ANNA PASHUTA: Loneliness & Life Purpose | Special EPISODE 16

In this intimate sister episode of The BASIC Show, host Viktorija Pashuta sits down with Anna Pashuta, Doctor of Pharmacy, to unpack one of today’s most urgent issues: the epidemic of loneliness. From the science of depression to the philosophy of life purpose, Anna reveals how personal responsibility, curiosity, and true connection can transform the way we live.

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• 💫 Why depression and loneliness can be reframed as “selfish” states of mind
• 🧠 The science: loneliness raises dementia risk by 50%
• 🎯 How real connection comes from synchronization (shared emotion + joy)
• 📈 Practical strategies for building meaningful rituals & stronger bonds
• 🌍 Why social media acts like “clean heroin” and drains real fulfillment
• 🧰 How finding—or even borrowing—a life purpose brings resilience and direction
• 🎶 Anna’s personal story: creating a tango dance group during COVID as a cure for isolation

This episode blends psychology, philosophy, and real-world wisdom—a must-listen for anyone battling loneliness, redefining purpose, or craving deeper connection in today’s distracted world.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Depression is very selfish. It's selfish because you are only focusing on yourself. Loneliness increases chances of dementia 50%. You feel like you're too lazy to dress up, to go out. People who would give up, they would just die faster. My favorite is, like, oh, good for you. Like, oh, this is so distancing. Good for you. Yeah, I don't know. He's like, go to hell. Why am I living? Your body will respond to your psychological thoughts of there is no purpose. This is heroin for us, right? This is clean heroin. You get addicted. I don't know if it's

SPEAKER_01: 0:38

fear of abandonment. I don't know if it's fear of like, you know, dying alone. All right, all right. Hello, beautiful people. Welcome to The Basic Show. Today we have a surprise episode and I'm beyond excited because today, drums, I have my sister as my special guest on The Basic Show, Anna Pashuta. Hello. Thank you so much for the invitation. Welcome, welcome. So Anna is, just to give you guys a little bit of the background, she is the doctor of pharmacy so she's coming from a little bit different world from the Hollywood and beauty and fashion and we talk every single day on the phone and then we discuss all kinds of subjects and I thought you know what we should get on the basic show we should talk about pressing topics that people don't really well they talk about them but not from the perspective that we have in mind so I thought today we can touch upon a few topics maybe a few serious topics we will dive a little bit deeper we'll see how it goes and I hope you guys enjoying this time maybe you just driving maybe you are working out maybe you're just cleaning up the house but I hope you just get comfortable and dive in into this episode so we're gonna take first a sip of so you would never say that okay freshly brewed latte that will set us to the proper mood because we're always cheers cheers and is it normal like my heart is beating

SPEAKER_00: 2:25

why your heart is beating I don't know it's just the beginning it's fine girl let's take a sip of the nice beautiful latte

SPEAKER_01: 2:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 2:32

Cheers.

SPEAKER_01: 2:34

From our golden cups, those who can see us. Is it

SPEAKER_00: 2:37

good? Yep. It's the middle of the

SPEAKER_01: 2:39

day in

SPEAKER_00: 2:40

LA. Did it hit the right spot? Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 2:43

I'm good now. Okay. So now, after we took a sip of latte, we're going to talk about different topics. But before this episode, we kind of, we were driving on the way to the studio in Los Angeles and we were like, okay, what should we talk about? There's so many different things that we we wanna touch upon. And then one of the, personally for me, the most pressing topic was the epidemic of loneliness nowadays. And I think this topic is a serious topic and I think it touches different people, people who are single, people who are in relationship, people who are successful, people who are not as successful. So I think this pressing issue comes across the border. So I wanna talk to you and see your opinion of this. So what do you think? I think so many people are lonely.

SPEAKER_00: 3:35

Why so many people are lonely, okay. I think the, so I'm judging obviously from myself first, but main first reason to me is that modern young people or people our age, they are extremely busy. So people are extremely busy, people are very ambitious, we have a lot of opportunity to do whatever we want, and everybody's definitely taking advantage of that. people are very busy. So you're driving to work, you're working all the time, you're having side hustles, and you are exhausted at the end of the day. You didn't eat properly, you didn't sleep properly, and the last thing you want to do is to be a pleasant company for somebody. I think this is the main reason. And another thing that I see is that to be social, you have to have a sense of curiosity. If you're not curious about unknown if you're not curious about other people if you don't find different personalities interesting something to explore it's you're not gonna find joy in socializing but hold on I also have

SPEAKER_01: 4:44

people who are successful who have free time so they do have free time yet they still I don't know if they are lazy or you know everything is at the tip of their fingers especially with the you know with the dating apps it's like okay you have your free time but you feel like you're too lazy to dress up to go out and plus to get the confidence to socialize because that's kind of putting an effort right to go to put yourself out there and socialize I don't think it's just because we're so busy I think we do have free time though you know

SPEAKER_00: 5:13

I'm yet to meet people with a lot of free time but loneliness like you know what is it do you just cure it by going out having a coffee with somebody is it about just chatting you go you chat with a person you are social and that's it so loneliness is something that accumulates chronically. It takes years to reach the level of finding yourself in a situation where you didn't get joy from socializing. And it's not just chatting. I think, to me, a kind of cure for loneliness is not being necessarily amongst people and just talking and putting stuff out there or doing one-time events like, oh, let's go play volleyball or let's go to a party, let's go to somebody's dinner. And I think I just lost my train of thought. No, no, no. It's good because I

SPEAKER_01: 6:04

remember you went to some of the social events to socialize specifically with people and they went to the beach and remember they're doing those paintings. And I remember what you said that it was a distraction. Like some people, they use certain activities to distract themselves, yet still

SPEAKER_00: 6:21

they feel lonely. Yeah, okay. Now it brings me back to my train of thought that it's about synchronizing with other people. And what that means is can other people experience the same emotions that you do in a given moment. So the very simple way to put it is why is it so fun to watch movie together with other people?

SPEAKER_02: 6:38

So

SPEAKER_00: 6:39

you're watching the same thing, you technically should be laughing at the same time with everybody, you should be scared at the same time with everybody around you. So that synchronization, it does something to us, it does something to our brain. And that is kind of difficult to achieve. And especially when you go to one time events, you're going to a party that your friend organized and it's dinner with other people. You don't know anybody, how can you you possibly reach that level of same experience in the same emotion when you just met somebody? It happens. It's very special. Like, you know, sharing a joke, everybody's laughing. So it's very special. So that's the thing, the socialization that we actually need. And it takes, for most people, with most people, it takes time. So you have to, I believe, see a person several times to figure out if they are your person, if you can synchronize on the same thing. So if you're going to play volleyball together, do you actually enjoy it to do other people enjoy it exactly the same way when you share that emotion I think that is what true socialization is it's not necessarily just chatting or being around people and to invest that time that's difficult and a lot of people don't know what they like to do with their free time we don't really put much thought into it we go to universities we try to get a career that we you know this is what we're going to do for the eight hours that we work but we rarely plan what is it that we do after because we react to what is happening to us. We need to drive, we need to cook, we need to eat, we need to take care of children, whatever, parents. People don't spend necessary time to plan what they want to do. And if in childhood you didn't establish your hobbies, you didn't figure out who you are, right? What brings you joy? It's a little bit difficult. And so people find themselves in a situation where they just don't really have the energy or capacity to go out. And I think people who truly enjoyed I think not everybody were lucky enough to find themselves in a situation where they had pure joy in a group of people where they shared same emotion. I think it's rare, not everybody has experienced that. And like, to me, it's one of my favorite times for me was during COVID where I had my group of friends would go, we used to go dancing before COVID and then COVID hit, we couldn't dance anymore. because obviously it's very social. No dancing, tango. Dancing tango, yeah. Argentine tango. And yeah, we couldn't go to the dancing studio anymore. And then I had this thought of like, well, how do we figure out the problems? How do we solve the problems? Is there other solutions? What can we do? So I reached out to my friend and she wasn't my friend just yet. So I reached out to another person with who I had great energy, Sally. Shout out to Sally. Shout out to Sally. Yes. And I reached out to her and I was like, oh, I don't know. It's a kind of a touchy subject. Like, are you comfortable meeting in person? And like, maybe like dance, maybe, I don't know. And she was like, hell yes. So I was like, oh, okay. And then we found a couple of more people because we need couples. We need men and women together. We hit up a couple of other people. And then the next problem was, oh, where do we go? Do we find a studio? Because all the studios are shut off. So Sally's like, well, I have a living room and a garage, let's go there. So we all went there and we moved the furniture around, it was crazy, but we found a space and we created our thing. And we started meeting every week and it's like, no matter what's going on with everybody's week, we just meet up on Friday and just like all the worries are gone. We're just dancing and we're having fun. And we were and we still are all very different people with their different careers, goals and life views, but yet this brought us together. And I think this was such a big joy because we were truly able to do something that we all love. Like we connected for that hobby together. And of course it became, you know, friendship. We would talk about our, I don't know, worries, whatever happened at work. But it took time and it was a lot of joy. And when COVID finished, everything opened up. It was a little bit more difficult to meet. But to me, I always go back to that time, how this was a true socialization that is just feeding my soul in a positive way even today. And of course, I have plans to recreate it when life gets in the way, but this is what I'm talking about. So you just give chance to people that you don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 11:15

Yeah, but not everybody has these ideas, right? For example, me, I live far away, right? I live in a suburban area. And for me, it's hard to figure out what I like. Okay, I like table tennis, right? I like ping pong. I do like volleyball. But to actually plan and find people as a similar minded people, right? And organize. And like you said, be consistent. Like you guys are meeting once a week, right? To be consistent, that takes determination. And I feel maybe the attention span on a span on the, in the modern culture is that we want everything fast. We want the high dopamine fast. And then we get into that, you know, stagnation mode. And again, we like inject ourselves with something exciting. And then again, there's a stagnation mode. So how do you actually, a, I guess, right. Find yourself, find what you like and then be consistent and find the ways, okay, how to be more social in real life, not online, right? So I have a question to you. I

SPEAKER_00: 12:10

have this bonus because I can ask you questions. Yeah. So like, do you think this issue of loneliness, is it a personal issue? So is it an issue of an individual or is it an issue of the society, right? So is it a selfish thing? Okay, I can

SPEAKER_01: 12:27

clarify that. I think there is a difference between alone and and being lonely. For example, I am extremely happy to be by myself, right? Have my own time. I do painting. I do reading. I, you know, watch TV show. I, you know, take a hike. I go to the beach. I write, right? But then in those times, I don't feel lonely. I feel lonely. I think loneliness meaning having a companionship, companionship of the person who shares the same interest, who you have chemistry with, right? Who you enjoy spending time with and I think that's the problem because there's so many things which you can do this Burning Man you know there's this music festivals there's restaurants there's bars people go out yet many many people do find themselves lonely and like I said before not just by themselves but in a relationship right I've seen people who've been married for many years and they still say you know what I feel lonely and I also had times in my life when I was in a long-term relationship and I felt lonely you know even though I had that person And I feel, why do you, why did I feel that way? Why did I stay? But I guess the question, why did I stay in that lonely relationship, even though didn't bring me happiness? I don't know if it's fear of abandonment. I don't know if it's fear of like, you know, dying alone or, you know, just, just being bored to death. But I feel this is, this is an issue I see across different audiences and I'm trying to understand why. And you asked me the question, you know, and I think maybe because we have so much choice online right you feel like you can substitute friendship you feel like especially in dating worlds let's say if we talk about a relationship right you have one person you have chemistry but then tomorrow you're gonna see a better looking person the next day you can see a funnier person and people don't stay consistent and they keep jumping and hopping from one person to another to another to another chasing that feeling right the imaginary feeling that they're trying to feed that they never You'll never get it. And those people, actually a lot of people in my environment, they stay lonely and single for years.

SPEAKER_00: 14:37

So what I hear in your response is that possible solution to loneliness from what you're saying is a partner, right? The life companion.

SPEAKER_02: 14:48

And

SPEAKER_00: 14:49

I think it is extremely important to have a partner, but I think your partner will never substitute your social circle. So it's one of the... different aspects in life. Because your romantic partner, person you spend your life with, obviously there's a lot more to it than just socializing with them, right? You're building life together, you're going through all the struggles together. In addition to all the romantic and social aspects, there's also the routine and just, you know, paying bills, organizing who is getting groceries today. All of these aspects to just going through life, right? The very practical aspect of life and very fun and beautiful aspect of life together. But social with other people is something else. And it does something very different to your brain, I believe.

SPEAKER_01: 15:37

You know, bingo, because a lot of couples, many couples that I know, they lose themselves being stuck within their relationship. They do everything together. They go to the gym together. They have breakfast together. They go out together. They travel together. And sometimes this kind of close relationship might be suffocating throughout time. It's great. You have a partner who you can share everything. But also I feel it could take a toll in a relationship because like you said you don't have your circle of friends that you can socialize outside of your relationship so I think it's very important to have your own friends and your own hobbies apart from your partner right so you do and plus you have something to talk about right when you have the dinner together right you can share hey like I went out and play golf with my friends and this and this happened hey like you know went out and met such and such person you share and you communicate because if you do everything together you kind of like stuck in the same stories you get bored with each other, right? And you kind of lose your own interest, your own self, right? In this relationship.

SPEAKER_00: 16:36

You know, I think a very important aspect is personal responsibility that is very uncomfortable for a lot of people. A lot of people have never encountered this feeling of personal responsibility. And I think this personal responsibility has a big aspect of being proactive in things. So instead of waiting for a crisis to occur you're proactive, you take ownership, you say, this is my responsibility. Obviously, a lot of aspects of our life require personal responsibility, but obviously social aspect is very, very important. What do you mean social responsibility? Personal responsibility, right? So, and I think it kind of brings me back to my question to you about whether loneliness is something that is selfish or loneliness, you know, is something that we collectively are suffering together and it's between all of us. And my thought is that this is part of the problem that we take loneliness as the selfish problem same as depression depression is very selfish it's selfish because you are only focusing on yourself you are stuck with your own thoughts right it's very self-centered and once you lock in your own bubble and this is where loneliness puts you in your own bubble and then it leads to depression you're in your own bubble and It's very hard to see any other perspective, very hard to, there's nobody arguing with you whether you're having a good day or not, it's just you and you can spiral into something very negative. So I think we have to reframe loneliness as instead of being very selfish, and in the United States, we love being selfish, right? It's me time, it's love yourself. Self-care. All of that, self-care, right? It's all selfish, selfish, selfish. And at the point, you're so focused on yourself that you completely lost track that there is other people and that they are extremely important for your own survival, right? Like loneliness increases chances of dementia 50%, right? That is great. So dementia, obviously, disease of the brain. And we don't know how to prevent it. We don't know kind of what's causing it. We have a glimpse, right? We're studying. There's medications to slow it down. But loneliness increases dementia chance 50%. You know what?

SPEAKER_01: 18:58

I remember. Sorry to interrupt you, but I I remember before I forget, one of the times, actually good advice, going back to depression that you gave me actually some time ago and shifted my perspective on things. When I was depressed, you actually told me, oh, it's actually selfish to be depressed. You said, try to think how you can help somebody else and you can help another person. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to get to. Right, right. And that actually takes you out of that bubble of being selfish and thinking about somebody else. So by taking care of somebody else, by thinking about somebody else's problem, you get yourself out of that mode and you realize you know what things are not as bad as it seemed because you keep brewing keep thinking you keep like overthinking within within your brain right creating those freaking I don't know what are those chemicals I don't know whatever there's a lot of chemicals yeah there's a lot of there's a big soup in the brain yeah whatever the soup the solanca in the freaking brain right it creates those chemicals that you cannot think about anything else and once you told me that I realized you know what if I tomorrow wake up in the morning with a positive mindset and thinking okay how can I help somebody else with an advice maybe I can you know ask if anybody needs my help with anything and that actually helped me to get over my depression I don't know if it was depression maybe it was like a well

SPEAKER_00: 20:11

everybody goes through depressive like days in their life like you feel low sometimes sometimes one and other times but yeah that is exactly my point that loneliness people recognize it I'm lonely I'm crying in my room if I I think quite a few adults have this realization that if I sleep in the shower today and I'm just incapacitated and the phone is far away, who's going to come and save me, right? And people keep brewing on that. And so to me, it's like, okay, you have identified the problem. What are you going to do about it? And the tricky kind of thing about this is that this is not something you can solve within one minute. This is not something you can, let me go out clubbing, if anybody's even using that word, right? Let me go out to a party, whatever, to an outing or some yoga session and that's gonna solve the issue no solving loneliness takes effort and takes time because yep because and I think maybe you hate it because like I said at the beginning maybe you have never experienced the true joy of connecting with people and you did I

SPEAKER_01: 21:23

did

SPEAKER_00: 21:23

so I think if you experience that joy that's the true dopamine that you would truly try to chase after what was your Well,

SPEAKER_01: 21:31

the thing is, I'm trying to get back to loneliness in a relationship, right? for behaving that way, right? But what I'm trying to say is that we're all experiencing loneliness and we're all struggling with it, yet we don't know what to do, right? Like you... I know what to do. You know what to do? What do we do? I thought you would never share

SPEAKER_00: 22:15

this special secret. No, but like I said, so... Okay, let's do one step, one, two, three. Step one, two, three. Okay, so first of all, FYI, everything is connected in life, right? So once you start living life in a... And productive, I don't at all mean like, oh, you have accomplished a lot of tasks. Productive, I mean creative. When you produce things, when you create moments, right? When you create relationships, when you start living life like this, and when you create health and wellness and prosperity and whatever, it affects all aspects of your life, right? So to socialize. back to personal responsibility, right? So it is your personal responsibility. And the trick is that also nobody's going to hold you accountable. It's personal. Nobody knows about its existence. It's within you. Nobody's going to hold it against you if you're not personally responsible, except it will show in your life that, okay, you're this kind of person who didn't take any responsibility in their life, right? So it starts with personal responsibility. You have to remember your friend's birthdays, right? If If there are people who are special in your life, you've got to remember their special day. And it might be even their wedding day or when their child was born. Little things like this. And if you remember what you're going to do about it, the easiest, cheapest thing is you reach out to a person, then you call them. Well, calling is super extra, but it's amazing, right? If you can call a person and say, hey, happy birthday, how are you doing? What are you doing today? You have created, this was a very productive use of your time. You have created a little rapport with the person, right? And it's about giving, giving a lot, giving more with your family, right? Everybody has decided we're going to have Thanksgiving as a family, as a family holiday. What are you going to do about it? This is your chance to get your family together and establish relationships with your family, right? And then it's your responsibility to provide people good time if you want to create value in their life. Are you an interesting person to talk to and how do you become interesting goes back to curiosity are you curious about things if you're curious about one thing start digging into that it will bring you joy and then you share this with other people and being curious about other people being curious about people who are not conventionally interesting beautiful or important we're in LA right everything is about looks well let's talk

SPEAKER_01: 24:52

about that by the way people can't see but I have goosebumps I don't know about you guys but I I freaking love you you're like I'm literally listening to you I have goosebumps

SPEAKER_00: 25:00

preach

SPEAKER_01: 25:01

okay so we talk about LA

SPEAKER_00: 25:03

everything is about the looks everything is about the looks LA right so what my observations is that a lot of the time and I see I get my observations about LA on the contrast because when you're in this matrix right and we're going to define matrix as having the conventional world that you are used to and everything is familiar everything is normal So other people define for you pretty much what normal is. If everybody's wearing shorts, it's normal to wear shorts, right? So we create this matrix and nobody questions like, oh, maybe we can wear other things, right? So when I get out of the matrix and this is traveling outside of the United States or talking to people who haven't been living here for a while, it's kind of really disrupts the whole system in the brain of how people communicate, how people listen, how people respond to to the little pain that you throw in there, right? And then they also have comedians who talk about their horrible childhood experiences and we're all just like laughing and it's fun. But when you slow down and you think about it, wow, people are going through a lot of rough stuff and I'm sure everybody is, right? And I feel like here customary to just like laugh it off or not even share. I don't know, it's kind of cliche that people talk about more personal stuff outside of the United States, But it doesn't even have to be personal to talk about your problems with other people. Talking about your problems with your friends shouldn't be anything revolutionary. But even talking about, oh, I'm thinking about these business ideas or I was at work and this thing made me think about this. When you share something like this with other people, first of all, not many people do because the response usually isn't like, oh, we're synchronized and I've experienced this wonder or fun or anger, whatever happened to you at work. It's usually very static pre-made responses. And you can really sense this when you talk to people who are, for whom English is the second language, who do not use response of, oh my God, this is amazing. Or, oh, my favorite is, oh, good for you. Like, oh, this is so distancing. Good for you. Yeah, I don't know. It's like, go to hell. Maybe somebody will explain this better to you. But for me, when somebody says good for you, it means like, you exist separately, completely separately. for me. You have your joys and your sadness. It doesn't affect me at all. I'm just the observer and it's good for you. Do you think

SPEAKER_01: 27:33

the lack of compassion and our inability to feel and our inability to really experience empathy and actually remember me and you talked about empathy before and you told me like, oh, I mean, not in a bad way, but like, oh, you actually don't have empathy. Like I don't empathize people too much because I feel like I'm constantly brewing with my own problems, with my own projects. And sometimes I overlook things that I have to be more attentive, have to be more engaging, have to be more present, right? In the conversation. And especially for my industry, right? If I work on set, on photo shoots, you know, I direct music videos. Sometimes, most of the time, I see people being in a social environment, being all the time on the phone, right? And I'm thinking, okay, you are out. You are in social environment. Talk to people, right? Ask them questions. It's the curiosity aspect. It's the curiosity, right? And many people are closed down, right? and I see, oh my God, like everybody, especially if you go to the gym, everybody's on the phone. Let's say if this handsome guy in one corner is single and there's a beautiful girl in another corner in the gym, right? And I'm thinking, oh my God, they could be like a perfect couple, yet I look at both of them and both of them on the phone. And I'm thinking, this is a perfect time for you to just exchange eye contact. Ask, hey, like, you know, what is your workout? Like, how are you doing? Possibly exchanging the numbers, right? But they don't even get to that point because they're so not present and absent from the real life. And

SPEAKER_00: 28:55

going back- this scary thought that so obviously we have a lot of adults now who have grown up with phones and what phones and social media do to us I have a separate thought about it I don't know that it is affecting our social life in the way that everybody portrays it I think the most common belief is that because you're on social media that somehow takes away from your actual social life. I think they're completely different things. They're completely different things. I think it's social media. Maybe it's called social media just because it has to do with people. It has nothing to do with socialization. It's to do with people, right? It's escapism, right? Yes, it's that you escape. To me, this is purely just a very quick dopamine because people didn't get enough dopamine throughout the day. Obviously, dopamine, right? It's the good feeling that you get from doing things. And it's dangerous to be exposed to quick dopamine all the time because you just want more, but you never get satisfied. It doesn't get you anywhere, right? So to me, it's like you had a hard day at work, you had stress, you had miscommunications, you have responsibilities, stuff like this, and you're just tired. And your response into that, we didn't create what else there is to do in life in your free time when you're at home. You take your phone, it gives you a little bit of that rise in dopamine. And you have, while you're looking at the phone, you have this sense of, oh, I'm resting, I'm having fun. But when you turn off the phone, nothing has been achieved. You didn't prepare a meal. You didn't paint a painting. You didn't establish a connection with a friend. Nothing was achieved, right? But to me, that has nothing to do with being social. And socializing is something else. I'm sorry, I forgot. How did we start? No, well, the

SPEAKER_01: 30:53

thing is I'm listening to you, but there's more. many people like myself who unfortunately work from phone, right? One thing is like,

SPEAKER_00: 31:01

okay. No, personal responsibility. Personal responsibility. You work from home. You work from home. You work on your phone. And everybody at this day and age understands what phone is. Like, there is no... It's a black hole....line about it. This is heroin for us, right? This is clean heroin. You get addicted. And when I pick up my phone and I... I have a feeling, or just a little bit, or just a little bit more. And you get tremendous amount of knowledge. And the fact that you're getting that knowledge. Useless

SPEAKER_01: 31:33

knowledge.

SPEAKER_00: 31:34

Sometimes, right? Depends what your feed is. Sometimes there's great things, but in order to actually internalize knowledge, you have to listen to it, you have to think about it, you have to practice it, right? And you have to practice it in real life, then it becomes your knowledge. When you just listen to it without internalizing, right? Without wrapping your mind around it without making it your own part of your own thought process it's useless so we get that joy that there's so much to do in the world there's all these great knowledge there's all these great speakers or funny people right we get joy but when you shut it off you have created nothing in your life this is very scary and i know we're talking about a lot a lot of topics i know i want to

SPEAKER_01: 32:16

expand on all of them but let's go back to the loneliness i know let's go back to the loneliness

SPEAKER_00: 32:20

right loneliness in the relationship i think i didn't address that yes and so it's again to me very straightforward comes to personal responsibility of when you are with your partner it's very easy to get consumed because I think there's only so much strength in a day you have to complete your work and then complete your chores and the only other person who is right there is your partner so you do easy things together but again all these you know this is the easy things like all these birthdays and holidays they don't happen every day so I think it's fun to plan something for people in advance so you know you're going to socialize with other people later but let's talk

SPEAKER_01: 32:55

about the people who don't have the partner, right? I'm talking about the people who chronically been single and lonely for many years or for years, right? So talk about, let's talk about those people who, and I'm not talking about exceptions of the rules. I'm talking about successful people. I'm talking about people who are established. I'm talking about interesting people, smart people. I'm talking about like the outcasts, right? I'm talking, and I have both friends, female and male friends, extremely successful, very intelligent, Yet, I feel and then I shared with them that and I see from their lifestyle that they are lonely. And going back to what we talked before, I'm trying to understand and discuss and maybe share some ideas. Okay, what do we do to feel less lonely? And I know one of the things more of in depth things that we touched upon is not planning, not organizing, but what you mentioned earlier is to figuring out your life purpose,

SPEAKER_00: 33:54

right? Yes, okay, life purpose. purpose, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 33:56

Do you want to expand on that? Let's talk about life purpose, how it connects to your lifestyle, making choices, and being or not being lonely.

SPEAKER_00: 34:07

So it's obviously the biggest question or one of the biggest questions on the planet. What is the purpose of life? Everybody's trying to figure out. Well, not everybody. Some people who are interested try to figure out. Philosophers are talking about it. That's why the subject is fun. But to me, it's It doesn't have to be so global, dramatic, right? There is a purpose of life to be figured out as a philosophical topic. But then there's also kind of a goal for your personal life. What is the purpose of your life? And I think a lot of, there's misconception that it has to be something dramatic, right? And there has to be calling in your life what your purpose of life is. And I think that if you are after 30 and you don't have a purpose of life, you better pick one that is random. Let me tell you what I mean. You pick up a random purpose of life that is grand, that is big. And to me, to me, this is very straightforward, very obvious how, and I should encourage a lot of people to adopt this purpose of life is helping others. Okay, so your purpose of helping others, once you establish, and of course, you can pick many other different purposes in life, right? And guess what? You can change your purpose in life as you grow older. It's not a contract you sign and you have to stick with it. But understanding what you're living for gives you a lot of direction. It gives you a lot of direction in your relationships, gives you a lot of direction in how you spend your free time, what kind of job you do. And that is very helpful. There's too many choices, too much noise in modern life. So if you have one thing straight, and even if it's for the next five years, you have this goal, purpose in life, not goal, purpose in life, I think it will be helpful you will be really really helpful for you and that around that purpose you will form your social and romantic interactions so if you have a big purpose in life I think it's you will be kind of understanding that you need a good strong friend circle family circle strong partner next to you and that means that when you are thinking about dating right you're not going to be dating you know just to hang out. You will be dating with the person who will help you achieve your life purpose and who will be happy for you to have that life purpose who will be supporting your life purpose while pursuing their own. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 36:40

but look, many people say my purpose in life is to travel. My purpose in life is enjoying

SPEAKER_00: 36:46

the moment. You cannot choose purpose in life something that you can get out of the way within a year. You can travel for a year, you can visit most Most of the countries in the world, if you're a good planner, you can visit all the 192 countries in the world and get it over with. That is not purpose, that is goals. Goals is great, but purpose is something more deeper, something spiritual. It's one of those things that I also believe strongly affect your health. How? Okay, so prisoners, so people who are in prison, in prison pretty much for life like imagine yourself in that situation you're in prison for life you cannot choose a job you cannot choose to slip in you cannot choose to wake up early you cannot choose to change you cannot choose to be a slob you cannot choose anything there is no choices there is no perspectives it's very difficult to internalize that that causes a lot of health decay because your body right why am your body will respond to your psychological thoughts of there is no purpose in living. However, when you take some, I read the book, I think it's called Say Yes to Life. It was a very small book. It was given to me by our dad when I was going through some rough times in life. And it was written by a psychologist who found himself in a concentration camp and how it was extremely difficult to find purpose in life. and do there for anything. So you don't eat if you don't think you're gonna live tomorrow. You don't move around if you don't think you're gonna live tomorrow. You don't talk to your friend or person next to you if there is no point in tomorrow. And so he was describing how by having the purpose in life, how he made his purpose, right? He's gonna see his family, he's gonna see his children, how that would get him through camp and he survived it, right? To write the book and then he would continue teaching in universities And he saw that people who would give up, they would just die faster. So there is, and I'm sure there is other research that I cannot quote right now, but I'm sure it exists, how this purpose in life gets you moving, gets you being productive. And again, in a creative way, you take care of your body, you take care of others, you produce things in life, you produce value to others. And back to the loneliness thing, that if you take it as a selfish thing, you're sit with it at home and you think how lonely you are and the question always is to you what kind of value do you provide to other people and value is not necessarily that oh I'm this good looking person and we're good looking people we can hang out together value okay this is how I see it but value right can be something more like how many people can say I have a person who's got my back if my apartment burned down car burned down

SPEAKER_01: 39:54

you know I can share something with you I did an experiment I deactivated my Instagram for a week and I was wondering who will reach out to me and see if I'm okay I'm not gonna name it but there was only two people two people from my circle reached out to me and asked if I'm okay I was okay but I was just doing like a test and I realized it doesn't mean how many followers you have it doesn't mean how many comments you have all of that doesn't even matter right the real life right now right here the process present matters the most. Forget about the past. Forget about the future. This is the moment where we live in. And going back to your thought, right, to the loneliness and to being responsible and to having the life purpose. it feels like, in my case, you might take a lifetime to find your life purpose, right? It's like, okay, so, I mean, I've been thinking

SPEAKER_00: 40:48

about it. Like, what is your, how do you? I think a passive approach. Like, I'm gonna be waiting, I'm gonna be waiting my whole life, and has it been described, that revolutionary moment where you were waiting on your sofa very patiently, and then your purpose in life appeared, and then you're like, from now on, I have a better life because I have that purpose. It never happens like this. I think purpose in life, people encounter it through the experiences. It means they have to be out there, they have to be doing things, they have to be participating in things that make them uncomfortable, right? I know it's hard, right? But we can talk about how to do it. It's all in your power. It's your personal responsibility. But if you're like, oh, let me go volunteer at the pet shelter and you see the pets and you encounter that and then you're like, oh... I think this is what I really feel valuable doing this. So I think maybe this is my purpose in life, right? And I want to help pets. I want to advocate for different laws. I want to help every single dog or cat, whatever. You encounter that purpose in life. And it means that you have to be doing a lot of things. It means that you have to realize your personal responsibility to live a fulfilling life. And living a fulfilling life is when you're actually doing things and not, yeah, on the phone, scrolling, blah, But I understand people get tired. But it means you have to think what is it that you like to do? How do you bring value? And you're creative. You're curious. You go and you do that. And through going through all these experiences, you will encounter your purpose of life. But if you don't have a purpose of life, there is plenty of purposes of life to borrow from other people. And I think people's life would change dramatically if they adopt somebody else's purpose in life and they try to pursue that direction. So how you live your life how you kind of encourage other people to live their lives, align with that direction, will give you a sense of purpose. And I think it's gonna be very helpful. And then with time, maybe you'll encounter a different purpose in life, right? That you actually, you know, that you're like, oh, this is that moment, shebang. Now I know my purpose in life. But in the meantime, there's so much work to be done in the world. Oh my God, people need to start doing things, right? People need to go out there, figure out and try. And bring your friends while you're doing something cool. And this is how you establish that connection. This is what cures your loneliness. This is when you become valuable for other people. And again, it's not material thing. It's not a vanity thing. It's not Instagram thing. Where somebody with people depend on you for, you know, I don't know, maybe it's direction. Like, oh, what are we doing today? Or what, of course, I love the volunteering thing, which can also be tricky because I think there's a lot of useless things. But volunteering is great. If you're doing the kind of volunteering, bring your friends along. And yeah, you're passionate, I think it shows, and you're actually doing something. You're producing something. I don't think I

SPEAKER_01: 43:53

can add anything more to this.

SPEAKER_00: 43:57

But let's see, going back to what is it that I do, like step one, right? To wrap it up, right? To wrap it up, yeah. Let's summarize,

SPEAKER_01: 44:05

because I know there's so much still to dig in.

SPEAKER_00: 44:08

Yeah, exactly. It's one of those topics. So I think step one in any endeavor is research. I think you would agree because I know for your work, you do tons of research. I know you're the queen of research. You have to learn, figure out, read different perspectives. And this one is research of just like, I don't know how other people's brains work, right? They just know mine. But what is it that like sparks something? Oh, that was interesting thought in your brain throughout the day. Like what was that, right? You saw something, whatever, grocery store at work and something sparked some kind of an emotion. Go into that and start researching. Are there more events like, I don't know, you're passionate about food, you're passionate about ballet, whatever. Something sparked your interest, start pursuing that and then think like how can you add more value to it, right? So first I think it's research and then I think another thing to do is to support people who are already doing something, right? Because if you reverse and you think if I would be creating something and I have this, I don't know, weird passion, I'm trying to save all the dollars right and somebody else you know their thing aligns with yours you see they're trying to do something and maybe it's a little strange or funny unconventional it's like what are you doing just support all the you know interesting people all the weird people right so I think that's another thing and I don't know you want to add the third one for me no I must I'm waiting for the third one I know okay well let me think about the third one and I think maybe the third one it would be to break out of the speech patterns, right? So speech patterns, hi, how are you? I'm good. Oh my God, this is amazing. This is great. Like, can we break out of that? And can you like respond to a person with something more substantial? Let's ban

SPEAKER_01: 45:54

the words like iconic.

SPEAKER_00: 45:57

Yeah. Amazing. Like put things through yourself, maybe, right? And respond with your emotions and add to what they're saying. That creates socialization. Am I saying this word correctly? Socialization, yeah, that's right. Well, I think this is This is a

SPEAKER_01: 46:11

good start. I think we touched the tip of the iceberg. And I know, guys, this is a little preview of our phone conversations that last like two, three hours while I'm driving from work, while she's driving from work. And we have these conversations and topics that help me a lot in my life. And that's how we communicate with Anna. By the way, I call her Malaya. I think I called you one time. We just call each other Malaya because I'm... we're gonna keep the secret why one day we'll tell okay one day we'll tell but we call each other malaya um so we have these conversations every day so you guys had a little exclusive sneak preview um into our conversation so thank you um anna for being on the basic show thank you for sharing your input and um i hope and i know i see you in the next episode next week okay see you in the next episode thank you so much bye bye

SPEAKER_00: 47:10

so

SPEAKER_02: 47:11

you