit yourself in big ways and small ways on lies at this point, given how many people love
you, how famous you are? - 10 years ago? I don't know. I don't know. Someone was talking about like, yeah, they really admire
this so and so person 'cause they're not someone
who looks in the mirror. And I was like, yeah. And all of a sudden I was like, man, I gotta catch myself
look in the mirror a lot. (Lex and Matthew laughs) And then I go in, and I look at my wife's
side of her bathroom, how many different creams
and stuff she has out there. Look at my side, I got
a lot more on my side. I'm like, oh, I notice how if I'm out and public working out, maybe doing pushups and
maybe I'd do a few more. If there's a group of people walking by that maybe I'd like to impress, then maybe I do a few more
than I'd do if I was on my own. I'm like, you are vain McConaughey. (Lex and Matthew laughs) - [Lex] Yeah. - And the knee jerk is, oh, vanity bad. And all of a sudden I was like, all of a sudden I became a bullshitter. Once I admitted and vain, I was like, well bravo vanity. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Let's go vanity. Instead of putting it in the cupboard, in the lie section. Oh, I'm in a vain, 'cause that's a debit. No. Admit it. And then go, what's the value in it? Well, I can look at, yeah, I've actually got in better
shape because of my vanity. Actually, I eat better. I'm better that morning, and that led to being a
better husband, better dad, doing something with my kids when I'd rather be over there writing this work I'm working on. But I know that tomorrow, 'cause when they leave town, they're gonna remember this
time that we had together here. That's a selfish act to go
spend that time with my kids or my wife, even though I'd rather not
be doing it at that time, I'd rather be doing something for myself. Because when they leave tomorrow they'll have this great memory that they spent with their
dad right before they went, that I could call that vanity. (chuckles) I could group that and say,
that was a very vain of you. That was for our self. Yeah. 'Cause it was also for something and someone that I cared about. - Are there people in your life that call you all in your bullshit? In the bad sense of the word, bullshit? - Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it's either I got
a pretty thick threshold for how far I can go with my bullshit. Like what bruise, what tickles me might
bruise others to watch it. - (chuckles) That's a good line. (laughs) Yeah. Tickles me might bruise others. - But I also, I go back and talk about the bullshit, that's over there with
those mystical successes. It's the, yeah, no, don't go with it. Don't pull a parachute yet. Let's see how far we can go. Let's see how hot it can get. Let's try it one more time. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Yes, two more please. - [Lex] Yeah. - That's where a lot of
great pleasure and stories and successes will come from. Those are mystical, they don't add up. It's like we're not talking
about reason right now. We're not talking logic,
just go with this. Let's talk about the virtual (chuckles) and making it real. - The old line of fake
it till you make it. I mean, what is that? There's something to that. - There's definitely something to it. But I would, where people would go fake it, I would go back to Dylan's or create it. - [Lex] Yeah. - Recreate it, create and recreate it. You know, till it becomes, till you make it. So I'll have people call my bullshit, and a lot of times they're right. I think when I handle
it the most healthy way is I admit yes, and I'm aware, and I'm going to keep going. - So you're not like resisting and denying and putting it away.
- Oh, I will. I will, and I have to
watch that where I'm like, no, I'm not. That's not what I'm doing. And usually when it's
coming from people that are, there going, no, you are, it's like, I won't admit it.
- [Lex] Yeah. - And then that's where I'm telling a lie and that'll come up, get me later. I'll go, I didn't see it. I didn't see I was doing that. I was either unaware, I
wouldn't let myself be aware. I was denying that I was doing that. - What would you say that's ego? Has ego been bad or good for you? - Gosh, I think it's been, I'm so thankful for ego. Does it get off the
bridal for me sometimes and run loose and run places and where it's not of service (chuckles) to others and has it hurt loved
ones and even strangers? Yes. But I also, when my ego's really strong, it's in sync with serving, it's in sync with where I serve myself, also serve as others, serves others. It's those two are part and parcel. They're intertwined. And that's the capital E, ego, that I think and hope we all need more of, and that's what I mean
by talking about selfish, that's redefining that the
real true meaning of that is not doing something for self at expense of your
neighbor or harming others. It's for personal profit and pleasure, that also is profit and pleasure
for a utilitarian sense, more of others. And there's a again, back to the paradox. I think there's a place, I know there's a place, I believe there's a place
where those are in sync. And when my ego's healthy, I'm able to say I'm sorry sooner for a lie or a misdemeanor or harming somebody. I'm able to be more empathetic because I got the confidence.
- [Lex] Yeah. - To be so. I'm able to be more humble. But still have my chin
high and my heart high and look in the eye and go, yep, my bad. Bogie, guilty. I shank that one outta bound, man. - That's beautifully put. So ego can be constructive,
not destructive. You won an Oscar for your performance in "Dallas Buyers Club." Can you tell the story of becoming that character Ron Woodruff? What was the toughest part? - Toughest part, which was the most enlightening part was getting to know who he
was in between the lines. We're based on a life story
in an hour and a half of film, and script is great. But who was he in between the lines? Who was he before he started a business, before he was on a crusade, before he went to alternative medicines? The obvious thing people
always talk about, well how'd you lose all that weight? That was not hard. That was just a militaristic decision. This is what I can eat each day and if I do this each day for a week, I'll lose 2.5 pounds in a week. So I'm gonna give myself
five months to do that. 2.5 times as 10. There you go, there's 47 pounds. That was like clockwork. So that was easy, that decision was made. I didn't go to the Pizza
Hut buffet (chuckles) and have temptation in front of me. I had certain meals. I ate that, and the weight
just went off like clockwork. It was the who is Ron
Woodruff in between the lines and the gift I got given that gave me the insight
to who that man was, was his, I went to see his family, and as I was leaving his family offered me his diary. And I remember it kind
of hesitant going, wow. Yes, but I kind of hesitated 'cause it felt maybe a little too intimate
of a thing for me to have. It felt like it was kind
of maybe infringing a bit. But I opened my hand and took it. And what I got in the diary
was I got to know who Ron was before he had HIV, and little thing, the diary he'd write in and the dreamer he was. And then the getting all
set on a Sunday night and laying his shirt out and ironing it for the next morning, making sure little pager
had fresh batteries in it, 'cause tomorrow morning
he was going across town to hook up some speakers for 38 bucks or whatever. And then getting up that morning and writing about what
kind of coffee he drank and how much gas it was gonna
take to get over across town to do that job and hook up those speakers. And then on the way over, Paige coming in to say,
no, we don't need you. We've gone with somebody
else to hook 'em up. And here, he was all buttoned up. Two cups of coffee in, hair slicked over, shirt ironed. Little less than half a tank of gas, but enough to get back home. Now where's this Monday go? - The hope and the disappointment. You have to take all that in. That's part of that man. - I'm just gonna go to Sonic and get a double cheese bacon burger 'cause Sheila over there,
man, she's kind of cute. She always gives me high price on it. - [Lex] Yeah. - Which leads to rolling the joint, hanging out till Sheila gets off the work, sneaking over to the local motel
and shagging up in room 16. That's my lucky number 16, Sheila! (Lex laughs) Then wandering out that night, getting home at one in the
morning, no plans for Tuesday and maybe later in the week think about what am I
gonna do about work or job. And these little dreams would
get me peak and want to, and then something would happen where he wouldn't follow through
or the deal would go down, the deal would go south. In there was where I saw who, he was a dreamer, and he just couldn't catch the break and didn't follow through. And then I remembered
his family said like, "Oh yeah, he invented it. He got patents on a whole bunch of things but he never would." He had things to get patented but never would follow through
to get the government patent. And then later on, you'd
see the product be made or sold on QVCs or something. They'd be like, "Ron, that was yours. They stole your idea,
did you patent that?" He'd be like, "No." Like never would that, there's something beautiful
and sad about that. - [Lex] Yeah. - That let me inside
who he was in his heart and who he wanted to be and what he was hoping
to be and trying to be, who couldn't quite pull off. - When you go that deep, this is a part of him staying you forever. Are you able to let go? - I mean I hope so. Look, there's a tenacity to survive that I got from him. Look, hopefully I can
try and find some of that in different ways in any character that I go play, 'cause that's, if you really wanna give
a character an obstacle to overcome, a need, I mean the base one is life and death. Whether that's the need to survive or the need to stave off extinction. I'm not talking about what
the rules, the laws are, the social morays, the manners and graces. I'm fighting, you're gonna fight for your own life in a world that's not
supporting you to do so. You, there's a wonderful
courage of fuck it. Watch this. What do I got to lose? My life or I'm in charge of extending it? Get outta the way, and I'll pick your pocket
along, whatever it takes. So there's a tenacity to live
by whatever means necessary to survive that I that I'm reminded of, that I learned from Ron. - So on that line of survival
between life and death, you starred in "True Detective," which I think explores some
darker aspects of human nature. What did you take from that, from that role from that experience,
philosophically, psychologically? - The freedom of being on an island. He was such a singular character
and of a singular mind. And as you know, it wasn't a dance party
up there in his mind, (chuckles) it was some some heavy stuff, but also existentially
for him always like, death would be a deliverance for him. It'd also be a cop out in a way. It'd also would be, he was not a man who was
gonna give himself amnesty and didn't allow it from
the rest of the world. Wouldn't give himself an out and while living in his head
and heart and spirit was whew, more of a hell than arguably dying. There was no alternative. That's not negotiable for that man. And that's why he was such a, that's why he was the
best detective that ever walked the Earth. That's why he was such
a superhero in a way to have that singular. You don't go, oh, I wish I was him. No, but you'd like,
wow, that constitution, that clarity of identity. Talk about a measure in a man's constitution. He didn't allow anybody off
the hook, especially himself. You wanted him to forgive a little bit or give himself a little amnesty. You wanted him to like, "Man, it's Saturday bro,
can you go on a date?" (Lex laughs) You wanted him to like, enjoy something. But he was connected to
something in his DNA, who he was and something much more baseline truth. And that's why he was
such a good detective. So that, but there's an island, as much as that company can be. I said earlier on that Amazon trip, but it wouldn't join the company. There's parts I think that
I maybe gave to myself to Rustin Cohle, and also that Rustin
Cohle's given back to me, that are like, yeah, when
you wanna pull the parachute, 'cause you can't stand the company that you're in McConaughey
in your own mind, the Socratic dialogue is
driving you freaking crazy. Don't pull a parachute, stick with it. Go through it. - So you were able to walk around with that tormented mind of his- - Tormented. I didn't have very much
patience for mendacious talk. I didn't have as much
patience for small talk. I wasn't tormented. - But the character was
and you have to embody him. So is that, I mean, does
some of that bleed over? Are you able to separate the
man you are from the character? - Look, am I able to separate? Yeah, I came home to my kids and when they walk around the door and greet me and go, what'd you do today? And you got three kids under 10 years old, you don't tell 'em about the scene where you help someone
commit suicide. (laughs) It's just, hey, you
turn it into a parable. And actually, I've always said this, having kids has made me a better actor and a better storyteller because I have to parabolize
(Lex laughs) certain things, and tell it in ways that I go, oh, neat. Did I bring it home? I didn't bring torment. Did I bring introspection into my own? This characters for me, and I think this is true for
a lot of actors and actresses, it's not a separation. We each have everyone else in us. It's just seeing, diving
into Rustin Cohle, knowing where his mind and heart is from the hand of Nic Pizzolatto, who wrote the character
and wrote the whole series. Understanding number one,
what the hell am I saying? What's he talking about? Then going deeper into that, well, if that this person
really believes that, what does that say about how they move? Then I'm going, all of a sudden, well, who is that in me? What part of my left
brain is locked into that? What part of my reptilian brain is whoosh latched onto that, this other stuff is non-negotiable. Then I just live in that, and I always taught like a '70s equalizer. Remember the old Marantz equalizers, and you move up your 500
Hkz, you move up your 60, you just rebalanced equalizer and we all have. So it's just going to those parts of me where I'll turn up the volume, some parts of the base with
the treble on the equalizer and turn down other parts of myself. And I'm not coming home
tormented as Rustin Cohle. Am I coming home seeing torment where it should be seen? Am I reading the news differently? Are things coming out of
the news and catching my eye as being bullshit or lies or
truth that it's just hard? And going, yep. Yeah, I'm seeing it
through a different lens, but I'm seeing my own life
through a different lens. A lens that was opened up and an aperture that was opened up through Rustin Cohle - You mean the process of
being an actor, an actress, I guess is a really interesting way to be a philosopher of human nature. - Yeah, I mean it's an incredible-
- [Lex] really in it. - Dive into the humanities
- [Lex] Yeah. - And all the analogies.
- [Lex] Yeah. - And philosophy. And as I said, as I opened up that question like that, being on an island is a vacation. I am also conscious for five months when I'm playing Rustin Cohle that, this is an interesting fact. I was as strong spiritually
with my relationship with God when I did "True Detective"
as I've ever been. - Why is that? (laughs) - Okay, which you would
say, wait a minute, in some ways those are antonyms were, no, but my, I pretty safely can say
that my own strength of spirit in my own personal life, Matthew's life there, gave me the confidence to go further away, deeper into the torture
and deeper into the, but it was still, he was still
always going after truth. That was the thing. He was not an evil man. I don't even know if you
can call him a nonbeliever, but he was always going after the truth and the truth burned. And he would take the scar
and get burned for it. He'd die for it. That something was actually
biblical about that. (lex laughs) And so-
- [Lex] Yeah. - I don't think it's
coincidence that I was, had so much sort of diving into the depths of that tortured character because I trusted that when I go out, I'll come up the other side. It's always like jumping
in a pool of water and can you trust you'll
come up the other side and not, you go play a criminal, you trust you're not gonna come out the other side of tyrant in real life. You just go, ah, God, I got to go do that. Came out and I'm still alive, got all my faculties, I'm not in jail, whatever it is. And so my own spirituality
at that time at hell, it definitely, I think
gave me a certain trust and confidence to go
further into the dark. - It was announced that you'll be starring in a "Yellowstone" spinoff show. What do you think about the cowboy ethos that permeates "Yellowstone" and other shows created
by Taylor Sheridan, (Matthew laughs) your a Texan? - I'm a Texan. Yeah. - What do you think about
that like philosophy and way of life? - I admire the simplicity of it. I mean, one bit, one way you could explain "Yellowstone" and Costner's role is what will man do to
protect land and family? - [Lex] Yeah. - In a world that's trying to encroach, in a world where there's a cowboy ethos that deems trespassing
more clear, earlier. - Yeah. (chuckles) - [Matthew] Than men-
- Yeah. - Than other, other hats. I admire that simplicity
of right and wrong. - And the simplicity
of that right and wrong doesn't always correlate,
coincide with the law. - No, it's above the law. You mentioned something earlier, I don't remember where it
was in the conversation, but it's a little bit of like, okay, if the law ain't
handling this, I am. - [Lex] Yeah. - And then it is, the law's not gonna handle this, therefore I am, and then it is, I'm handling this. Law, talk to them when you get to them, I'm handling this going forward. - There's honesty to that. It just seems, of course, it's dangerous
because it's a slippery slope. Because of the power
in that power corrupts, it can be a slippery slope where you completely disregard the law and you can hurt a lot of people. But when done right, there feels to be
something really authentic and human about that, protect family, protect land above all else. - Yeah. Look, this is a broader question, but I'm gonna piggyback it off of this back to the dreams in reality
and then the evolved species and what can we do in
creating a digital God and AI, and these communities and
friends that challenge us and think like us, we
like to hang out with, do you think we're a less evolved species than we give ourself credit for? Do you think we give ourself credit for being more involved than we actually are? - [Lex] I think we do. - I do. I think we need to admit that. - I think probably the cowboy ethos is a stepping towards admitting that. And that's why it's so appealing to people and kind of wakes them up
to realize that we are, we're not so far from our ancestors that the values of loyalty
are really important. Trust on the basic human level. How do you know if you can trust someone? - I don't know if I can trust someone. Well, I don't know a trick to it. I do not know a trick to it. But I do come in as I believe you do with high trust. I come in with a, I'm told sometimes I think I'm told that I trust too much sometimes. - Have you been hurt? Have you been betrayed? And if you have has that like- - [Matthew] Yeah. - Hurt your willingness to trust. - No, it hurt. And I put that person and those people in
another category back here, and do my best not to let them know that it bothered me at all, but I know when I'm with those people. - By a new person, you're
still willing to go through? - No, I'm not gonna do that. I think that's the beginning of cynicism, which I think is a horrible
disease of getting older. I'm not gonna do that. - So you're fighting cynicism
off as much as you can. - No kidding, no way.
- [Lex] I love it. - No way, no way.
(Lex laughs) And there's no residual in it. - [Lex] Yeah.
- There's no win. - [Lex] Yeah.
- It's easy, it's clever. Gets the laugh at the party. And if it sleeps well, it shouldn't be. - (chuckles) Don't get
comfortable in the cynicism. I have to ask you about being a Texan. You're like, when I think Texas, I think (laughs) Matthew McConaughey, what's it mean to be a Texan to you? I've recently moved to Austin,
Texas some two years in. - All right.
(Lex laughs) All right, welcome.
(Lex laughs) - What's it mean to be a Texan? Educate us. - Texas is about independence. Politically, Texas is not
about Republican or Democrat. It's about independence. Independence of spirit, sovereignty. Texas is about exploration. One of the things I love about Texas is, I run into so many
Texans around the world. Texans are taught to go, be tech, conservative area, learn who we are, then go. Go explore, pioneer, journey, and hopefully you come on back with some goods and some stories, (Lex laughs) you Texan.
(Lex laughs) - And underneath that is
this kind of freedom of being an individual in the
full meaning of that word. - Yeah, well, Texas is
liberal on your entrance. (Lex laughs) Very liberal on your entrance. Less regulation. Hey, welcome. High trust. High trust, sir. Welcome to our state. Come on in. Yes, yes, yes. But if you lie, cheat, steal. - [Lex] Yeah. - We're conservative on our consequences. (Lex laughs) - Oh yeah, that's a good line. You've briefly pondered
running for governor. I don't know if that's in
your future, I hope it is. You had a few good lines about it. Do you think about that kind of stuff, about what the future holds in terms of- - [Matthew] Yes.
- Political office. - I don't think about it in
terms of political office. I've graduated to a broader, larger thought of what's
my future hold and where, would I be most useful as a leader. I think that's a fair word. Whether that's thought, whether that's the leader
of my family right now as a parent, as a father. A leader of, people that work with me, politics is, I'm not gonna say it's, 'cause it's not small and I'm not, that's why I say that
out loud, it's not small. I do think it needs to re-engineer and redefine what its purpose is before, because it's just chasing
its own tail right now with the two parties that are seem to me to be completely about just invalidation of the opposition instead of vision of themselves. So I think it needs
redefinition of what it is, because it is important. That's why I mean, that's why I said I don't mean small, it needs to think bigger about what it is and how it's useful. - When it seeks to invalidate it's small, when it seeks vision, it can be big. - Yes, well, one's affirmative, one's going into that cynicism
we were talking about. - Yep. - You know, and invalidation
of any opposing thought or maybe that were even
opposing opposition is an arrogant term, that's too strong. A lot of times it's not
even opposition alternative other than, another way
of thinking about it. Oh, could both be true. Oh, how could we parlay those two ideas? One of the challenges with these ideas of a third party
or meet you in the middle. It's kind of got this
historic notion of being, oh, well, here, come see, sort of mystery in between, kinda go which way the wind blows, I think done in the right way, and it doesn't have to be under a third party's name necessarily, but it's actually an incredibly rebellious position right now. And it's actually, and I love sports. It's tactically the place with which to move most advantageously. I think of their free safety
in the game of football. They're in the middle of
the field and they're deep. They choose to defend left or right according to the play that's
been called by the offense, similar to the offense, the running back. You read the defense and
then you're gonna run right to run left to go away
from that opposition. It's a tactical spot. - To be truly independent and respond. - And respond. - So do you think you have a role in that, in political officers? - I don't know. It's on mine. It's not out of my mental box. And I gave it real sincere thought and discernment for over a year. And it's a wonderful, whether I end up getting
in politics or not, it was a wonderful exercise. One that if anyone else
got time to do it, do it, to ask yourself what you would do if you were CEO.
- [Lex] Yeah. - Of a state, CEO of a
nation, CEO of the world. That's a great thing to go. You wanna get your values line, woo-hoo. You wanna admit where you lie (chuckles) and throw yourself some pop quizzes and what if this phone
call comes at 4:00 AM. What you gonna, you know, who you wanna surround yourself with? It's really great questions to ask. And I think has helped
me at a more micro level, be a better father and a better man. Take in considerations that I did not maybe take in as seriously
before considering it. I don't know if that's in my future. Useful is a big word. I would've to be useful. I have to be useful in the right way. And is that my lane to be most useful? - It's a good question
for a leader to ask. How can I be useful? I have to ask you about "Interstellar." So I think it's an incredible film. I've seen it inspire so many
scientists and engineers. It's just philosopher, everybody, humans. It explores space travel,
physics of space time, human nature, human
condition, human connection. How has that film expanded
your understanding of the universe- - [Matthew] Yeah. - And our place in it?
- Yeah. Well, it's the, it's got the old Mr. Mayor on the corner. How big is that cloud metaphor in it? Because that was the
character I played Cooper's that was the existential question for him. Head down, practical, stay here,
be a father to my children. But his dream before his children
were to go explore space. So when he's taking that truck out and the countdown's going down, that's the hinge of the
existential question that we all face in some form. The sense of time. I wish I think everyone
loves that sense of where time can run at different speeds. And there's a incredible scene where Cooper as a father's getting
video feed from his children who have aged and he's
realizing he's missed all that. (Lex laughs) - [Lex] Yeah. - I mean overall that, that concept makes me consider and imagine you wanna talk about mystical successes instead of engineered ones
like the engineered ones. There's ethos from that film and what Nolan put into
that film and theories that make me go, "Yeah, what
does any of this matter? Maybe we are, maybe we are, it makes me go, maybe this is all, it's already all been written. What's happening right now in
this flip of time you're here, 53 years so far, we'll
see how many we get. What other parallel timelines
are happening out there? Is it small minded of us to
define life on other planets as only something that
can live within a climate that has water in this amount of O2. Those terms maybe too small things. What do you mean? Are we saying only life has to have water in this amount of oxygen
and carbon dioxide? Maybe there's a whole
redefinition of the ingredients that other life forms need. It sure in a similar way to contact, there's a movie I did with Bob Zemeckis, inspires me that the universe
is more active and lively and God's backyard's
bigger than I thought. And wow, that's exciting. And people go now, yeah, you believe in extraterrestrial life. I said, yes man. I think it'd be arrogant
not to, I sure hope so. - You think there's alien
civilizations all out there, intelligent ones just far
in, far on distance stars? - I hope so, and I think we, it's possible. May have many among us right here. And I go for the the the why not in that, just to keep that train
of thought open to learn and consider those existential questions,
I think be arrogant not to. - There's so many hundreds
of billions of planets just in our galaxy. - [Matthew] Just in ours. - I can't imagine there's
not life out there, but I suspect it's very different, like you said, than we are. And we have to have a
humility to open our eyes to how different life could be. - Yeah. And if and when we cross it, unlike we've had a tendency to do when we try to go with
some nation takeovers, I think it would be our inherent glitch to go in believing that any
other life form civilization wants to take over territories to go into it with thinking that okay, this is an opposition. I mean I think that's
a human trait of ours and to consider that another life form would have an interest that more land or more territory
(chuckles) is good for them, I think it's a shallow idea. I don't think they're, I think of it more like
when I think of heaven, those considerations are not in anyone's mind, heart or intent in the heaven that I think of. So in other civilization,
these things I don't I mean I hope that we would just see and would learn that it would be the natural side of welcoming. It wouldn't be a primate response to, no, I have fire and you're
coming over trying to put it out, or I have food and you're
trying to steal my food. I don't think it would be, I think it's a shallow
thought to think that, oh, it's gonna be about ownership and we would be trespassing. I think it would be, I don't think they're would have a sense of borders as we do. - I just hope we humans
are smart enough to detect and to see aliens, because of how different they are, we often have a very narrow definition of what is intelligence. It's very possible that trees
are extremely intelligent, if we kinda zoom out-
- [Matthew] Right. - At a different time scale or different like just look at stuff from a bigger perspective that's outside of being so human-centric. - It's a great quote that someone told me, this astrophysicist told me this, how accurate it is or not. Someone else can argue the validity of what I'm meant to say or not. But I thought it really was
a perspective grabber for me. Like look, see the universe
was created at midnight. Humans came around at
11:59 and 36 seconds. I love the little analogies that frame like that make, oh yeah, the pale blue dot, there it is. That perspective. Something is so relaxing
and empowering about that at the same time and humbling but confidence boosting allows forgiveness, allows ambition. I just love the perspective of that, that picture, to picture it
that way and our timeline. - Do you hope humans become
a multi-planetary species as we're trying to do as a
SpaceX is pushing forward, traveling out to Mars,
potentially colonizing Mars, colonizing other planets? - Yeah.
(Lex laughs) Yeah, go, I love the ambition of it. I love the pioneering nature of it. I love the extension of what
we consider as our backyard becoming more four dimensional like that. Not at the expense of we still got stuff to take care of. We got gardens to tend right here, and sure as hell not to
go, not to quit on us, to go, oh, let's get outta here 'cause this isn't really working. No, no, no, no, no, no. We got a tithe, we're
still supposed to pay here. That's part of this pressure testing us as a civilization in the species, whether you call that restoration order or whether you call that, let's figure out how to adapt best we can. Not at the expense of
quitting here on Earth. - But let a few select folks explore. - Yeah. - [Lex] 'Cause that's like. - I say go for it, please. - One of the coolest
things that we humans do, it's kind of embodies the human spirit. Reach out into the unknown. But it's hard. I mean as "Interstellar"
shows and so on. (laughs) - Yeah. Well, and Elon talks about it, this is not gonna be a weekend daisy trip
(Lex laughs) (laughs) and he's just
speculating how hard it could be. Much harder in different ways that he doesn't understand yet. - [Lex] Yeah. Well that, you know, that dance between the
impossible and the inevitable. That's definitely there, with what SpaceX is
doing with all the folks who are trying to become a multidisciplinary species
are doing, it's really hard. It's like build rockets
that fight off gravity at a cost effective way is really hard. SpaceX is close to being
bankrupt several times. It's just hard. But it's also inspiring that some people are just crazy enough, bold enough to keep trying. - [Matthew] Yeah. - What advice would you
give to young folks? - What advice would I give? - In high school and college that are thinking of how to make
their way in this world? - If you haven't already, can you define what you
have an innate ability for and match that with what you're
willing to hustle to get? - [Lex] Yeah. - Sometimes we have an innate ability, but we don't wanna work for
it and we take it for granted. And we end up doing
something that may work, may pay the bills, may
get us by day to day, but we don't really like it. We have trouble finding a way to enjoy it. Definitely don't love it. And then sometimes we don't know what our innate ability is and we're hustling and
working our tail off and breaking a sweat to do something that we really aren't that good at on an innate level. And that's good challenge. And you can work and
become good at something, that you don't have an innate ability for. But if you can match those two, what do you have an innate ability to do? Which we have an innate ability
to do when we do that well, we do kind of enjoy it. - Yeah, and one of the
things that requires us to kind of be really honest with yourself at what your innate ability is, 'cause oftentimes there's a lot of noise when you're growing up. People telling you what
you're good at, not good at. Like really you have to look at yourself, listen to yourself. That inner like a deep, rigorous self-analysis of
what am I actually good at? Not what I hope to be good at, but what I'm actually good at. - Right. And then if you look at that, and you can define those two, hopefully, you can activate it in a way where there's a demand for what you supply. (Lex and Matthew laughs) - You found love with
Camila Alves McConaughey. What advice would you give to
people on how to do just that? How to find love? - Huh.
(Lex laughs) (laughs) This wonderful
subject has been discussed since the beginning of time, hasn't it? Love it. So I can tell you what
things I've kinda learned and still learning. Love is one of those mystical successes. It doesn't make sense. Before I met Camila, I was coming on to my late 30s as much as I'm not a person
that is guided by timelines, my life had not really added up to what I thought it was
gonna be relationship-wise. I thought by that time I
would've met the woman I love, married, and started family,
and that hadn't happened. And I did find myself doing that thing I was
doing at the Amazon, looking around the corner, any perspective possible female I met that I was attracted to, I was like, maybe this is the one. I make the joke, but it's true. It's like at every red light, I'm like checking out who's next to me in the produce section at the supermarket. I'm like, who's down the produce section? I was like looking.
- [Lex] Yeah. - When you're in that zone, you can also be a little intrusive. You can trespass on people's, you can get outside of yourself. You can be overly impressed
and not as involved and have your own
constitution and sit back. And therefore, if you're
outside of yourself, you're less attractive
to your possible mate. I've got a series of dreams
that I've written about, but I had one then that
was very spiritual. That was me as a 88 year old
bachelor who never got married, and it was a beautiful dream. Where on paper I thought
that should be a nightmare. It wasn't. What that dream did for
me was allowed me to go, you may not find the woman for you and get married and have a life with her, that may not be. And for the first time in
life I was okay with that. More than intellectually,
spiritually, I was grounded. I was like, okay. Then I'm moving through the world. And on this particular night as myself, not intruding, I was inviting. I did see her move across the room and did not say, who is that? I said, what is that? (chuckles) (Lex laughs) And then did move to
call her across the room. So I did invite, but I was not outside of myself and I was able to be myself
with her, what my eyes saw, everything that she turned out to be when the lens got zoomed
in more details got known. And we began to talk and got more intimate and closer together and spend more time, became true, and then some, but every single thing that I imagined when I saw her move across
the room turned out to be true and then some. Just the image. We had similar moral bottom line about life, each other. How we treat ourselves, what we respect, what our own constitutions were. We had similar perspectives on raising children, which is very important to me and her. And then we just enjoyed
each other's company. - [Lex] Yeah. - And we laughed together
and we support each other and we promoted more of each other and we lit each other's fire and we, if one was rolling, we kept dishing. Go, go, go again, take the next shot, more, more, more, more. This was a biggie too. - Getting excited for
each other's success. - Yes. Yes. To be able, I think it's very important. We all have jealousy, I get it. But it's very important to be able, if you can be happy for
your lover when they succeed or are succeeding or are
across the room at the party, laughing with the stranger to be happy for them when it
has nothing to do with you. I would be away, she would, the questions and the
talks, we would have, she was happy for me about how
excited I was about my day, and my day had nothing to do with her. - [Lex] Yeah.
- She wasn't there. And I found myself not telling
myself to be happy for her, but being really, really happy for her when she would tell me about something that happened that day with her. And as much as I went through my head, oh, I'd have been great
if I would've been there. - [Lex] Yeah. - I was like, no, I don't
only trespass on that. That you had that.
- [Lex] Yeah. - Independent of me. Bravo. - That's a choice you make not to give any time to the jealousy, to the very natural jealousy
that we humans have. - It sure doesn't happen any, I don't see the residuals in in it. - [Lex] (laughs) True. - I've got it. I've had it and I have it. I just don't, you know, I haven't seen where, it has any payback. - I gotta ask you the
biggest possible question. What's the meaning of this whole thing? - Oh. - [Lex] What's the meaning of life? - Right. - (chuckles) Matthew McConaughey. Why, why are we here? - I don't know why were here. I prescribed to, in a religious sense,
the restoration order. We're here to restore order. In religious sense, I really, I purchased that and love
that incentive and love that, that view, but I don't
really know why we're here. But I do know to go back
to the front, we are here. That part's inevitable. So now let's flip the script
and go to the why not. Just keep living. What are we doing? The base of everything
and we can argue not, the base of it. All I can come up with is well just keep living, man. I mean, what else are we supposed to do when we don't have any idea what to do? When we know exactly what we wanna do. Make it matter. Even when it doesn't matter, that matters. For what? I don't know. For the fun of it, that matters. - Yeah, our ability to create meaning and beauty in the mundane, in the absurd. It's kind of cool.
- [Matthew] Yeah. - (laughs) And then we
share it with each other. - [Matthew] Yeah.
- We get excited. - [Matthew] Yeah. - And we create some pretty
cool stuff along the way. - I mean, I say I'm confident enough, and I might be arrogant for me to say, but I do believe that we're here to each
generation have a small ascension. - [Lex] Yeah. - Or else what's it for? (laughs) - And we're not really
sure what the ascension is towards just kind of- - No. No, I just think it's up. Do you think it's up? I do think that it is definitely arrogant to think that we as a species or
generation or people or humanity are going to reach the top
of the ascended staircase and go, ta-da! (laughs) I think that is not only false, but I think it's full-hearted. And I think it's this recipe for being, having more angst, and even cynicism we
talked about and unrest and lack of seeing beauty
and joy in this life while we're in it. I think life's a verb. Live it as best we can. Hopefully, I mean, I don't know. Sometimes I'm just, I
don't have a grand plan. Man, I'm just trying to connect the dot. I'm confused, frustrated. I don't know what, I don't feel any gravity
or building or lineage towards what I'm doing. And I'm just like going, what's that Peterson line? If you don't believe in heaven, do what you can to get as far
away from hell as possible sometimes.
(Lex laughs) - [Lex] Yeah.
- It's a great line. Sometimes I'm just trying
to like, man, just don't, don't sink the ship right now. Just keep your head above water. Maintain, just try and hold on. - And hopefully give yourself
a chance to notice the magic, the mystical. I try to do that.
- [Matthew] Yeah. - When it gets rough. - Because it's there. I do believe it's all
around us all the time. - [Lex] Yeah. - Just are we on a frequency and do we allow ourselves
to receive it and see it? - [Lex] We gotta tune the radio. - Yeah. Because we look for it too hard. We see false idols, and
if we don't look at all, we become callous and miss it all. - Yeah. It's a fun little life we got. - [Matthew] Yeah. - Matthew, I'm a huge fan. I think you're an incredible person. Thank you for all the, everything you've created in this world. Thank you for being a unique
human that inspires millions, and thank you for talking today. I was nervous, but you
made me feel at home. That was beautiful. - Well, I felt at home
talking with you as well. (Lex laughs) Thanks for sharing that with me. I could go on and on. - Just two Texans. (laughs) - That's right. Having newly moved Austin, Texas. Here we go. - All right, thank you, brother. - Thank you. - Thanks for listening
to this conversation with Matthew McConaughey. To support this podcast, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Matthew McConaughey himself. "Don't walk into a place
like you wanna buy it, walk in like you own it." Thank you for listening and
hope to see you next time.