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This week we talk to Rainn Wilson about the courage to be hopeful
Rainn Wilson is best known for his Emmy-nominated role as Dwight Schrute on NBC’s The Office. Wilson also voiced the alien villain Gallaxhar in Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) and starred in the police procedural Backstrom
Today he’s equally well-known for his millions of Twitter followers and the philosophy website he founded, SoulPancake, which creates media about life’s big questions. and wrote a New York Times bestselling book of the same name.
He just released a memoir called The Bassoon King: My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy.
Our Sponsor this Week is Spirituality and Health Magazine. Click here for your free trial issue and special offer.
Our Sponsor this Week is Spirituality and Health Magazine.
In This Interview Rainn Wilson and I Discuss…
- The One You Feed parable
- His new book The Bassoon King
- How spirituality got a bad name
- How spirituality is everything that we don’t have in common with the monkeys
- How happiness is not an if then proposition
- The difference between happiness and joy
- The balance between ambition and acceptance
- How cynicism robs us of the gift of joy
- How much easier it is to be cynical than to be hopeful
- Bombing on Broadway
- How success doesn’t mean the end of the difficulties of life
- The Baha’i faith
- How the Baha’i faith encourages equality between women and men
- Thomas Merton
- Reconciling a loving God with the terrible things that happen in the world
- Why is there suffering?
- Sin as “missing the mark”
- “Art is synonymous with devotion”
- How we always want to be diverted and entertained
- What would happen if we took 1% of the time we devote to entertainment and spend it helping others
Rainn Wilson Links
KM says
I love your show – always thought provoking and interesting perspectives. With that said, I have one small issue with this episode with Rainn Wilson. At the end when you’re talking about everyone taking an hour out of watching football or TV to serve others, I feel there’s a huge inconsistency in that statement with the rest of the episode. If spirituality is everything that separates us from monkeys, that includes art/”entertainment”, organized competitive games, sportsmanship, athletic achievement, etc. Of course I’m not arguing against serving others, or taking time out of “selfish” pursuits, however artistic, etc. they may be for the sake of the greater community good. But just like everyone defines the good wolf slightly differently, everyone defines what speaks to their spirit differently. Who’s to say that The Office is more or less artistic or spiritually engaging than The Wire/Game of Thrones/Mad Men/other award winning “entertainment”/TV documentaries? And while football certainly has it’s detractors, and understandably so, it also at many levels promotes all kinds of good things: self improvement, healthy physical movement, service to others that many teams participate in, grit and determination, teamwork, etc. Maybe I just love football too much but I think there are much worse ways to spend one’s time. Even Candy Crush has an element of art to its design. 🙂 I think more than anything we just have to be aware of whether we’re making choices in how we spend our time for the right reasons. Are we playing Monument Valley in order to numb ourselves from the reality of our life and the world around us, or because it’s a gorgeous piece of art that just happens to be a game?
Not meant to be a complaint, just more food for thought as I continue to wrestle with my own confusion and paradoxes. 🙂 Keep up the great work!
Eric Zimmer says
Those are all great points and I don’t believe that one type of art is better than another. I also don’t see anything wrong with entertainment.
We were talking about taking 1% of the time we spend doing those things and devoting that time to others.
The latest studies I’ve seen show the average American is watching TV 5 hours a day. So that would be 35 hours per week. Online numbers are probably similar. So to take 30 minutes out of that weekly, doesn’t seem extreme or telling people to give up art and the things that provide comfort and entertainment.
I ultimately agree that each person needs to be conscious of how we are spending our time and what is really important to us (it’s our own decision). However the distractions that surround us are engineered to keep us watching and clicking. Setting a clear guideline for ourselves can help us become more intentional and less at risk for the distractions taking over.
I think the other part of the sentiment is that we are talking about creating a life worth living. Helping others shows up again and again in studies about contentment and happiness and yet most of us still look for it on a screen somewhere.
Again 1% was the discussion which is pretty unremarkable on an individual level but would be huge on a collective level.
Thanks for the great conversation.
KM says
Hey, Eric! Thanks so much for responding! I completely agree and I realize I may have come off sounding like I think my couch time watching football trumps time spent helping others, which isn’t really what I meant. But then again, I am far, far below 5 hours of TV a day (yikes!).
And you’re so right – I can’t even fathom the collective effect that trade-off in our time would have. Personally, as a counselor, I am lucky to spend my days at work helping others already. So for me, I have to be sure to make time for self-care to avoid burnout. Although I do get a lot out of volunteering, etc. that I do outside of work as well.
Maybe the bigger picture is that cultivating connections with others, be that through helping them or just interacting in general, is always going to be more fulfilling than staring at a screen…which goes right back to what Manoush Zomorodi had to say when she was on your show!
Thank you so, so much for the work you do to help us all pursue that life worth living!