[S1E1] A Tale Of Two Tables The Sweet Spot __EXCLUSIVE__
So much of A Million Little Things Season 5 Episode 1 nestled into that sweet spot that makes this show so good, endearing, and warming to the heart, and there's something to be said about the series finding its footing and leaning heavily into what it does best for its final season.
[S1E1] A Tale of Two Tables The Sweet Spot
Paul Bloom: I totally agree. There have been times myself where I have said, 'Wow, that's over,' and I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I wasn't so anxious about it. I would have actually took pleasure in it. So, my book is titled The Sweet Spot and I have vowed not to try to insert the phrase, 'the sweet spot,' into every conversation I fall into, because it becomes very tempting.
Paul Bloom: But, I'll do this here, which is: regarding these negative thoughts, these worries and everything, there is a sweet spot. Imagine a dial in your head--and I think a lot of you would say, 'I'll turn that dial down.' But, there is a psychiatrist, Nesse, an evolutionary psychiatrist, who points out that a lot of people go to psychiatrists and psychologists to turn their anxiety down. They take pills to turn their anxiety down. But then there are individuals whose anxiety is too far or low down. Where do we find them? Not in a psychiatrist's office: we find them in morgues. We find them in morgues and we find them in prisons, and so on. If you're too cool, then you say, 'Yeah, I'll drive my motorcycle in the rain. I'm not worried at all.' They never see it, they're feeling fine. But, they constantly expose themselves to more risk for themselves and for others. And, in its own way it could be just as terrible.
Russ Roberts: You're liberating your inner economist, right? There are trade-offs here, is really what you are saying and I think you are 100% right. You mention grief. We've talked about, on the program, before that this modern idea that 'Grief is terrible; you're not happy so get over it. Here, take some drugs, whatever you need to get back to life.' And, you mention a case in the book of someone who lost a spouse to cancer, I think it was, and how this person was depressed. And yeah, they were depressed. And, that was what they were feeling as part of this life experience of losing a loved one. That's part of life. It's not to be avoided, shunned, tricked through chemicals, maybe. People have different perspectives on it but I think there's a, quote, "optimal" amount of grief. You don't want to have it ruin your life, never live again because you've lost a loved one. But, you also don't want to pretend it was no big deal. So, some kind of, if I may, sweet spot. 041b061a72