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Hey, everybody, I'm here today with Chris Arnade and so Chris is trained as a physicist, he has a PhD in physics. He also worked for I guess, 20 years on Wall Street. And which is kind of weird because he identifies as a socialist. And he apparently got into a lot of political fights with his coworkers, obviously. But more recently, he's been kind of working as a photographer, and I would say, cultural commentator, which the last is, is how I think most of us know, Chris. And I think he's walking across the United States right now. So we're going to talk about that. And, you know, if we get a chance to talk about other projects he's working on Chris, could you introduce yourself more fully, if you if you want to, to the audience?
Yeah. Hi, first of all, thank you for getting my name, right. Nobody does. I kind of just tell people, I'm a photographer and writer with a more emphasis on writer. Yeah, I think your introduction was kind of, I mean, I've had three major career changes, I, I went from particle physics to banking, and then from banking to whatever I do now, which is, I think that's fair, I sometimes call myself pop ethnographer, which is a kind of do old school, hanging out with people and writing about what I, what I what I what I experience, or what I see. That took a more formal or less formal attitude. That sort of happened started started happening around 2010. And I kind of did that. Just going into into places people don't really go into, or tourists don't go into and just hanging out. Yeah. And that kind of the bulk of that happened around I spent some time with him. And basically, a group of homeless addicts in Hunts Point Bronx for three years. And then I kind of drove across America, doing similar things and writing your stories writing, but what I saw, and that result is in a book called dignity that came out I think, in 2018. And since then, I think that what you said is correct. I'm I'm basically doing this thing where I just walk across different cities in the United States. And I've always been doing that, but I'm sort of kind of formalizing it and formalizing it and putting together the substack. So I'm kind of all over the place. But that's maybe that was a little bit too scattershot, but that's kind of what I'm doing
why I mean, you know, if, if, if it's my listeners, you know, like, I'm a geneticist, I have a substack. I talk too much on Clubhouse and Twitter. So, you know, I got it. I think that I think they're okay with that. peripatetic type journeys. Um, you know, I want to give like a real quick background for the listeners who don't know where I'm from, because I don't really talk about it explicitly, because this podcast, not about me, but I think maybe it might be complementary to the kinds of things Chris is interested in. My dad was a professor in northeast Oregon, basically very close to Idaho. So I grew up in a very, as an adolescent a very rural rural area of eastern Oregon, the county had a population of 25,000. In 1990, or it was 91, I guess, the local newspaper had a front page article called The blacks of Union County, and it profiled the one family and the half a dozen cowboys that worked in the county who were black. So you know, as the Census does an explicit count, and so they actually could track these people down. This is the kind of place that I grew up, you know, 75%, Republican, very, you know, I mean, there was obviously their doctors there were professionals. But I mean, I would say definitely more working class. I did some summer work on my friend's mom's mule, ranch, stuff like that. So I feel like for someone who's been in academia and works in genetics, and you know, right now, I'm living in Austin, in a very, very, actually, this is the most democratic precinct I've lived in ever. I looked it up. I lived in Berkeley, California at one point, so I've lived in very democratic areas. And, you know, I've seen different parts of America, I've kind of made my own transition. So that when I look at, you know, Chris's Twitter where he posts his photos, you know, to be frank, these are the type of areas that I don't see or I go around. And I'm not saying that I make a conscious effort, but it's really easy to get stuck in a bubble and Just see and interact with people that only that you're normally habituated to interacting with. And I'm not saying it's good or bad. This is just what my life is. And I don't think my life is that different from a lot of people and what we would call the professional managerial class. So, Chris, I know you partly, I mean, I know about your photography, I've looked at the photographs, you know, I mean, that stuff is like, you know, pretty widely known, but sometimes on Twitter, I will see people criticizing you, I think from the left, or like, they're progressive. I don't want to, like get too much into the social media stuff. But honestly, like, you know, you're gonna give your perspective, but I don't really I didn't really get what you did to make progressives mad, because you're a socialist, and you're just commenting on poor people and people at McDonald's and stuff like that. So I mean, can you can you unpack that for like people who are perplexed?
Yeah, so let me just go real quickly to fill in the background a little bit. I grew up in a very working class, Republican small southern town in the 70s. I mean, I was my family, but my dad was a professor, we are, we are one of the few kind of leftists in the areas. And so I kind of the the background, you talked about, I'm very familiar with as well. And so I think I was my graduating class was 200 people. And I think 13 of us went to college. So in, you know, I think one went out of state. But, um, yeah, so I glossed over a lot there. But what happened was around 2014, I started basically doing kind of social commentary, and I'm not a very political person, but I started writing about what I, what I was seeing. And what I was seeing was, you know, and then I went on the road. I was writing about addiction, I one of the first people to write a lot about the heroin addiction, that was hitting working class America. And that's kind of what I was known as kind of working in the Bronx and writing about addiction. And around 2014 2015, I'm sorry, I started going on the road in my van and kind of visiting communities like the South Bronx, but all across the country, and including some white working class neighborhoods. And so this all took place as Trump was announcing his run for presidency, and I was very, you know, I was just reporting what I saw and I said, you know, very early on, I said, you know, this guy has a lot of support out here. You know, I just, Hey, everybody. You know, this isn't a joke. You know, and so I remember exactly where it was when he announced he was going up or going down the escalator, everybody was making fun of him. And I was too. And then that was very much contrasting with what I was hearing that first two weeks where everybody was talking about Trump and laudatory terms. Everybody's talking about him, was interested in him no matter where I went, Latino neighborhoods, white neighborhoods, black neighborhoods. And I kept kind of saying on Twitter and somewhat provocatively, hey, you know, you guys, this is, this is a real thing out here. This isn't a joke. And I kept that theme up. And so I kind of ended up writing about what kind of device kind of a term the front row back row framework where I said that the big divide in our country is education. And I used as the foil the front row, ie the professional managerial class or the front row, because I think they're really important thing this world is education, the divide I was seeing. And I used as a foil a lot of people on Twitter who I thought were very much front row people, both on the left and on the right, who I thought that this divide between the back row, what I call it, you know, basically people who don't have a college degree or only go only went to kind of state school or technical school, I thought Trump was really taking advantage of this divide. And the people on Twitter to be kind of blunt, a lot of front row people on Twitter just didn't get it. They didn't get the Home Health Health hated they were and how out of touch they were. And that Trump's popularity was a sign of that. So there's a real disconnect for almost a year and a half where I was out, hanging out all over the country, and McDonald's and churches and, and community colleges and all over the country. I put about 400,000 miles on my car over those two years. Just talking to normies. And, you know, I was very vocal on Twitter that, you know, what I was seeing on Twitter wasn't reflected at all, especially in the media wasn't reflected at all otherwise hearing from people and kind of how, in some senses, the left what the left thought about the working class or the back row wasn't they didn't understand them in many cases. And I think that obviously got me some animosity, some of itself provoked, I mean, I intentionally teased some people. But, you know, I kind of predicted Trump was gonna win. And I kind of think, you know, when that actually happened, I think some people confuse this with me wanting it to happen versus me warning it was going to happen. But also, I think, you know, the, when my book did come out, you know, I think what some of the people in the left took, you know, when eventually came out, some people dismissed it as kind of like a Trump, Trump explainer, and there's nothing, nothing about Trump in the book.
I think he's mentioned one line. But you know, the bulk of my book was basically minorities, working class black neighborhoods, and working class Latino neighborhoods. And so what I think the left took issue with with my work, I think intellectually, what they took issue with is I kind of blamed, kind of blamed the educated class where a lot of the issues we have here for being out of touch. But also, I think, I have a very mad book, it's very, it's very can be can be, can be seen as being the very pro faith, very pro religion. And I think that took a lot of people in the secular left off guard and something they didn't like. So, I mean, I will say that, you know, I kind of put all that behind me, and I don't really, I don't pay too much attention to that stuff. But I do I do chuckle now, and then a lot of people who claim, you know, they look at David Shore and go, Oh, my God, you know, I can't believe he's so right. We're the people who are who who are attacking me for saying exactly the same thing. In 2015, and 2016. And to his credit, David Shore would never, he would very much, well, very much acknowledged that that, that he was he was one of the few people supporting me during that period, who was saying, well, actually, Chris is adding to something here. And something saying, I have the data, you know, he he was doing it independently as well. I'm not saying he didn't steal my ideas or anything like that, I'm not at all accusing him of anything like that. I'm just saying that. So I find it very amusing to look at some of the people who are now holding up David Shore and his ideas were the thing people were making my life pretty, pretty miserable on Twitter, you know, for saying exactly the same thing. So...
yeah, yeah. So I, you know, I don't want to belabor this little move on, but I mean, I needed to bring it up, because I did know of you from the media, for your photography, I guess, for your cultural commentary. Although I think you were more. I think you I don't know. Like, it seemed like almost you were describing what you saw. Like, it's not like you were making like deep assertions about these people, you know, and then I would see things on Twitter, where it was like, you know, there's kind of like a snide, smug attitude, and you have kind of a rare name. So I'm like, wait, I think this is that guy. But I don't. I'm a little confused as to what ... , what beef don't I understand. And so I think some of this makes it a little bit more clear to me, I wanted to highlight that, um, so Okay, so you are walking across the country, your photography is super interesting to me. I mean, I'm not a very visual person. I'm not gonna lie. But you know, I just don't see, like, you know, I'll be candid to the listener, I live in a gentrifying neighborhood. And I see like a certain kind of trend line going around where I am, you know, the vegan bakery just opened up less than a mile away. That's a sign of things, you know, certain types of gyms, whatnot. But like, you know, the pictures you take kind of like, are different America, like, you know, I saw some picturesof Buffalo. And it was, like, really fascinating to me, just like how houses and backyards are oriented and stuff like that, I mean, what would you say to people who went to college, maybe they went to graduate school to have a professional job and office job... I mean, what is the most surprising thing? I mean, it's a big question, but what is the biggest, most surprising thing about people that are, quote, unquote, "working class" that you know, that work for a wage and that the people just wouldn't get? Because there are many people in the professional managerial class where between jobs or, you know, maybe they're not good with money, they don't necessarily have that much money even. I mean, there's some people who are lawyers, but then there are other people who are, you know, working in journalism for relatively low pay, and yet, there's still a level of detachment, perhaps because their origin or where they live and who they interact with. And so there are people in these working class communities who also make a good living, but there's still a difference there. And like, I mean, could you put your finger on like, what you perceive the difference would be in outlook?
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of what my book was about was that difference? And, I mean, the difference is huge. And so that's kind of why I came up with My whole front row back row was I used to say, one of the early pieces I wrote about this was called d"ivided by meaning", meaning the educational divide is so it's, you know, I often provocatively say like, for instance, a professor of sociology at Cornell, who's a Democrat, has more in common with a Republican bond trader, Republican bond trader than he does with the people he claimed that he claims to advocate for for like a black teen and Detroit flipping hamburgers or a white truck driver. Education is the big divide here. And so you you have a, you know, it's almost almost bigger than race at some level. And I don't want to make one versus the other. But I would say that's ultimately about how you view your - How do you view your purpose? How do you view your identity? How do you view who you are? And in general, there's almost a careerism, there's a secular careerism in the front row or the professional managerial class, that you're building a resume, and that's who you are. And you'll, you'll basically move places, you'll do anything to advance your resume. And you'll give up kind of what I call non credential forms of meaning, but things that are kind of more organic ways of self identifying, like, I'm from Buffalo, and that's who I am, or I'm a Catholic, that's who I am. Or, I'm Irish American, that's who I am. So the kind of normies if you will, or back row, or are much more about identity, their sense of identity is much more, much less career based. And much less based around education, much less were based around building a resume, it's about being a good congregant, or being a really good Barber, or being a really good pickup basketball player or being a really good father, or being, you know, it's just more about kind of local, but I called non critical forms that meaning things that don't require a resume to be part of. And it's also they generally want to be left alone more. I mean, it's just like, it's really hard to describe, and some, some, some part of why I stopped writing for like, almost two years, it was just so frustrating to explain the difference, because it's just like, it's me, as a writer, and as a speaker can't necessarily explain the difference. I mean, I'm sitting right here, right now in the hotel where, you know, last... two nights ago, you know, the police came and hauled the guy out of the room next to me, the fire alarm went off six times, you know, and, you know, it's just, it's not a big deal. You know, I mean, it's just like, you know, it's just life goes on, people don't put a lot of like, you know, they don't, there's not a safety ism, but there's in the front row, they're just like, you know, life is something you have to deal with, and you deal with it, and you don't make a big to do about it. And just a lot more relaxed about everything in some ways, a lot, you know, and, and the, it's just like navigating between the two worlds can be kind of really jarring and get me depressed at times and frustrated, because I kind of want to, you know, I'm kind of have a foot in both of them. And I kind of feel neither comfortable in either world, consequently. But, you know, I think I wrote this piece of while back that I really, you know, this kind of like, there are two, there are two examples of I'll, I'll go about this talk about vaccination as a way to do it. To give you some sense of this topic. I wasn't gonna I was gonna write a peice called "among the unvaccinated". I mean, because you know, so many people have been dealing with them. About About six... about three months ago, I started going out again, I had kind of basically done what we all did, which is I stayed in my house and did things. And about three months ago, I started going out and doing what I do again. And that includes now walking, I'm in Orlando, I walked -I walked across Orlando the other day, 20 miles across the city. And before that, I was in Fayetteville, South Carolina, and before that Buffalo and before that Breezewood, Pennsylvania, before that Mount, before that Holyoke just kind of going over walking across cities, it's getting three or four days, they're hanging out and dive bars and strip mall restaurants and, you know, just kind of being kind of being part of the landscape. And almost everybody around me, you know, who talks to me or comes up to me and tells me their vaccine status. Many of them are unvaccinated
And it's a source of identity for them, which is kind of really depressing. Because he they've turned it into an identity marker. because if they feel very much like, that's all they have to hang their hat on, because all their other forms of identity have been taken away from them, because people make fun of them for being religious, or people make fun of them for being this. But the other thing is, he, it's also because they have this massive distrust of the system. And they have this distrust of the system, because it feel like anytime, you know, a lot of people I deal with have been burned by the professional managerial class, that's kind of that's kind of the elites, that's kind of the school teachers who scold them, that's kind of the, you know, the, another frame or another example, this is a non voter, a lot of people they don't vote because Why vote, what's the point, every time you just get, you get jury duty, or it's just like, you get messed up in the system that's filled with basically scolds and, and kind of people who talk down to you and people who always like, you get involved with them, and it always ends up hurting you, you get made fun of, or you end up in jail, or you know, or you get you get sued, r or they call the police on you or whatever. It's just like, like, it's just no, like, Why deal with those people. And this is built into this mistrust, to the point where if these people are telling you to get vaccinated, you're not going to get vaccinated, because you so you still mistrust them. And, you know, it's just, it's this huge gulf between these two classes, that it is really kind of in a in a, in this way, very corrosive, how it plays out and how, within the vaccine status, it's very, very corrosive, because it's like they found this hill, you know, because it's the one thing of leverage they have over the educated class. They're telling me to get they're telling me to get vaccinated, I'm not going to do it. Because I can actually do I can actually make that statement. Voting doesn't matter. I'm not gonna change anything by voting or not voting, they're all the same. But I can go out and not get vax'd, I can go out and choose not to get vaccinated. And that's a power move. That's, that's me being able to own them. Because I actually have that leverage. And it's just, it's just, you know, it's, it's, it's kind of, you know, it's really sad. Because it's literally a hill, they're willing to die on just just to say, to put their flag in the ground and say, Ah, this is who I am. And I'm going to be different from you, because I don't really like you. Because your system has always burned me.
Mm hmm. Well, I mean, do you? This is gonna be a weird question. What, who do you identify with are as now, you know, you are your, your doctor. You know, you're a doctor of philosophy. You're a physicist. Your dad is a was a professor. But now you've been spending all this time amongst these other people. I mean, like, are you between worlds? Or are you a visitor? Or I mean, I'm just curious.
Oh, I'm very much a visator I mean, I've never made qualms. I've never, I've never pretended to be like, I'm not claiming I'm Native. I've never like I've never made the claim that I'm I'm anything but elitist front row. I'm very honest with people when they talk to me, I don't claim to be anything other than I. I tell them I'm a writer, you know, and I'll tell them as a physicist if hey ask and that there's always a curiosity about that, you know, there's always like well, You know, I've had some great conversations about science and physics and things like that. I'm just very blunt and honest about who I am and what I do. But in general, people like to be left alone. I mean, that's this other thing is like, what, you know, you ask the differences. Nobody, like, it's interesting is like, I've hung out with people for three nights, four nights, right? And they've told me everything. And they never asked me any questions about me. You know, they're very, they're very open, it's very fascinating. Like, if you're an educated professional, like you're very careful about who you spend time with, and how you do what you tell these people. Like, there's always this, I've always noticed that I'll use your phrase instead of my phrase, professional managerial class, there's always as caution about, she's like you, what's this person? Can this A) with what can this person do for me and B) Is this person going to harm me? So there's a lot of tentative nature about there's a very transactional sense of friendships in the front row, the professional managerial class, you know, what can you do for me, and what can I do for you? If that's not the case, and with normies, it's just like, yeah. Are they fun to hang out with or not? You know, it's so it's in that sense, it's very liberating. And so I don't have to really pretend to be anybody else than I am. I'm just honest with me. It's like, okay, you know, here's a weirdo. Here's another weirdo. There's a lot of weirdos that drift into The world, you know, they come and go and okay, it's not a big deal. So in that sense, it's very much I like it more. You know, I enjoy doing what I'm doing, I wouldn't be doing it, I didn't partly because I feel more comfortable. Even though I'm not, I am not back row on an elitist snob, an intellectual, but I enjoy being here at a personal level more because it's a lot more relaxing man. I'd rather just hang out in a bar and drink with people and not feel like like it like, you know, someone's gonna say, Oh, well, you know, that's really interesting. Do you think you want to be on my podcast or on my blog? I mean not to diminish what we're doing now? I do that too. You know, I mean, but it's just nice. Just to just to be people just being people, man. And so um,
yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I feel
That gets to the careerism about.. that gets that's careerism verse just living, just living ya know?
Yeah. Well, so I mean, I think what you're getting at is there's an aspect of instrumentalism in the friendships of PMC folk. I don't think we want to admit it, but it's true. Like, I can give some, you know, so I was at a conference once. And I asked a, I would say he's a prominent academic prominent, like, you would like a lot of listeners would recognize the name, I won't say who? And I asked them a quick question. And they gave me a stock answer, like, barely looking at me. And I was like, okay, that's fine. I just moved on. And later, I was introduced, and it turned out that they had read my writing this person who gave me a stock answer, I think, got way more engaged with me and just start talking to me, and I was like, okay, you know, I asked you a question..., I mean, I didn't think I mean, I didn't say it, but I felt like I asked you a question earlier, and you didn't have any time for me, and now, you know, who I am. So all of a sudden, I'm worth your time. And that's a really common tendency among academics, and I see why they're like that just from a cost versus benefit analysis. But what they're doing is they're rationalizing friendship, just like engaged like, human interaction becomes a means towards the ends of their intellectual or career advancement, which is fine, but I would say one thing that that causes is it loses the forest from the trees, in terms of like, what the whole point of being a human is,
Right. So I mean, I can also boil down to it in some senses, like, you know, to get not to get too deeply philosophical or whatever, or kind of squishy, squishy feeling, but like, you know, there really is something to the idea that, like, we - I always say that one of the things I keep on trying to emphasize recently is that we, the intellectuals, the kind of tastemakers, whatever you want to call it, professional manager, class, front rows, eggheads, nerds. We're the weirdos. Like a we're the ones like most people don't go around dealing with every... and most people like the army, right? who go around and say, Oh, I walked across Orlando, what can I get out of this? What story? Can I write about this? They just do it to do it. Right? You know, I mean, like, like, everything's not meant to be turned into content, or to be or to be added to your resume. It's just because they want to live man, it's just to live. And, you know, you know, that's part of my frustration of doing what I'm doing now. Because I don't like to always be saying, Oh, this is content. You know, yeah. And so I kind of, I've kind of, I've kind of shifted in some ways to, I'm doing this thing what I'm doing now, because I like it, but I'm also shifting to writing fiction because I can, I can turn what I'm doing into content and doesn't feel quite as transactional. Like, I'm not just getting people's stories and collecting them and putting them like, into substack Immediately, like, Oh, I got, you know, check. I got your story. substack I got your story. substack I'm building up experiences, I can, you know, turn into a piece of literature later. That doesn't feel as gross. You know, isn't so it isn't so much like, I'm just wait, I'm here to get content, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
No, I think I think the bit in that sense, what I'd like to kind of say is like that, to answer your original, the big differences is to be kind of bumper sticker he is some people would be like, normies just want to live man. Like, it's not all building to something. It's not all about, you know, except, like, it's not all about building the building to make clout. It's just to be existed to exist, man, you know, and, you know, and in some ways, like, you know, one of the things that I've come out of this, you know, is I, I've had a lot of people who looked at my kind of like, last 10 years of doing this and said, you know, You know, you seem to have been more empathetic bla bla bla, you know, you're you seem to be kind of a change person, you know, you seem to be kind of all this, you know?
And asked me, like, should they go do this? And I'm like, Well, you know, it's very easy to do what I'm doing and come out and be even more of an elitist,
you know, I'm not going to guarantee that you're going to, you're going to go into my you could come out to me, there's another way this could all break, where you could come into this and say, you know, they're just living for the moment. And that's bad. Like we and we elites are the ones who clearly, you know, our action are building content, and that's positive. And that's great. And that's that kind of thing, that's, that's another argument for why we are where we are, and we deserve the position of power that we have. So I think I think you could put a spin on when I'm done, that could be a very, you could come out of doing. It could be it could be easy to do what I do and come out of it being kind of almost an arrogant elitist as well.
Yeah, I mean, one thing that I would say is, like, you know, I think sometimes the journey is the destination. And I think that that's what you're getting out with a lot of, you know, just a lot of people in the world and people historically, and traditionally, it's all about the journey. Whereas, you know, a lot of you know, PMC. Like our the group we're talking about, you know, it's like, there are the goals. There's the hurdles, there's a credential, there's a career milestone. And, you know, we're racing racing racing, and I think that there's an emptiness there sometimes for a lot of us. And I think that's why the your content, to be frank, is it I mean, your thing, you know, you became big thing. I mean, we talked about, like, some of the hate you get, but the hate is the flip side of attention. And people consume the content because there's something missing from what they're doing. And they're trying to look at other ways, like people that just live across the city from them. And that's fundamentally what you did when you initially took those photos in the Bronx. You know, I visited friends in New York, like, probably couple of times a year for like, seven or eight years when I lived in California, mostly. And it was weird. I one time I went to the Bronx for some reason, and they were like, you know, they lived in Prospect Heights. And they were like, ooh, that's taboo. Like, what do you mean? It's like, you just don't go to the Bronx Okay. That was the whole conversation was weird.
Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, I actually, again, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing, if I didn't enjoy the journey, as you say, the journey, like, you know, for me, for me, kind of like, you know, my, my, the resume. Again, all of us in the front row are all this PMC front row managers are always trying to build this up thing. And my guess what I'm trying to build to is how to collect as many experiences as I can, right. So that's kind of where I get where I'm happiest at a personal level is, where is when I'm someplace I shouldn't be, like, you know, so, like, you know, if I, if I see a aggressive looking like, I mean, the other day, I'm walking across Orlando, and I didn't know much about, you know, Orlando is a tough city to walk across, because it's not very... it's a very spread out, I found myself in a thought I didn't really, I wasn't worried. I just found myself in a very, I didn't do a lot of pre planning, I just kind of don't really do it, I kind of like just kind of being surprised. I found myself in a pretty, pretty sparsely, pretty sparsely populated Haitian neighborhood. And it was looking kind of like, you know, it was like a dodgy here and there. I'm pretty I've been doing this for a long time. I know, you know, like, when I should basically be kind of, like, you know... When I'm sticking out. And there was a, there was a bar, you know, that had all the kind of threatening kind of, you know, divey looking kind of nasty looking environment. And so I said, I just walked in - it's one o'clock in the afternoon, and a Haitian neighborhood in Orlando, in a bar that basically was... was looking like it was about to fall off. I went to, and, yeah, you know, had a had a good time. Yeah, as usual, like, people were friendly, and, you know, they're all curious about who I was. And I, I kind of, like, make, I like to make that kind of like, you know, when I see something and I immediately go, and part of my brain goes, oh, you know, kind of like, I shouldn't go there. I want that makes me even more want to go there. So in that sense, I'm collecting challenges, you know, and so that kind of is my front row. That's my front row. That's my professional managerial class. You know, check list. I'm collecting experiences, and I think that's what we're always doing. If we're thinkers in a way, and I don't, I don't know if you can ever get away from that, if that's who you are, you know, that's just, you know, I think that's something to be apologetic for whatever. It's just, it's just who we are. Yeah. I think in that sense, we're very, that's why I keep on saying we're the weird ones. I mean, which, which is fine. You know, it's good to be weird. But
It is it is. Well, so, um, you know, you mentioned your fiction. I was wondering, could you talk a little bit about that? Like, what's going on with that, like, what's your process? I mean, I, you know, I've written a lot of nonfiction. I guess over the years, I've never written fiction. Well, not since I was a teenager. One other fantasy nerd. I don't want to get that get into that. You know, I think I think every every, yeah, like every virgin who's 16 year old who's read a little too much Fantasy has tried their hand. So I don't want to get into that. But I mean, so, like, talk about that? You know, I don't think people know this side of you yet. Partly because the books not out. I'm assuming? I haven't heard of it. Can you talk about that a little?
Yeah, so what happened was, is, um, when COVID hit, I, I had become around 2018, after publishing my book, I kind of I kind of stepped away from social media. For a variety of reasons, I was kind of tired of the whole thing. But um, and when COVID hit, I was just about to go out on the road again, and start doing things. Particularly I was going to start going overseas, had this project of basically, I was gonna do similar to what I did, but around the world. And so it's focusing on kind of these large mega cities. That's why I think we spoke a little about but I was planning on either going to Mumbai, or, or I, in Jakarta, places like that. But I'm COVID hidden. So obviously, I couldn't do that. So I said, Hey, man, I'm gonna be stuck here for a while. So I decided to write a novel. And so I wrote a novel that's kind of, not not surprisingly, it was novel, semi autobiographical, although it's basically about the, about the evolution of Wall Street, I was I was very much an early member of the kind of quantitative class that came to Wall Street, the mathematical geeks who came to Wall Street, basically took over Wall Street, I often require likening it to the revenge of the nerds. That movie were the kind of Wall Street guys, the nerds came to Wall Street as quants and ended up taking it over. So they beat the jocks, the lacrosse bros. And so the novels, the novels a bit about that, about that cultural revolution - the nerds taking over Wall Street. And then it also it's also a little bit about... so the plots, basically a nerd who goes on Wall Street and becomes very, very wealthy, like a lot of my friends have become, and ends up having to do what I did, which is spending time with the normies. And it's kind of in that sense, it's about the culture clash between between classes between a very wealthy math geek who ends up doing very well on Wall Street and and because of situations that are out of his control ends up basically having to basically spend time in a dive motel, and just the cultural clash. So I'm just finishing the third revision, and to go into edits with my editor. So it was a way to basically kill time. But also, it also made me start thinking about a lot about the ethical issues behind what I was doing before document documentary work. There's always these complex ethical issues, I think about the idea of taking somebody's story and turning it into content that feels at times gross. And I think fiction solves a lot of the problems I've had with the ethical issues. So I think a lot of the issues that I had been my work ethically we're like about protecting people's identities and things like that. I think fiction helps solve those issues, because you can turn people's stories and also it's just more readable. I think it gets a lot of like, let's say, you know, you you what are the points you want to get across the the document in a nonfiction? You can get those points across in a fiction, and a much more readable way, I think. What's, what's the take home lesson for the reader? And you can do that you can do it in fiction and make it much more entertaining.
Yeah, well, so I feel like, you know, give me I've never written fiction, really. So give me your opinion. On the one hand with fiction, you don't need to double check all your facts, because it's fiction, you know, but on the other hand, I don't know, I feel like you kind of got to be way more writerly when you're doing fiction, because when you're doing nonfiction, the scaffold or the framework is set up for you. And you just kind of work around that. Yeah, just the differences between writing fiction and nonfiction. I was just wondering if you could talk about the process and how it was different for you. Just in turn, you know, I guess content contents content, but obviously, fiction is very different there, I perceive it to be very different than nonfiction. I haven't really written fiction. So I wouldn't know.
I think it's actually really much more enjoyable in many ways. For me, at least I, I was hard to get into. But once I got into it, I really enjoyed it, one of the weirdest things about it is you really are creating characters who you end up living with, for that period of your writing. And it's, it's I mean, for nerds, like us, you said you were into fantasy is almost like it really is like a fantasy, like you create these almost imaginary characters. And there was a period of me, I ended up writing for like six months, pretty intensely, I kind of produced it really quickly, in six months, the first draft, and it was like, these people were these characters, or were my friends for six months, you know, I started getting really caring about them. And it was kind of really fascinating. It's kind of like it made me, you know, made me actually, during the worst of COVID feel like I wasn't entirely as alone as I had, I was, like, I had this kind of imaginary world I could play and, and if I can see where people get really fixing rallies really get lost into it. It's, you know, I really started caring about the characters, and I really started thinking about them. And I, you know, it was it was, it was really kind of almost obsessive, where I'd be taking, during my long walks, I'd be writing in my head, and I kind of literally run home to change, like, oh, I want this character to be this person, or this way, it's really fascinating. I feel in that sense, it's almost, um, you know, it's, it's one of my biggest problem with my biggest problem with writing versus math, like, I was pretty good at, I was always very good at math, I don't know this, how this works for you, your mathematical, and you're also right. The thing about math is, if you give me a if you give me a task, mathematical task, a scientific task, there's usually pretty one clear path forward to solve a mathematical problem, you know, there might be three or four different paths you could take to get to the solution. But writing is is writing is is basically infinite, you could you could to get from - to get your points on, you know, to get from the start to the finish of a piece. You know, there's just so many variables, is it multiply variable Like, what type of prose you use? What type of argument do you use? Word choice? How are you cadence? You know, all these things that make it almost an infinite task. And I often I often get overwhelmed with the options. And like, I never, like, when you're done with math, you're done, you solve the problem. When you're never done with writing, like I, you know, should I have... Should I have used a more passive voice? Should I have, you know, all these different styles, you know, what voice should I use on fiction is even even worse that way, or better that way, if you will, then nonfiction. Nonfiction is like a lease there's, it's almost a scientific argument that you're putting down and that since it's mathematical, it's it's clear how to go forward often construct your argument. Fiction is like anything goes man. And, and so that since it can be overwhelming, it can it can really be an infinite task, like you've never done. Like, maybe I should change this character, maybe I should change this or I think in some senses, I think it's hard for people who are scientifically based to do that, because we tend to, we tend to be people who are get kind of overwhelmed when there's when there's so much freedom, you know. And so, I think that's been that's been the - that was kind of I got lucky, in a sense that I was in a mental space, where I didn't do a lot of I just decided one day, I was gonna write fiction. And so I didn't like go, I think, had I gone out and taking fiction writing classes, I would never have been able to complete the book, because I would have had seen all these possibilities I could have done instead, I just took a very straightforward path, you know, and just plowed through.
Yeah, I think of it like from a software perspective, it would be like okay, you get a set of specifications, you complete the specifications and you are done. But when you do a piece, a piece of writing, there's always a little bit of honing, like tightening. Just modifications and like let's say like You know, I get through with the editor, you know, there's still things I re-read it like, I could have changed that, you know, like, you know, they I could have done this, I could have done that there's like, you know, at a certain point, there is no final answer, the final answer is the one you decide on. Whereas with a scientific or an engineering project, it's a project with a start and end and like the execution is, is a thing. I mean, obviously, with science, you don't always know what the end is going to be. But it's still delimited and formed, I think, in a precise way that you know, what you're talking about with fiction, it's not like, would you say that? That's correct.
Yeah. I mean, that's exactly the case. And so I think that kind of was a real test for me to see that I could, I could basically handle almost, you know, an infinite variable a problem without being kind of like overwhelmed, because, you know, I have too many choices. And I've turned that into, that went from being a negative to being a positive. Now I've where I've gotten good enough at writing fiction, where I'm now excited about the fact Oh, I can, I can, you know, I could introduce me, because my plot is very linear. Partially, you know, I didn't do a lot of time jumping. I didn't do a lot of back and forth, partially because I don't think I was a good enough writer to be able to handle that. And, you know, I've gotten to the point of kind of confidence now that I think I can jump in, I can do a little bit more kind of, a little more, a little more aggressive. In terms of stylistic, I will say that. The other thing that I learned from this process is I have a lot of respect for people who can put together plots, like you know, I think a lot of intellectuals tend to, you know, get obsessed with look at plot driven novels and kind of say, Oh, well that's you know, like a kind of a Harry Potter type thing but you know, there's a putting together a cohesive plot. It's a lot harder than once. So you know, I have a lot more respect for kind of pop - pop literature and pop movies that have cohesive plots. It's hard...
