How a hidden core or our own choices define us

HostThink about the tools in your kitchen drawer for a second. A vegetable peeler was made with a clear goal in mind. Before it even existed, someone had a plan for it. Its whole job is to take the skin off a carrot, and it can never really be anything else. We often talk about ourselves the same way, like we have a set path or a true self hidden inside us that we just need to find. I want to dig into whether that's actually true. Are we born with a built-in set of plans, or do we just show up and figure it out as we go?

GuestThat idea of having a built-in plan is what people call essentialism. It's the belief that every thing has a core, a set of traits that makes it what it is. For a long time, we thought humans were just like that peeler or a hammer. We thought you were born with a soul or a nature that set your path. If you were born to a certain family or in a certain place, that was your essence. It meant your life had a point before you even took your first breath. The goal of life was just to live up to that plan. It's a very cozy way to see the world because it means nobody is here by mistake. There's a script, and you just have to play your part.

HostBut that feels a bit like being a train on a track. If my life is already written, do I even have a say in it? I look at my dog, and he was clearly born to chase squirrels. He didn't go to school for it or decide it was his passion. He just is that way. If we have a core like that, it feels like we're just very smart animals following a map we didn't draw.

GuestThat's the big tension. If you have a set core, you have a purpose, but you lose your freedom. About a hundred years ago, some thinkers started to flip that over. They called it existentialism. Their big claim was that for humans, and only for humans, being here comes first. We show up on the scene, we exist, and then we define ourselves. There's no plan. There's no pre-set map. You're not a vegetable peeler. You're the person who decides if you want to peel vegetables or go paint a picture. But that shift is actually terrifying for a lot of people. If there's no script, then you're the one holding the pen, and everything you do is your own fault. One of the big names in this line of thought said we're condemned to be free. It sounds like a gift, but it feels like a heavy weight.

HostI'm not sure I buy the idea that we're totally blank at the start. I mean, I can't just choose to be a world-class singer if I'm tone-deaf. I have genes, I have a body, and I grew up in a certain house. Those things aren't choices. They feel like the walls of a room I'm stuck in. Does this way of thinking just ignore the reality of how we're born?

GuestIt doesn't say the walls aren't there, but it says you get to decide what the walls mean. You might be born in a small town with no money, and that's a fact. But you choose if that fact is a cage that holds you back or a floor that you build on. The point is that these facts don't have a meaning until you give them one. Think about a waiter in a busy cafe. He might be so good at his job that he moves like a machine. He's polite, he's fast, and he never misses a beat. He's acting like a waiter is all he is. He's trying to turn himself into an object with a single job, like that kitchen tool. In this view, that's a kind of lie. He's pretending he doesn't have a choice, because choosing who to be is much harder than just playing a role.

HostSo when I say I'm just not a morning person or I'm just bad at math, I might be lying to myself to avoid the work of changing? That's a pretty sharp way to look at it. It makes every habit feel like a choice I'm making over and over again.

GuestIt really does. It means you're never a finished product. You're always a work in progress. If you believe you have a hidden core, you might spend your whole life looking for it, like you're trying to find a prize at the bottom of a cereal box. But if you think your choices come first, you stop looking for who you're and start making who you are. This can lead to a kind of dizzy feeling. If you're standing on the edge of a tall cliff, you might feel scared that you'll fall. But the deeper fear is the realization that you could actually throw yourself off. That's the weight of being able to choose anything. You're the only thing that can look at what you're right now and decide to be something totally different tomorrow.

HostWe're the only things in the world that can stand in front of a mirror and disagree with what we see.

GuestMost things in this world are just what they're, but a human being is the only thing that's what it makes of itself.

HostThe vegetable peeler in the drawer will never be anything else, but we have to live with the fact that the tools of our own lives are always in our hands.