If you really want to 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 walk this earth. He starred in films and shows loved by me
and millions of others, including Interstellar, Dazed and Confused,
Dallas Bias Club, Killer Joe, Mud, True Detective,
and soon a spin-off of Yellowstone. Off-screen, his words carry wisdom and
power in his book called Green Lights and his
new video course called Road Trip, 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 the Lex
Friedman 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 bitching about. That
love will win in the end, literally three to two with my mom and dad.
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,
if we're not sure what to do
and people give you a thousand books and advice,
as a parent, if your kid knows you love them, 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 them. 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
or not. They
wanted and needed a relationship that was a tidal wave,
rocky, right angles, tsunamis. And to this day in
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 all this? Everything's so smooth stuff. Come on, come on, come on, come on.
So she challenges like vitality because that's what my mom needed to communicate.
I don't think my dad needed it as much.
The hard angles that their relationship, I don't think my dad needed as much as my mom.
But the clashes demonstrated the passion that underlies the love.
Yes, and that's, I've always been asked, you know, when I talk about my parents'
love relationship, I tell the stories that are actually
sometimes quite violent. And 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,
wait a minute, that was unhealthy. You can't, and I was like, no, that's
again, back to the beginning, love's messy. And that 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.
Yeah. And it never was.
Again, the love won. In the kitchen floor, the blood's drawn,
knives are pulled. Ketchup.
Ketchup's all over. But we make love on the kitchen floor.
I mean, come on, beautiful. So as romantic as it gets right there.
Whoa. 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. Philip's School. I was in
kindergarten. And I 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. 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, anything. I was like, army, I'm looking down. I'm going to put my head
to the ground. I'm going to 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 never make it. It's not even worth imagining. It's fairy dust.
So I learned a lot of self-reliance from that. 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
quarter 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 in a plane
and in 30 seconds I was in a cloud. I'm like, whoa, we must be going a trillion miles an hour
because 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. Train 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.
What do you think about that tension of a way of living life between being a dreamer
and a pragmatist? Yeah. Which is a better way? Donnie holds the reciprocity of the two of them.
I mean, I can't be present unless I got plans. I want to have the big picture in mind,
but I got to 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. If we're just the old, you read the Hallmark card to take, irk me, dream it, you can
do it. I think that's a half-assed horrible thing to tell somebody. 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, if you silo the two, I guess that the pragmatics, 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 in 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 kind of
want you to be safe, want you to be stable, want you to have a plan so that everything's
going to be okay. And the dream feels like a threat to that.
Yeah. How much of that though I wonder is proper initiation?
Because if you throw in dreams out, I call it conservative, very liberal late.
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 is supposed to work. Now, it doesn't always work
that way. You teach a child to drive. It's like, yeah, you stay in the lane, you go the speed
limit. This is all helpful, but that doesn't guarantee that no one else is running the red
light. But we learn that later. There's an initiation I think that's proper with the dream.
I mean, I think my parents were very much that way. The idea of going to chase an acting career
or something was what? That was a different vernacular. I was taught to work your way up
a company ladder and nine to five, do your job. But the day I brought it up and said,
I want to go to film school. And I thought my dad was going to go, you want to do what, boy?
He 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.
When they're going, I'm bringing it up to you with full respect, but I'm doing this
with or without you. That's when a parent goes, 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, 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. What do those words mean
to you? We got to be more than just happy to be here. I'm big on gratitude, but we've got to be
more than just thankful to be here. Dream it, you can do it. It's got to be more than just
dream it, you can do it. That's impressed. The dream is still other than. 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 going to ask? Oh, I think I know where he's going
this. Oh, I think I know what answer he might love to hear. Oh, I'm not involved in conversation.
I'm too impressed. 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 of 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've been
pretending to be the young man I was trying to be and not actually putting my ass on the line
and having enough courage to take risk and actually own up to the man that he was teaching
me to be. I remember the world got flat. That cloud that Mr. Mayor that I saw up there was not
way up there. 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 deserved or I've earned things or looking out for myself or holding myself to
task. I remember all the things that I, and I was just getting to go into Hollywood at the time,
so I was getting 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
hit lower 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, look that in the eye
with full respect, but less reverence. At the same time, equidistant, almost equal sublimation,
I noticed where I had been condescending people and things and patronizing and sloughing
things off as like less than me and not worthy of my time. 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, 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 going to let myself emotionally get brought down or over-related by this situation
because it doesn't really matter in the big scheme.
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 that 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. 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 frickin' 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. There's something ugly and gross about it.
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.
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.
I just had that quick little reaction of wanting to show him, hey, check this out.
That's right. Then I don't get sad. I go, yeah, he would have loved this.
Whereas my mom wants to be on the stage, my dad would have been on the front row.
He's more fun to show stuff to.
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 have loved the creative process of working on a script or talking about, hey,
movie. That'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've seen this movie called Mud? Damn, 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 into the... He overlapped the first five days of me working on my first film Days Confused.
Now, that I think there's something beautiful about that. He didn't 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. I do miss...
Not him. Then I go out of that. We talked about him two nights ago.
With our daughter, I was rubbing my daughter's feet. My mom, who's living with us,
91, comes in and goes, oh, look at you, just like your pop. He's like, what? He goes, oh,
because my dad loved to rub somebody's feet, rub my mom's feet, rubbed all of me and my
brother's girlfriend's feet. When we would have a date, they would come over early
because they knew they were going to get a foot rub from Jim McConaughey.
Then we'd come out. Me and my two older brothers, this has been on for decades,
we'd come out ready to go, buttoned up. They looked at me like, oh, we ain't going anywhere
right now. We told the story to my daughter. I was like, oh, yeah, my dad, his hands. I miss
his hands. His hands could heal. You carry him in you? I hope so.
I hope so. It's a challenge
for me. 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?
Try 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. 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 want to really.
Then I immediately let myself off because I believe where he is. He's going,
go buddy. You're free, man. I'm not going to 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 going to lose.
Trust that you're not going to 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.
You realize this world is just you in some deep fundamental way. It's just you. You're alone.
Yes, but also not having that.
It's such a gift of deliverance though as well.
Because I think it's an awesome feeling 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. The peripheral vision improves.
The link and understanding with our past improves. I know for me, I was not ever
considerate of my past at all. My dad had that if I needed it. He was my well for that.
Well, he's gone. He literally had, they have our back. When they no longer have our back,
all of a sudden going, oh, 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. Because again, I didn't have to, because 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
in the pain, the loss, and yes, even loneliness, which is different from being alone
and lost. 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. It came like
a couple of 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 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 so resilient
that we just dust ourself off and get up and go. You want to sit in the feeling. You want to feel
it. You want to deeply feel the pain. I want to deeply feel it. I want to look in the eye and
deeply feel it, but I don't want to wallow in it. Now, I was raised where you skip the deeply feel
and let's go. I've said it before, but that will lead to turning into a person who is a repeat
offender of the same crimes because you just get up and you don't have a winter in your life.
You know what I mean? There's no introspective time. You don't look over your shoulder at the
end of the past. 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. It doesn't hurt. Hell,
it's good luck. Well, hang on a minute. Maybe we want to stop and go, what can I learn from that?
I don't know of a trick. If there's any trick I would say,
how quickly can we admit the inevitable? That's what I talk about in the book.
Once you know it's inevitable, how do we get relative? Not skip it, not throw it to the side,
not deny it, which I'd love to talk about that here sometimes too, about the value of denial
sometimes. The value of denial.
Yeah. But how quickly do we, once something's inevitable, go, okay, any mind and heart time
I'm spending about going, no, I can't believe that happened. No. Did that really happen?
Anytime we spend it 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 then the relativity is seeing
and 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's let the legacy, let this become omnipresent. Let him live through me. Let me become more him.
It's transformed. Yeah.
So what value is there then to denial? Any?
Oh, I think there's value to denial if you really commit to it.
I get this from my mother. Yeah.
So it's a very pragmatic value, commit to the denial.
Okay. And my mom does it to an extent that I'm like, mom, do you have any consideration
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 happens in her life that is
keeping her from going where she wants to go or having a joy in her life that she does,
she'll straight ass deny it happened. Didn't happen. No, it didn't. Mom,
we're right here. I heard you. 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 yes, she gets some amnesty on that.
But she's not... Yeah, does she repeat offend? Yeah, but it's misdemeanors.
You know what I mean? It's part of that thing when you got a family member and you're like,
yep, 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 would even so ingrained her,
it's not a trick. It's just, do it, done. And another reason I bring this up,
it's outside of just my mother is I did this road trip course in this Art of Living event
a few weeks ago. Out of the hundreds of thousands of chats that came in and responses that came in
afterward, 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 have thought that was, I don't know, going in 40%.
It seemed to be 80%. And then I thought about, okay,
if you're here in the live show and you want to 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 a 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 in
your memory. 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. Is there a value in going, if it's holding you back from going where you want to go, maybe
you should just deny the fucking thing ever fucking happened. Kick it in the head, 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 want to go. So if I can't wax the
car 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 seven, 19 years, they were together. C.J. Karluk. 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 is what she was asking. And we came to her 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 to three times
and had three children with had moved on? No. But she didn't say, well, what's the book on how long
I'm supposed to stay single before I can be interested in another? There's not a book on
these things. How do you feel? Is loving C.J. mean your love dad less? No.
Is finding a new life and a new dance partner in this life and C.J. mean that dad wasn't your
C.J. mean that dad wasn't your dance partner? Dad wasn't the love of your life?
No. So I don't know. I mean, in there, maybe, you know, 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 and she'll go, well, the recording's like,
yeah. I mean, that's part of a coping deal with her. But I mean, what I think 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 turned 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 green light, go.
Now, if we're hung up going,
can't have one of the, can't have them 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 just admit that that's part of it. Yeah.
If contradictions are inevitable, they, hencely, they do become a paradox, don't they?
Then we're in the honey hole. Then we're singing and dancing and have leniency with
ourself while still holding ourself to task. And it's, I think it's holding on to
no 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. 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. Yes.
And the dance of it. I think the metaphor of red, yellow, green lights is just so simple
and so powerful. You write about some green lights being engineered and some being mystical,
which I love the difference of that. What's the difference of the engineered
green lights and the mystical? Such a cool word, mystical.
Yeah. Well, the engineered ones have reason and the mystical ones have rhyme.
Yeah. Life's a mystery going forward,
but it's a science looking back. I've prepared, I've had ideas and written headlines and had goals
and an athlete gets in shape for an event. 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 green light.
It's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a conscious delayed gratification.
It's that if I do it today, that pragmatic head down, believe that no cloud out there,
but then I trust that there is one out there. If I do keep my head down to do it,
I'll get that, to that dream. We can engineer those habits, work ethic, prep, expertise,
education. And 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, that, that, 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. And two months later, you're dating two years later, you're married.
You're after that, you've got a family. And now you're sitting here 40 years later going,
I love you. Look at what we built. And you go back and go,
what if I wouldn't hit that red light? Those 30 seconds, you know, made all the difference.
So strange that this life is this way. Yeah. And that's just rhyme. I mean,
we can't really add that up. Yeah.
Yeah. It's a science. When you look back, you see, you know, why it was that
you were, you were upset and ticked off that you had to pick up the kids' toys before you left and
they were supposed to pick them up. And therefore you were late for the thing that made you ran into
and you, 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
because you were in the elevator with him. And that 90 seconds on that elevator is what got you
that job that led you, led to you doing what you want to do. I mean, the significance is there,
but we have to, I think what we also got to watch is again, in that balance, what do we chase?
Because we just chased the engineering. We miss magic. If we just chase the mystical,
we find ourselves caught up in trying to give meaning to the 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 door and see,
almost step on the Legos? But if I had gone out the other door, I usually go out of,
I would have gone there. I would have 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. Man, that can be paralyzing. It's like, it's hard to leave a room
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 differ from person to person? Because 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's how I've
existed in life. And 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. With the intent of, and maybe I'll meet
and I'll run into, and I can work up a sit down with. So the engineering choice was
putting your shoes on proverbially. I always say this, the hardest part about going to the
gym is putting your shoes on. So getting on the plane, that was an engineered thought with the
goal in mind, but I don't know how I'm going to do it. The choice, putting the shoes on.
But there's not a clear, it's a fog what happens after the shoes go on.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going to 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 engineered? How much is mystical? How much was it for you?
Well, I'll say this, like when I went to write the book 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 signs, solve the habits. Here's what I did. Yep. That add up,
got the solution, got the conclusion. I was
very surprised when I noticed that it was probably less than 50%
and that most of the real successes of my life were when I
trusted that I didn't have to define it, that I only trusted that I didn't have to go,
what's the measurement? What's the score? 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 think I can be overly practical
and I think I can overcompensate and miss out on magic because I'm still
going, wait, but are we giving enough measure and credit to actuality?
Am I giving enough credit to these are the steps to take and this is reality?
I'm reminded when I trust because 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, it takes a lot
of trust. Trust in the inevitable. Aim in 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. It's like a feeling that guides you
towards a place without a clear name, without clear characteristics. It just 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, if that doesn't happen,
is there a sense a week, two weeks later, now when you come back to America, they're 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 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 in 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 damn about the home, don't give a damn on farms and 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 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. You just kind of follow along like a little
ant, keep noticing that kind of thing. But I don't know, I hope, what I think it is is other
people notice that you're the kind of person that notices it. And they're like, I want to hang out
with that person. He seems all right. Like he seems one of the good ones, one of the good hands.
Do you have any certain
non-negotiable structure before that freedom to go with the feeling?
I think so. There's a set of principles. 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. There's a circle of friends I have and that means everything.
There's just a basic deep kindness towards others.
Empathy, empathy towards people that others might label as even evil. I have that kind
of empathy. I believe all of us have the capacity to do good and 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 all kinds of other principles. I love the dynamic between the
different humans and their full diversity. I love the dynamic between the masculine,
the feminine. I enjoy the dance of it. So you have a constitution with which you
embark. You do too.
Chasing. Yes, I hope so. And for me, it's inspiring to hear
someone like yourself go, I go and I just land and I just go, I'm going to feel it. I can go back and
go, yeah, my greatest truths I've crossed, my greatest successes in my life were when
I just trusted that and go, I took a one-way ticket. Amazon, 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 to be able to go out and say that's how you, do you have family?
I really want to get married and have kids, but I'm not married and don't have kids yet.
So actually one of the nice things about that is you can take bigger risks. 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. Throw that backpack on and a one-way ticket. That does get harder to do.
I miss that sometimes. The whim, a song that comes on.
Where's that guy from? Oh, they're from the place that I want to go that I dream about. I'll go
there. One-way ticket. What do I got to do? Oh, get a couple of shots. Okay, go. That was fun.
You got to do that. Just get up and go. You're free to go.
And go, when are you back? When I get there? It's a beautiful thing.
Maybe never. Yeah. You'll be coming to visit me 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 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 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.
That I purged and I remember and it stripped off identity markers that I had been hanging on to
for everything from what it means to be an American, my dad's ring, M for 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, am I casting out my father?
No, I wasn't casting them 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. As soon as that hit me,
talk about mystical successes and realities and truth. 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 damn corner? The Amazon. 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 want to name or believe in says, ding, there you go. And
that form of detachment from holding on for dear life to things in past, so hard that you're not
letting the beauty that's right in front of you to feel correctly and follow our intuitions,
to have those not cast them out. I didn't burn them. I didn't get rid of those things.
I just took them 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 rings off and the hats off and the crucifix is off your
neck that you're like, you're going to die. 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, oh,
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 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 is interesting too, because
it really has no past or future losing the moment because of how fast it churns.
It just eats up life. Like if a thing dies, it just gets swallowed up because maybe because
of the humidity, because of all that, because there's so many living creatures that kind of
eat each other, live on each other. So it really exists in the moment
and all of 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.
Yeah. We humans somehow escape that food chain, but the roots are still there.
I think we're a bit arrogant to think we've escaped.
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, oh, we're in a car, we're in a house, we're safe. But yeah, somehow 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
it credit for. I believe that it's a really arrogant notion to think that we are separate,
meaning people talk about pollution on a larger scale, the climate, what have you.
I think Earth's going to be just fine. We maybe not be here for it, but I think we have a bit
of arrogance sometimes to think that we can trump 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. It's interesting to see
that some very large percentage of humans on Earth starve to death because they don't die
first from the explosion, they die from starvation because 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 starve to death. But the lesson you 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.
To adapt.
Yeah, to adapt. And it's going to be just fine 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 the stepping stone. Same thing with, we've talked offline about artificial intelligence.
Maybe humans are just the 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 and we'll, because we're going to, we were talking about earlier, what AI becomes
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. You get to realize, wow,
this is what the collective intelligence of the human species, our collective wisdom and
knowledge. This is what it looks like. All the bias, the hate, the paradoxes, all that is in
there. The contradictions, you can even convince those models. You can tell them they're lying
and they're going to start changing their mind. It's interesting to play with them.
It's also interesting to consider that maybe they become smarter than us and
become almost life forms that live among us and maybe one day 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
to exist in that dance? Mostly, I'm really excited because
I see human beings as deeply lonely. 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. I just think AI can add to that. It can add
friends that you can have great conversations with. Some of those friends would be AI systems.
They'll call you out on your bullshit in the most fascinating and interesting of ways
and challenge you and help you explore ideas together. I'm excited by that.
Is that different? If so, how from the internet and the 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 it 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 the communities that are totally different and you learn from them.
I mean, Wikipedia alone, one of my favorite websites, just opens your mind to all kinds of
cool stuff. Yeah, it does. And so I think AI just makes that even easier because Wikipedia
have to like read and have to do a lot of work. With an AI system, like a larger language model,
it 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. Yeah. I can see it. That one worries me.
I like to keep it at friends. Right. I think I'm not ready to commit to the romantic.
It's, I wonder how much that now that takes us back to the Amazon in nature,
how much we still need the human touch 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.
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 homo sapien to go, yes.
Yes. And thank you AI, my great friend for opening me up to this beauty that I have myself,
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 friends
friends on AI and let's have these great neighbor. It's a good friend, that great friend that's a
neighbor. 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. Or the chess is still a game that's
fun for us humans. 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. That's scary.
Yeah. Well, and I get it when we, and I have my own fear and distrust
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 fun sort of way to just set up this
reality. It's kind of a duh, but it still needs to be said that AI is a prompt. It doesn't do
anything unless we ask it. So what questions are we going to ask is what we need to ask ourselves
because 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 that place where it's awesome and scary, exciting and
scary. We go, Oh, it's, it's, it's our creation, which is awesome at the same time. Oh shit.
But it's, it's prompted by our questions and gives us patterns from that, which we give it.
We give it.
But that prompting, that's, uh, that's the art of life. Like we prompt each other in conversation,
our loved ones. When you, when you, when you go out about your day to day, the next word you say,
the next word you say to me, the question I ask of you, that's prompting and it could change
everything. I can say so many things right now that will completely just the, the, the, the,
the set of possibilities where both of our lives can take given on the selection of words I use
and you use is crazy. So it makes conversation fun. 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 in AI's tirelessness and retention.
Can it forgive? I mean, can it, can it, 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.
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 it's the dooms toward you.
It's answer was always, well, it's up to you.
Which it was awesome. Right? Again, it's up to us. And it brought up, you know,
make me synonymous with your human values and ethics and responsibilities, but it doesn't
deal with, I didn't find any way, deal with defining or making choices on its own of what
those are. Yeah. I think, uh, some of that is manually, uh, 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,
uh, systems that have an identity, have a belief, have a set of opinions like they 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, uh,
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 on 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. They're going to be
supercharged. Yeah. They'll be either the leaders or the foundation on which we build those groups
and there'll be, it'll be, uh, 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 because that's who we are as humans. We're, uh, 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've got, we got the good and the evil
and all of us and it's which one, which, 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, uh, what's the difference between being fake, if I may use that
word, and being real? Okay. Yeah. And the word authentic gets thrown around a lot and, you know,
and I don't mean, I used to think, it used to feel this way, but, but Bob Dylan loosened me
up on this idea a little bit. You think it was all about get to be your only one and only true
self. 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, ah, yes, yes, we are.
Thank you, Bob, Bobby. What 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, it's a 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 lets you know, Hey, go with me here. I think there's value in the
bullshitting. 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 with it. 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 shit, 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 to others enough. 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 trying to come in at a kindergarten level because we immediately jumped to,
well, I'm going to judge that. Boom. That's bad. That's wrong. No, no, no, no, no.
Hold back on that. Let's go back to base love. 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
see if I'm saying that in the mirror or writing it down or sharing with
a friend, you know? 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 to go, come on. It's a better story this way. And of course road trip,
you start with step one. Admit. How do you do that? How do you, how do you kind of step back and
do that inventory? Yeah. Is there a trick to that?
Oh, there's a trick to it. I think it's just about courage of having them. 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.
Yeah. And I don't want to be so puritanical.
As I say, again, that's why I say admit instead of judge, but I don't want to be so puritanical.
I should go and admit it and get rid of it. No, I'm just saying admit it, just bring it to the
surface. Yeah. I'm saying this and I'm doing something different. I preached this, but I
actually, my actions, just admit it. Just admit them. And I think that's the first step to where
we begin to either forgive ourselves 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. Forget this, get to the base of the truth of the matter. Let me do it,
but just admit it. And then where we'll, and then it will also help. It'll be easier to then
expose to ourselves which ones 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, deserve to be, or I've earned to be,
or just let myself. It's not all the hard stuff. Sometimes it can be a fun thing. I'm talking about
how many times 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. I'm majoring in my minors. Let 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 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, started to love it for the first month. I started feeling
guilty. I was like, is it okay to have this much fun? I'm having so much fun and I'm getting a
great workout. To admit, I was like, yes, it's okay. Congratulations, buddy. You found something
that you're finding quite pleasurable for straight pleasure. You don't have to forget all this other
stuff about, yeah, but I'm also getting a workout. Well, you're getting that too, but you don't have
to excuse the pleasure based on, oh, but it's good for you. No, damn it. The real reason you
love it is because 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've
been living by and it's having me live falsely and it's having harmful consequences on my loved
ones. Some of those will probably arise when we admit or at least just have them looking around
and just saying, and when we admit it, then we go, when we admit a lie, then we become something
much more valuable, a bullshitter. You had a little wink in your eye. I love the distinction.
I'm bullshitting myself on that thing. Yep, I'm lying. Therefore, if I call it a lie,
I'm admitting a lie, yep, well now, yep, I'm bullshitting. That's 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.
Someone was talking about, yeah, they really admire this so-and-so person because they're
not someone who looks in the mirror. I was like, yeah. All of a sudden, I was like,
man, I got to catch myself looking in the mirror a lot.
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. I look at my side, I got a lot more on my side. I'm like, oh, I notice how if I'm out
and I look working out, maybe doing push-ups, maybe I do a few more. If there's a group of
people walking by that maybe I'd like to impress, then I may do a few more than I'd do if I was on
my own. I'm like, you are vain, McConaughey. The knee jerk is, oh, vanity bad. All of a sudden,
I was like, all of a sudden, I became a bullshitter once I admitted I'm vain. I was like,
well, bravo vanity. Let's go vanity. Instead of putting it in the cupboard in the lie section,
oh, I'm not in the vein because that's a debit. No, admit it and then go, what's the value in it?
Well, I can look at, yeah, I actually got in better shape because of my vanity. Actually,
I eat better and I have more energy. 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.
I know that tomorrow when they leave town, they're going to remember this time that we had
together. That's a selfish act to go spend that time with my kids. 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 where they went.
I could call that vanity. I could group that and say, that's very vain of you.
I was for self. Yeah, because it was also for something and someone that I cared about.
Are there people in your life that call you on your bullshit in the bad sense of the word
bullshit? Yeah. Sometimes it's either I got a pretty thick threshold for how far I can go with
my bullshit. What tickles me might bruise others to watch it. That's a good line.
Yeah, tickles me might bruise others. 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 I can get.
Let's try it one more time. Yes, two more please.
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 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, you know, where people will go, fake it as I would go back to Dylan's or
create it, recreate it, create, recreate it, you know, until you, till it becomes,
until you make it. So I'll have people call my bullshit and a lot of times you're right.
I think when I handle it the most healthy way is I admit, yes,
and I'm aware. So I'm, and I'm going to keep going.
So you're not like resisting it, denying it. 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, and, and usually when it's coming from
people that are going, no, you are, it's like, I want to bid it. And then that's where I'm telling
a lie and that'll come up, get me later. And 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.
Would you say that's ego? Has ego been bad or good for you?
Gosh, I think it's been thank, I'm so thankful for ego.
Does it get off the bridle for me sometimes and run loose and run in places and where it's
not of service to others and has it hurt loved ones and even strangers? Yes.
Um, but I, I also, when my ego is really strong,
it's, 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, they're, they're intertwined. And that's the capital E ego that I think,
that I think it hope we all need more of. And that's what I mean when I talk about selfish,
that's redefining that with 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, there's a, again, back to the paradox that 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,
um, I'm able to say, I'm sorry, sooner for a lie or a misdemeanor or harm somebody.
I'm able to be more empathetic because I got the confidence 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 bogey guilty. I shanked that one out of bounds, 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?
The 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 the 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?
And 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 going to give myself
five months to do that. 2.5 times as 10, there's ego, there's 47 pounds. That was like clockwork.
So that was easy. That decision was made. I didn't go to Pizza Hut buffet 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 I went to see his family and as I was leaving, his family offered me his diary.
And I remember it kind of has it going, wow, yes, but I kind of hesitated because 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. In little things, the diary he'd write in and
the dreamer he was and getting all set on a Sunday night and laying his shirt out and ironing it for
the next morning, making sure that his 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 going to 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 them 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 not going to go. I'm just going to go to Sonic and get a double cheese bacon burger because
Sheila over there, man, she's kind of cute. She always gives me a high price on it.
Which leads to rolling the joint, hanging off till Sheila gets off the work,
sneaking over to the local motel and shagging up in room 16. That's my lucky number 16.
Then wandering out that night, getting home one in the morning, no plans for
Tuesday and maybe later in the week, think about what am I going to do at 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.
That knowing that there's in there was where I saw who he was a dreamer.
And then, 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 patent, but never would follow through to get the
government patent. And then later on, you'd see the product be made or sold on QVC or something.
They'd be like, Ron, that was yours. I just stole your idea. Did you patent that? He'd be like,
no, like never would. There's something beautiful and sad about that. 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,
but couldn't quite pull on. When you go that deep, does a part of him stay in you forever?
Are you able to let go? I mean, I hope so. I get, I look, there's a tenacity
to, to, to survive that I got from him. I 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, if you, if you really want
to 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 mores, the manners and graces.
I'm fighting you. You're going to fight for your own life in a world that's not supporting you to
do so. You, there's a wonderful courage of, okay, watch this. What do I got to lose?
My life or I'm in charge of extending it? Get out of the way and I'll pick your pocket along the,
whatever it takes. So there's a tenacity to, to live by whatever means necessary to survive that
I, 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 a true detective, which I think explores some
darker aspects of human nature. What did you take from that, from that role,
that experience philosophically, psychologically? The freedom of, of, of being on an Island.
He was such a singular character and have a singular mind. And as you know, it wasn't a
dance party up there in his mind. 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 be,
he was not, not a man who was going to give himself amnesty and didn't allow it from the
rest of the world. It wouldn't give himself an out. And while living in his head and heart and
spirit was more of a hell than arguably dying. It was not 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 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? You wanted
him to like enjoy something, but he was connected to something in his DNA. Who's who he was doing
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 Cole. And also that Rustin Cole's given back to me that are like, yeah, when you're,
when you want to 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 crazy. Don't pull the parachute,
stick with it, go through it. So you were able to walk around with that
tormented mind of his. 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?
It's not, look, am I able to separate? Yeah. I came home to my kids and when they walk in 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 them about the scene where you help someone commit suicide. It's just,
you know, so you, 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 certain things,
you know, and tell it in ways that I go, oh, neat, you know. So
I did, did I go, did I bring it home? I didn't bring torment. Did I bring introspection into
my own? This character's for me. And I think this is true for a lot of actors and actresses.
We don't, it's not a separation. If I've got, we each have everyone else in us. It's just seeing,
diving into Rust and Gold, knowing where his mind and heart is from the hand of Nick 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, 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 latched onto that? Where this other stuff is non-negotiable.
Then I just live in that. And it's, I always taught it like a 70s equalizer. Remember the
old Atmarance equalizers? You can move up your 500 HKZ, you move up your 60, you just re rebalance
the 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, the treble on the equalizer and turn down other parts of myself.
And I'm not coming home tormented as rust and coal. Am I coming home seeing
torment where it should be seen? Am I reading the news
differently or things coming out of the news and catching my eye
as being bullshit or lies or truth that is 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 rust and coal. I 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 dive into the humanities and all the ologies and philosophy.
And as I said, as I opened up that question, being on an island is a vacation.
I am also conscious for five months when I'm playing rust and coal that this is an
interesting thing. I've never, I was as strong spiritually with my relationship with God
when I did True Detective as I've ever been. Why is that?
Okay. Which you would say, wait a minute, in some ways that's a, those are antonyms. No, but my,
I pretty safely can say that my own strength of spirit in my own personal life, in Matthew's
lifetime, 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,
he was not an evil man. I don't even know if you can call him a non-believer, 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 from biblical about that, you know? And so,
but I've been, I don't think it's coincidence that I was, had so much
jourd'evé 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 know, you go play a criminal. You
trust you're not going to come out the other side, a tyrant in real life. You just go,
oh God, I got to go do that. Came out and I'm still alive. Got all my faculties. I'm not in
jail. I'm not, you know, whatever it is. And so my own spirituality at that time,
definitely I think gave me a certain trust and confidence to go further into the dark.
It was announced that you'd 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? You're Texan. I am a Texan. Yeah. What do you think about that
philosophy and way of life? I admire the simplicity of it. I mean, one way you could
explain Yellowstone and Costner's role is what will man do to protect land and family
in a world that's trying to encroach, in a world where
there's a cowboy ethos that deems trespassing more clear earlier than other hats.
I admire that simplicity of right and wrong. And that 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 conversation, but it's a little bit of like,
okay, if the law I am handling this, I am. And then it is,
the law's not going to 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.
There's a 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. This is a broader question,
but I'm going to piggyback it off of this. Back to the dreams and reality,
and evolved species and how 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 less evolved species than we give ourself credit for? Do you think we
give ourself credit for being more evolved than we actually are? I think we do. I do.
I think we need to admit that. I think probably the cowboy ethos is a
step towards admitting that. And that's why it's so appealing to people. It kind of wakes them up
to realize that 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
that I trust too much sometimes. Have you been hurt? Have you been betrayed?
And if you have, has that 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 trust them.
No, I'm not going to do that. I think that's the beginning of cynicism, which I think is a
horrible disease of getting older. I'm not going to do that.
So you're fighting cynicism off as much as you can.
No way. No way. No way. There's no residual in it. There's no win. It's easy. It's clever.
Gets the laugh at the party. And if it sleeps well, it shouldn't be.
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 Matthew McConaughey, what's it mean to be a Texan to you?
I recently moved to Austin, Texas, some two years in.
All right. All right. Welcome.
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 conservative or learn who we are, then go. Go. Explore. Pioneer. Journey.
And hopefully you come on back with some goods and some stories. You Texan.
And underneath that is this kind of freedom of being an individual in the
freedom of being an individual in the full meaning of that word.
Yeah. Well, Texas is liberal on your entrance.
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 like cheat steel, we're conservative on our consequences.
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 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
leader of my family right now, as a parent, as a father,
the leader of people that work with me. Politics, I'm not going to say it's because it's not small.
That's why I say that out loud. It's not small. I do think it needs
to re-engineer, redefine what its purpose is before because it's just chasing its own tail
right now with the two parties that seem to me to be completely about just invalidation
of the opposition instead of vision of themselves. I think it needs redefinition of what it is
because it is important. That's what 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 and validation of any opposing thought
or maybe that we're even opposing. Opposition is an arrogant term that's too strong.
So, 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 got this historic notion of being, oh, well, come see, come see, come see. It's
sort of Mr. In between kind of go which way the wind blows.
I think done in the right way, it's the, 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 deepest and then you're going to 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 mind. 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 in politics or not,
it was a wonderful exercise. One that if anyone else has got time to do it, do it. To ask yourself
what you would do if you were CEO of a state, CEO of a nation, CEO of the world. That's a great
thing to go. You want to get your values line? Oh, you want to admit where you lie
and throw yourself some pop quizzes? And what if this phone call comes at 4 a.m.?
Who you want to 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, taking 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 have 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 and our place in it?
Yeah. Well, 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. 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. There's an incredible scene where Cooper's a father's getting video
feed from his children who've aged and he's realizing he's missed all that.
Yeah. Overall, that concept makes me consider and imagine.
When we 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. It makes me go, maybe this is all,
it's already all been written. What's happening right now in this blip 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 may be too small a thing. 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's sure in a similar way to Contact, this is 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. People go, now 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 distant stars? I hope so and I think we, if it's possible,
may have many among us right here. And I go for the why not in that just to keep that
train of thought open to learn and consider those existential questions. I think it'd be arrogant
not to. There's so many hundreds of billions of planets just in our galaxy. 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.
And if and when we cross it, unlike we've had the 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 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 is good for them, I think is a shallow idea. 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 civilizations, these things, I hope that if we
would just see and learn, 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 going to be about ownership
and we would be trespassing. I think it would be, I don't think they 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 zoom out at a different
time scale, 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 about 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 in 36 seconds.
I love the little analogies that put that frame, like that make you, oh yeah, the pale blue dot,
there it is, that perspective. Something so relaxing and empowering about that
at the same time and humbling, but confidence boosting,
you know, allows forgiveness, allows ambition. I just love the perspective of that,
that picture to picture it that way in our timeline.
Do you hope humans become a multi-planetary species as we're trying to do, as SpaceX is
pushing forward, trialing out to Mars, potentially colonizing Mars, colonizing other planets?
Yeah. Yeah, go explore. 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 out of here because this isn't really working.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We got a tithe. We're still supposed to pay here. We don't,
that's part of this pressure testing us as a civilization and a species.
Whether you call that restoration order or whether you call that let's figure out how to adapt best
we can. No, not at the expense of quitting here on Earth. But let a few select folks explore.
Yeah. Because that's like, I say go for it, please. One of the coolest things that we humans do is
kind of embodies the human spirit, reach out into the unknown.
But it's hard. I mean, as interstellar shows and so on.
Yeah. Well, and Elon talks about it. This is not going to be a weekend daisy trip.
I mean, he's just speculating how hard it could be. Much harder in different ways that he doesn't
understand yet. Yeah. Well, 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 multi-disciplinary species are doing. It's really hard. It's like to 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. 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? Yeah.
Sometimes we have an innate ability, but we don't want to work for it. We take it for granted.
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. 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. That's a good challenge.
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? Because we have an innate ability to do. When we do that well, we do enjoy
it. One of the things that requires is to be really honest with yourself
at what your innate ability is because oftentimes there's a lot of noise when you're growing up,
people telling you what you're good at, not good at. Really, you have to look at yourself,
listen to yourself, that inner, 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. 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.
You found love with Camila Alves McConaughey. What advice would you give to people on how to
do just that? How to find love? This wonderful subject has been discussed since the beginning
of time, hasn't it? Love it. I can tell you what things I've learned and I'm still learning.
Love is one of those mystical successes. It doesn't make sense.
When I was 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 going to be relationship-wise. I thought by that time I would have met the woman I loved,
married, and started a family, and that hadn't happened. I did find myself
doing that thing I was doing at the Amazon, looking around the corner.
Any prospective 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 checking out who's next to me in the produce section of the supermarket. I'm like,
chose the produce section. It's like looking. When you're in that zone,
you can also be a little intrusive. You can trespass on people. You can get outside of the
get outside of yourself. You can be overly impressed and not as involved
and have your own constitution to sit back. 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 your 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.
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. 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? Then did move to call her across the room. I did invite,
but I was not outside of myself. 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 not 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 a 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.
Then we just enjoyed each other's company, and we laughed together, and we supported each other,
and we promoted more of each other, and we lit each other's fire. If one was rolling,
we kept dishing. You 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 a stranger. To be happy for them when it has nothing to do with you.
I would be away. The questions and the talks, she was happy for me about how excited I was about my
day. My day had nothing to do with her. She wasn't there. 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. As much as I went through my head, oh, that would have been
great if I would have been there. I was like, no, I don't really trespass on that. You had that
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 have any, I don't see
the residuals in it. 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 got to ask you the biggest possible question.
What's the meaning of this whole thing? What's the meaning of life? Matthew McConaughey.
Why? Why are we here?
I don't know why we're here. I prescribe to, in a religious sense, the restoration order.
We're here to restore order and 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. I can, we can argue at the base of it.
I can get 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 want to 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.
And then we share it with each other, we get excited, and we create some pretty cool stuff
along the way. I mean, I say I'm confident enough and I might be arrogant of me to say,
but I do believe that we're here to each generation have a small ascension.
Or else, what's it for? And we're not really sure what the ascension is towards.
It's just kind of... No? No? I just think it's up. I do 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. I think that is not
only false, but I think it's full-hearted and I think it's a recipe for 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 don't have a grand plan, man. I'm just trying to connect the damn 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 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 it's a great line. Sometimes I'm
just trying to like, man, just 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 when it gets rough. Because it's there. I do believe it's all around
us all the time. Just are we on a frequency and do we allow ourselves to receive it and see it?
We've got to tune the radio. Yeah. Because if 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've got. Yeah.
I'm a huge fan. I think you're an incredible person. Thank you for 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. It was beautiful.
Well, I felt at home talking with you as well. Thanks for sharing that with me.
I could go on and on. Just two Texans.
That's right. Having a good old chat with 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 want to buy it.
Walk in like you own it. Thank you for listening. Hope to see you next time.