WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.000 Have you ever felt, you know, guilty about not 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:05.160 being productive enough? Like, you didn't check 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:06.879 enough off your to -do list? Well, wait until 00:00:06.879 --> 00:00:08.380 you hear about the guy we're looking at today. 00:00:08.460 --> 00:00:11.439 Oh, yeah. It is a story that completely shatters 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:14.119 our modern baseline for what actually constitutes, 00:00:14.500 --> 00:00:16.820 like... a hard day's work. Seriously. OK, let's 00:00:16.820 --> 00:00:20.280 unpack this. We were looking at a stack of incredibly 00:00:20.280 --> 00:00:23.899 rich and frankly just mind blowing source material 00:00:23.899 --> 00:00:27.160 for this deep dive. Specifically, we are looking 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:30.079 at translated excerpts from a massive ancient 00:00:30.079 --> 00:00:32.799 encyclopedia. Right. The natural history. Exactly. 00:00:32.979 --> 00:00:35.060 The natural history. It was written in the first 00:00:35.060 --> 00:00:38.259 century AD by a Roman official named Pliny the 00:00:38.259 --> 00:00:41.380 Elder. And alongside that text, we have these 00:00:41.380 --> 00:00:44.079 deeply personal, highly detailed biographies 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:46.840 graphical accounts written by his nephew who 00:00:46.840 --> 00:00:49.659 is, rather conveniently, named Pliny the Younger. 00:00:49.759 --> 00:00:52.079 Yeah, and we are incredibly fortunate to have 00:00:52.079 --> 00:00:53.880 those letters from the nephew. I mean, without 00:00:53.880 --> 00:00:56.020 them, we would have the encyclopedia, which is 00:00:56.020 --> 00:00:58.799 this monumental achievement on its own. But we 00:00:58.799 --> 00:01:01.679 wouldn't have the behind the scenes documentation 00:01:01.679 --> 00:01:05.760 of the agonizing, almost superhuman physical 00:01:05.760 --> 00:01:08.319 and mental toll it took to actually create it. 00:01:08.379 --> 00:01:10.540 We just wouldn't know the human cost of the text. 00:01:10.659 --> 00:01:12.959 Right. And our mission today for you listening 00:01:12.959 --> 00:01:16.560 is to explore those mind boggling daily habits 00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:19.060 and the incredibly strict time management that 00:01:19.049 --> 00:01:21.569 the elder youth to conduct his research. It really 00:01:21.569 --> 00:01:24.250 is extreme. It is. We're going to contrast his 00:01:24.250 --> 00:01:26.950 relentless hustle with our modern views on productivity. 00:01:27.450 --> 00:01:29.870 But I think most importantly, we want to unpack 00:01:29.870 --> 00:01:32.730 the immense pressure he faced because he wasn't 00:01:32.730 --> 00:01:35.390 just, you know, sitting in a quiet, sunlit library 00:01:35.390 --> 00:01:37.730 all day writing. Not at all. He was balancing 00:01:37.730 --> 00:01:40.109 high ranking literal life and death imperial 00:01:40.109 --> 00:01:42.310 duties for the Roman Empire with this completely 00:01:42.310 --> 00:01:45.549 obsessive literary goal. And that tension right 00:01:45.549 --> 00:01:48.400 there is the core of his existence. The friction 00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:51.340 between his public life and his private obsession 00:01:51.340 --> 00:01:53.900 is really the engine of this whole narrative. 00:01:54.200 --> 00:01:56.120 So before we look at how he worked, we have to 00:01:56.120 --> 00:01:57.939 understand what he was actually juggling because 00:01:57.939 --> 00:02:00.159 he wasn't a monk in a quiet cell. Far from it. 00:02:00.459 --> 00:02:03.680 He was a highly active, heavily relied upon Roman 00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:05.959 official. If you look at the timeline of his 00:02:05.959 --> 00:02:09.080 life, his resume reads like an absolute powerhouse 00:02:09.080 --> 00:02:11.560 of Roman administration and military service. 00:02:11.560 --> 00:02:14.419 Yeah. To give you a sense of the scale, in his 00:02:14.419 --> 00:02:17.259 early 20s, he was serving in Germany as the commander. 00:02:17.099 --> 00:02:20.539 of an ala. An ala. Yeah, which is a troop of 00:02:20.539 --> 00:02:22.939 auxiliary cavalry. Right, which means he isn't 00:02:22.939 --> 00:02:26.719 a desk jockey. He is on horseback leading soldiers 00:02:26.719 --> 00:02:29.479 in one of the most brutal, freezing, and heavily 00:02:29.479 --> 00:02:31.840 contested frontier zones of the entire Roman 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:35.099 Empire. Exactly. He is out there managing logistics, 00:02:35.500 --> 00:02:37.979 supply lines, combat readiness, all in the mud 00:02:37.979 --> 00:02:41.000 and the snow of the Germanic frontier. And yet, 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:44.120 even then, he was riding. Wait, really? While 00:02:44.120 --> 00:02:46.580 on the frontier? Yeah. While commanding this 00:02:46.580 --> 00:02:48.919 cavalry unit, he wrote a technical treatise called 00:02:48.919 --> 00:02:51.500 On the Use of the Javelin by Cavalry. That is 00:02:51.500 --> 00:02:54.080 just so perfectly specific. I mean, you're trying 00:02:54.080 --> 00:02:56.400 to keep your men alive in the terrifying German 00:02:56.400 --> 00:02:58.460 forest and you just think, you know what I should 00:02:58.460 --> 00:03:00.759 do tonight? Write a manual on projectile physics 00:03:00.759 --> 00:03:03.789 from horseback. It's wild. And he didn't stop 00:03:03.789 --> 00:03:06.110 there. He traveled all over Germany, going as 00:03:06.110 --> 00:03:08.409 far as the shores of the North Sea. But, you 00:03:08.409 --> 00:03:10.669 know, his career evolved. He eventually returned 00:03:10.669 --> 00:03:13.030 to Rome, worked as a lawyer for a while. And 00:03:13.030 --> 00:03:15.189 then, well, then we hit the reign of the emperor 00:03:15.189 --> 00:03:18.830 Nero. Ah, Nero, which is a crucial period to 00:03:18.830 --> 00:03:21.930 understand because Nero's reign was a terrifying 00:03:21.930 --> 00:03:25.210 time to be anybody of note in Rome, let alone 00:03:25.210 --> 00:03:27.310 a prominent intellectual. Oh, absolutely. It 00:03:27.310 --> 00:03:31.659 was an era defined by paranoia. purges, forced 00:03:31.659 --> 00:03:34.280 suicides. If the emperor thought you were a threat 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:36.680 or even just annoying, you were gone. And I want 00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:39.139 to dig into that survival aspect. Yeah. Because 00:03:39.139 --> 00:03:41.460 the source material notes that during Nero's 00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:43.599 reign Pliny wisely stepped back from writing 00:03:43.599 --> 00:03:46.000 contemporary history. Instead, he wrote a book 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:48.599 on grammar. Yeah, he did. That feels like a very 00:03:48.599 --> 00:03:51.039 deliberate, calculated pivot, right? It's an 00:03:51.039 --> 00:03:53.699 absolute intellectual survival mechanism. When 00:03:53.699 --> 00:03:56.060 you live under an autocrat who might literally 00:03:56.060 --> 00:03:58.300 have you executed for implying the wrong thing 00:03:58.300 --> 00:04:00.960 in a historical text, you hide your mind in the 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:03.460 mundane. That makes total sense. Grammar is politically 00:04:03.460 --> 00:04:06.400 safe. Exactly. It's structural. It's objective. 00:04:06.860 --> 00:04:09.259 You can't really be accused of treason for debating 00:04:09.259 --> 00:04:12.020 the conjugation of a Latin verb. So he kept his 00:04:12.020 --> 00:04:14.759 head down, focused on syntax and survived the 00:04:14.759 --> 00:04:18.379 purges. Smart guy. And once Nero is gone and 00:04:18.379 --> 00:04:20.600 the political climate finally stabilizes under 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:23.699 the new emperor, the Spasian, Pliny's career 00:04:23.699 --> 00:04:26.139 absolutely skyrockets. It really takes off. The 00:04:26.139 --> 00:04:29.139 sources say he became a procurator in nearer 00:04:29.139 --> 00:04:31.819 Spain. What does that actually look like on a 00:04:31.819 --> 00:04:33.620 day -to -day basis in the Roman world? Well, 00:04:33.759 --> 00:04:36.959 a procurator in this era was a high -ranking 00:04:36.959 --> 00:04:39.680 financial and administrative official appointed 00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:42.439 directly by the emperor. Nearer Spain, which 00:04:42.439 --> 00:04:45.180 is roughly modern -day Eastern and southern Spain 00:04:45.180 --> 00:04:48.399 was this massive wealthy province. He's not just 00:04:48.399 --> 00:04:50.500 doing some light account No, no, he was overseeing 00:04:50.500 --> 00:04:52.360 the tax collection of millions of people He was 00:04:52.360 --> 00:04:54.779 managing the imperial estates the incredibly 00:04:54.779 --> 00:04:56.879 lucrative silver and gold mines of the region 00:04:56.879 --> 00:04:59.519 and he was the chief financial magistrate Wow 00:04:59.519 --> 00:05:02.360 Yeah, if there was a dispute over land taxes 00:05:02.360 --> 00:05:05.319 or trade it landed on his desk It was a crushing 00:05:05.319 --> 00:05:07.740 bureaucratic weight and remember there were no 00:05:07.740 --> 00:05:10.120 spreadsheets. No instantaneous communication 00:05:10.269 --> 00:05:13.310 Right, no email. Exactly. It's entirely managed 00:05:13.310 --> 00:05:17.269 through couriers on horseback, wax tablets, and 00:05:17.269 --> 00:05:20.709 just sheer administrative force. And later, he's 00:05:20.709 --> 00:05:22.910 appointed as the prefect of the Roman fleet at 00:05:22.910 --> 00:05:26.529 Mezzinum, which means he is the admiral in command 00:05:26.529 --> 00:05:28.790 of the most important naval base on the western 00:05:28.790 --> 00:05:32.000 coast of Italy. Which is a huge deal. Yeah. He's 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:34.500 tasked with protecting the grain ships that literally 00:05:34.500 --> 00:05:36.819 kept the population of Rome from starving and 00:05:36.819 --> 00:05:39.360 rioting. Yes, he is the logistical anchor of 00:05:39.360 --> 00:05:42.540 the empire's food supply. And to top it all off, 00:05:42.860 --> 00:05:45.360 he was deeply embedded in the inner circle of 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:47.860 imperial power. He was personal friends with 00:05:47.860 --> 00:05:51.259 the emperor Vespasian and Vespasian's son Titus. 00:05:51.480 --> 00:05:53.620 The same Titus he dedicates the encyclopedia 00:05:53.620 --> 00:05:56.360 to, right? The very same. In fact, he dedicates 00:05:56.360 --> 00:05:59.699 the natural history to Titus explicitly. So just 00:05:59.699 --> 00:06:01.319 to put this in perspective for you listening, 00:06:01.680 --> 00:06:03.879 imagine you are a modern cabinet member. Let's 00:06:03.879 --> 00:06:05.779 say you're the secretary of defense or maybe 00:06:05.779 --> 00:06:08.439 the CEO of a massive global logistics company. 00:06:08.600 --> 00:06:11.379 OK, I'm picturing it. You are actively managing 00:06:11.379 --> 00:06:14.480 international crises, anti -piracy operations, 00:06:15.100 --> 00:06:17.399 multi -billion dollar budgets. And while doing 00:06:17.399 --> 00:06:20.790 that, you decide you are going to write all of 00:06:20.790 --> 00:06:23.550 Wikipedia. All of it. From scratch, during your 00:06:23.550 --> 00:06:26.110 commute. That analogy actually works perfectly 00:06:26.110 --> 00:06:28.470 provided we add the caveat that you don't have 00:06:28.470 --> 00:06:31.050 the internet. And every single piece of information 00:06:31.050 --> 00:06:34.189 you need requires someone to physically carry 00:06:34.189 --> 00:06:37.189 a fragile scroll to you from across the Mediterranean. 00:06:37.470 --> 00:06:40.110 It's just, how is this humanly possible? Looking 00:06:40.110 --> 00:06:41.850 at the source material, I kept asking myself, 00:06:42.410 --> 00:06:45.209 was his imperial career just a side hustle to 00:06:45.209 --> 00:06:47.589 his writing? Or was the writing a side hustle 00:06:47.589 --> 00:06:49.610 to the empire? Well, what is so striking about 00:06:49.610 --> 00:06:52.230 the nephew's letters that they seem to be entirely 00:06:52.230 --> 00:06:55.730 parallel, fully realized lives. He didn't sacrifice 00:06:55.730 --> 00:06:58.350 his public duty for his private study, and he 00:06:58.350 --> 00:07:00.509 absolutely refused to sacrifice his private study 00:07:00.509 --> 00:07:02.750 for his public duty. But something has to give, 00:07:02.750 --> 00:07:04.670 right? Exactly. And the pressure he operated 00:07:04.670 --> 00:07:07.470 under is palpable in the text. In his dedication 00:07:07.470 --> 00:07:10.410 to Titus, he explicitly acknowledges this friction. 00:07:10.779 --> 00:07:13.160 He tells Titus that he composed this massive 00:07:13.160 --> 00:07:15.279 work at interrupted intervals, indeed during 00:07:15.279 --> 00:07:18.240 the night. Wow, during the night. Yeah. Since 00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:20.579 he was managing the Empire's finances and Navy's 00:07:20.579 --> 00:07:22.800 during the day, the only place he could steal 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:25.579 the hours required for his true passion was from 00:07:25.579 --> 00:07:28.000 his own sleep. Which brings us to the output 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:30.139 itself. We have to quantify what he actually 00:07:30.139 --> 00:07:32.740 produced during those stolen night hours, because 00:07:32.740 --> 00:07:36.339 the sheer volume defies belief. It really does. 00:07:36.560 --> 00:07:39.160 Despite this incredibly demanding day job, he 00:07:39.160 --> 00:07:43.379 wrote a 37 -book encyclopedia. It contained 20 00:07:43.379 --> 00:07:47.279 ,000 distinct topics. And he curated this information 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:49.740 by reading and extracting from 2 ,000 separate 00:07:49.740 --> 00:07:53.160 volumes written by 100 select authors. We really 00:07:53.160 --> 00:07:55.399 have to pause and consider the physical logistics 00:07:55.399 --> 00:07:57.959 of that research. Yeah. Because ancient Roman 00:07:57.959 --> 00:08:01.490 scrolls which were made of papyrus, were incredibly 00:08:01.490 --> 00:08:03.730 unwieldy. Right. It's not like opening a paperback. 00:08:03.829 --> 00:08:05.730 Not at all. They didn't have pages you could 00:08:05.730 --> 00:08:07.290 flip through. They didn't have an index at the 00:08:07.290 --> 00:08:08.990 back. They didn't have a table of contents or 00:08:08.990 --> 00:08:11.149 page numbers. So how do you even find anything? 00:08:11.529 --> 00:08:14.069 That's the thing. To find a specific fact about, 00:08:14.069 --> 00:08:17.449 say, a random species of bird, you had to physically 00:08:17.449 --> 00:08:21.490 unroll feet of fragile papyrus, scanning these 00:08:21.660 --> 00:08:24.519 dense blocks of handwritten text with your eyes 00:08:24.519 --> 00:08:27.660 until you finally found the reference. That sounds 00:08:27.660 --> 00:08:30.019 exhausting. Doing that across 2 ,000 volumes, 00:08:30.279 --> 00:08:32.840 without a search function, in a world lit only 00:08:32.840 --> 00:08:35.460 by fire, it is a staggering feat of physical 00:08:35.460 --> 00:08:38.679 endurance, not just mental acuity. So because 00:08:38.679 --> 00:08:41.039 his days were entirely owned by the Roman Empire, 00:08:41.299 --> 00:08:44.120 Pliny had to conquer the night, which leads us 00:08:44.120 --> 00:08:46.440 directly to this letter from his nephew written 00:08:46.440 --> 00:08:49.799 to a friend named Macer. Ah yes, the famous Macer 00:08:49.799 --> 00:08:51.779 letter. This letter details his uncle's daily 00:08:51.779 --> 00:08:54.259 routine, and here's where it gets really interesting. 00:08:54.840 --> 00:08:56.460 And honestly, for anyone listening who likes 00:08:56.460 --> 00:08:59.220 their sleep, a little terrifying. It is the ultimate, 00:08:59.399 --> 00:09:02.100 unfiltered blueprint of ancient hustle culture. 00:09:02.460 --> 00:09:04.720 Listen to this schedule. His nephew writes that 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:07.299 Pliny began his intense studying at the festival 00:09:07.299 --> 00:09:10.139 of Vulcanalia. For context, that's August 23rd 00:09:10.139 --> 00:09:12.299 in the Roman calendar, and he would start late 00:09:12.299 --> 00:09:14.259 at night. But in the winter, when the nights 00:09:14.259 --> 00:09:16.940 were longer, he would start at 1 a .m. or at 00:09:16.940 --> 00:09:20.740 the absolute latest, 2 a .m. And the nephew actually 00:09:20.740 --> 00:09:22.600 notes that he would often begin by midnight. 00:09:22.779 --> 00:09:25.539 Let that sink in for a second. He is waking up 00:09:25.539 --> 00:09:29.200 at midnight, or 1 AM, in the freezing Roman winter. 00:09:29.659 --> 00:09:32.940 There's no central heating. And he is reading 00:09:32.940 --> 00:09:36.220 these massive scrolls by the dim, flickering, 00:09:36.700 --> 00:09:39.559 probably really smoky light of an oil lamp. Just 00:09:39.559 --> 00:09:42.549 brutal conditions for your eyes, too. Yeah. Then, 00:09:42.610 --> 00:09:44.909 before daybreak, while it is still pitch black 00:09:44.909 --> 00:09:47.629 outside, he leaves his house and goes to the 00:09:47.629 --> 00:09:50.269 Emperor of Vespasian, because apparently the 00:09:50.269 --> 00:09:53.250 Emperor also worked nights. It's such a fascinating 00:09:53.250 --> 00:09:55.570 detail. You really have to wonder why the Emperor 00:09:55.570 --> 00:09:57.730 of Rome is holding meetings in the dark. Right. 00:09:57.730 --> 00:10:00.230 Why not just wait until 9 a .m.? Well, it's because 00:10:00.230 --> 00:10:03.090 the daytime in Rome for person of power was completely 00:10:03.090 --> 00:10:05.970 consumed by the salutatio, which is this endless 00:10:05.970 --> 00:10:08.769 line of clients, petitioners, senators, and citizens 00:10:08.769 --> 00:10:11.779 demanding favors, legal rulings, and money. So 00:10:11.779 --> 00:10:13.820 the emperor was basically in back -to -back meetings 00:10:13.820 --> 00:10:16.419 all day. Exactly. The only time Vespasian could 00:10:16.419 --> 00:10:18.419 actually run the structural logistics of the 00:10:18.419 --> 00:10:20.740 empire, the real work, was before the city woke 00:10:20.740 --> 00:10:23.259 up. So you have these two insomniac workaholics 00:10:23.259 --> 00:10:25.720 running the Roman Empire by lamplight. That is 00:10:25.720 --> 00:10:27.860 quite an image. They conduct state business before 00:10:27.860 --> 00:10:31.419 the sun even comes up. Then Pliny returns home. 00:10:32.059 --> 00:10:35.139 He eats a light, old -fashioned repast, which 00:10:35.139 --> 00:10:37.480 his nephew notes to emphasize his austerity. 00:10:37.610 --> 00:10:39.929 Right, he's not indulging in those decadent Roman 00:10:39.929 --> 00:10:42.230 banquets you always hear about. No dormice and 00:10:42.230 --> 00:10:45.230 honey for Pliny. Then, if he had any so -called 00:10:45.230 --> 00:10:48.009 leisure time, he would lie in the sun. But he's 00:10:48.009 --> 00:10:50.549 not relaxing. Of course not. In Rome, lying in 00:10:50.549 --> 00:10:53.029 the sun was often a prescribed medical or relaxation 00:10:53.029 --> 00:10:56.740 therapy, but Pliny corrupts it with work. While 00:10:56.740 --> 00:10:58.940 he's lying there, a book is being read aloud 00:10:58.940 --> 00:11:01.740 to him by a secretary, and Pliny's constantly 00:11:01.740 --> 00:11:04.100 taking notes and making extracts. And this is 00:11:04.100 --> 00:11:06.980 where the nephew shares Pliny's absolute guiding 00:11:06.980 --> 00:11:09.779 maxim. His uncle used to say, there is no book 00:11:09.779 --> 00:11:12.460 so bad, but that so good maybe got out of it. 00:11:12.620 --> 00:11:15.169 No book so bad. That single sentence is really 00:11:15.169 --> 00:11:17.610 the skeleton key to his entire methodology, isn't 00:11:17.610 --> 00:11:19.809 it? He wasn't a curator. He was a vacuum cleaner. 00:11:20.129 --> 00:11:22.830 That's exactly it. He was an absolute glutton 00:11:22.830 --> 00:11:24.970 for information. He didn't care if the text was 00:11:24.970 --> 00:11:28.409 widely considered low quality or dubious or even 00:11:28.409 --> 00:11:31.590 just badly written. His goal wasn't to read only 00:11:31.590 --> 00:11:34.870 the masterpieces. His goal was to extract every 00:11:34.870 --> 00:11:37.429 solitary data point that existed in the world. 00:11:37.610 --> 00:11:39.690 But looking at this from a modern perspective, 00:11:39.950 --> 00:11:42.950 it sounds like a toxic tech bro morning routine 00:11:42.950 --> 00:11:46.360 taken to an absurd almost pathological extreme. 00:11:46.519 --> 00:11:48.720 Oh, for sure. You know those videos where a guy 00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:51.700 says, I wake up at 3 a .m., take an ice bath, 00:11:52.120 --> 00:11:55.039 read a book on stoicism, trade crypto, and visualize 00:11:55.039 --> 00:11:57.220 my goals before the sun rises? The optimization 00:11:57.220 --> 00:11:59.840 videos, yeah. Exactly. Pliny was waking up at 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:02.340 1 a .m. to read by candlelight before a literal 00:12:02.340 --> 00:12:04.500 board meeting with the emperor. It sounds profoundly 00:12:04.500 --> 00:12:06.919 unhealthy. It does. It sounds awful. And if we 00:12:06.919 --> 00:12:08.340 want to understand why he did this, we really 00:12:08.340 --> 00:12:10.820 have to look past modern concepts of productivity. 00:12:11.039 --> 00:12:13.440 He wasn't trying to optimize his workflow or 00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:15.279 get a promotion. Right, he already had the top 00:12:15.279 --> 00:12:18.519 job. Exactly. He had a deeply philosophical, 00:12:18.759 --> 00:12:21.480 almost existential reason for this self -inflicted 00:12:21.480 --> 00:12:23.860 torture. In his own dedication to the natural 00:12:23.860 --> 00:12:26.559 history, he gives us the key. He writes, life 00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:29.299 properly consists in being awake. Life properly 00:12:29.299 --> 00:12:32.360 consists in being awake. Man, that is a heavy 00:12:32.360 --> 00:12:35.279 statement. It's the core of his worldview. To 00:12:35.279 --> 00:12:38.899 Pliny, sleep wasn't rest. Sleep was not a biological 00:12:38.899 --> 00:12:41.620 necessity to be respected. Sleep was a necessary 00:12:41.620 --> 00:12:45.039 evil, a physical weakness. Like a glitch in the 00:12:45.039 --> 00:12:47.340 human body. Yeah. He viewed it as a theft of 00:12:47.340 --> 00:12:49.399 conscious existence. He basically thought of 00:12:49.399 --> 00:12:52.039 sleep as a localized death. Every hour he spent 00:12:52.039 --> 00:12:54.440 sleeping was an hour he was not truly alive because 00:12:54.440 --> 00:12:57.320 he was not actively consuming or recording information 00:12:57.320 --> 00:13:00.379 about the universe. Which is such a massive contract 00:13:00.379 --> 00:13:02.360 with how we view high performance today. Right 00:13:02.360 --> 00:13:04.860 now, if you listen to the best productivity experts, 00:13:05.080 --> 00:13:07.820 neuroscientists, athletes, they all prioritize 00:13:07.820 --> 00:13:09.700 rest. Absolutely. It's all about recovery now. 00:13:09.899 --> 00:13:12.539 They talk about REM sleep, circadian rhythms, 00:13:12.960 --> 00:13:16.000 establishing boundaries, and the dangers of cognitive 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:19.379 burnout. For Pliny, the very concept of a boundary 00:13:19.379 --> 00:13:23.659 was offensive. His view was pure, unadulterated 00:13:23.659 --> 00:13:26.580 volume. The more hours your eyes are open, the 00:13:26.580 --> 00:13:29.200 more life you have lived. And because he viewed 00:13:29.200 --> 00:13:32.179 time as his most precious, rapidly depleting 00:13:32.179 --> 00:13:35.940 commodity, he didn't just wake up early. He micromanaged 00:13:35.940 --> 00:13:38.940 the minutes. He squeezed every single drop of 00:13:38.940 --> 00:13:41.379 utility out of every waking second. Let's walk 00:13:41.379 --> 00:13:43.039 through the rest of his day to prove that point 00:13:43.039 --> 00:13:46.259 because the intensity never drops. Never. After 00:13:46.259 --> 00:13:48.100 this sun reading session we just talked about, 00:13:48.379 --> 00:13:51.039 the nephew says he would take a cold bath, again 00:13:51.039 --> 00:13:54.100 with the cold plunges. Then another slight meal, 00:13:54.279 --> 00:13:57.149 a very short nap. Presumably because his biological 00:13:57.149 --> 00:13:59.629 hardware was literally crashing. Right. He was 00:13:59.629 --> 00:14:01.690 probably passing out. Yeah. And then he would 00:14:01.690 --> 00:14:04.210 wake up as if a new day had started and study 00:14:04.210 --> 00:14:06.769 relentlessly right up until dinner. And we shouldn't 00:14:06.769 --> 00:14:08.799 assume dinner was a break either. Definitely 00:14:08.799 --> 00:14:11.980 not. During dinner, yet another book was read 00:14:11.980 --> 00:14:14.919 aloud to him. And there's this incredible anecdote 00:14:14.919 --> 00:14:17.700 his nephew shares that just perfectly illustrates 00:14:17.700 --> 00:14:20.860 how intense and frankly exhausting it must have 00:14:20.860 --> 00:14:22.879 been to be around this guy. Oh, the pronunciation 00:14:22.879 --> 00:14:24.659 story. It tells you everything you need to know 00:14:24.659 --> 00:14:27.620 about his mental state. Yes. So there at dinner, 00:14:28.120 --> 00:14:31.860 a book is being read aloud. by a slave or secretary. 00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:34.960 The reader mispronounces a word. A friend of 00:14:34.960 --> 00:14:36.840 Pliny's, who is a guest at the dinner table, 00:14:37.139 --> 00:14:39.799 stops the reader, corrects the mispronunciation, 00:14:40.179 --> 00:14:42.639 and makes the poor guy repeat the word correctly. 00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:44.620 Which is pretty normal. Yeah, maybe a little 00:14:44.620 --> 00:14:47.779 pedantic, but a normal interaction. But Pliny 00:14:47.779 --> 00:14:50.440 turns to his friend and absolutely scolds him. 00:14:50.679 --> 00:14:53.480 He asks, you understood him, didn't you? The 00:14:53.480 --> 00:14:56.120 friend says, yes, I understood the meaning. Pliny 00:14:56.120 --> 00:14:58.799 replies, why then did you make him go over it 00:14:58.799 --> 00:15:00.720 again? Through this interruption of yours, we 00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:03.179 have lost more than 10 lines. He was literally 00:15:03.179 --> 00:15:06.059 auditing his minutes. Think about the mindset 00:15:06.059 --> 00:15:08.580 required to calculate the opportunity cost of 00:15:08.580 --> 00:15:11.019 a dinner table correction in terms of lost lines 00:15:11.019 --> 00:15:13.769 of text. It's obsessed. Completely. Ten lines 00:15:13.769 --> 00:15:16.129 of text lost to a pronunciation correction was 00:15:16.129 --> 00:15:19.309 an unacceptable deficit in his daily ledger of 00:15:19.309 --> 00:15:21.490 knowledge. I try to imagine being his friend 00:15:21.490 --> 00:15:23.309 at that dinner party. You're just trying to enjoy 00:15:23.309 --> 00:15:25.570 your olives and your wine after a long day in 00:15:25.570 --> 00:15:28.009 Rome and the host is furious at you because you 00:15:28.009 --> 00:15:30.750 cost him ten sentences of a scroll. You'd never 00:15:30.750 --> 00:15:33.250 accept a dinner invitation from him again. Exactly. 00:15:33.929 --> 00:15:36.690 But honestly, it gets crazier. The nephew writes 00:15:36.690 --> 00:15:39.070 that when he retired to the country, the only 00:15:39.070 --> 00:15:41.649 time he wasn't actively studying was when he 00:15:41.649 --> 00:15:44.070 was physically submerged in the bathwater. And 00:15:44.070 --> 00:15:46.149 the nephew makes a very specific distinction 00:15:46.149 --> 00:15:48.970 here. He does. He says that while Pliny was out 00:15:48.970 --> 00:15:52.090 of the water being scraped with Ostrichil, which, 00:15:52.370 --> 00:15:54.649 for those who don't know, was this curved metal 00:15:54.649 --> 00:15:57.929 tool the Romans used with scented oil to scrape 00:15:57.929 --> 00:16:00.549 sweat and dead skin off their bodies. Right, 00:16:00.710 --> 00:16:02.750 instead of soap. Yeah. So even during that physical 00:16:02.750 --> 00:16:05.490 scraping, he was having a book read to him, or 00:16:05.490 --> 00:16:07.909 he was actively dictating notes to a secretary. 00:16:08.230 --> 00:16:10.669 It's important to understand that the Roman bath 00:16:10.669 --> 00:16:13.830 was the ultimate social and leisure space. It's 00:16:13.830 --> 00:16:17.110 where you gossiped, relaxed, networked, and unwound. 00:16:17.740 --> 00:16:20.279 Pliny turned it into a hostile work environment. 00:16:20.419 --> 00:16:23.299 He brought the office to the spa. Exactly. There 00:16:23.299 --> 00:16:26.580 was no dead time. None. Even travel was optimized. 00:16:27.159 --> 00:16:29.759 He absolutely refused to walk when he was in 00:16:29.759 --> 00:16:32.440 Rome. He would only take a litter, which is a 00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:34.480 covered chair or carriage carried by enslaved 00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:37.379 people, so that he could continue reading. Because 00:16:37.379 --> 00:16:39.409 walking requires looking where you're going. 00:16:39.789 --> 00:16:41.450 Right. Walking was a waste of time because the 00:16:41.450 --> 00:16:43.690 physical act of navigating the streets required 00:16:43.690 --> 00:16:46.470 your eyes, meaning you couldn't read. His secretary 00:16:46.470 --> 00:16:48.929 sat right by his side in the litter with a book 00:16:48.929 --> 00:16:51.429 and writing tablets. And there's this one detail 00:16:51.429 --> 00:16:53.549 about the litter that I just can't stop thinking 00:16:53.549 --> 00:16:56.789 about. Gloves. Yes. In the winter, the secretary 00:16:56.789 --> 00:16:59.230 actually wore gloves so that the freezing cold 00:16:59.230 --> 00:17:02.159 wouldn't stop the note -taking. That is wild. 00:17:02.399 --> 00:17:04.500 That detail about the gloves is so evocative 00:17:04.500 --> 00:17:07.059 because it really highlights the mechanical reality 00:17:07.059 --> 00:17:09.799 of his work. Roman dictation was usually done 00:17:09.799 --> 00:17:12.900 on wooden tablets coated in wax using a sharp 00:17:12.900 --> 00:17:15.960 metal stylus. Okay, so you're carving into wax. 00:17:16.180 --> 00:17:19.460 Yeah, and if you are bouncing around in a litter... 00:17:19.549 --> 00:17:22.089 In the freezing Roman winter, your hands get 00:17:22.089 --> 00:17:24.549 stiff, and the wax itself gets hard and difficult 00:17:24.549 --> 00:17:26.769 to carve into. Oh, man. You can just picture 00:17:26.769 --> 00:17:29.609 this poor Roman scribe shivering in a litter, 00:17:29.910 --> 00:17:32.569 his hands wrapped in crude winter gloves, desperately 00:17:32.569 --> 00:17:35.289 pressing the stylus into cold wax to keep up 00:17:35.289 --> 00:17:37.990 with Planey's relentless machine gun dictation 00:17:37.990 --> 00:17:40.309 as they bump along the noisy cobblestones. I 00:17:40.309 --> 00:17:43.410 feel so bad for that secretary. And what was 00:17:43.410 --> 00:17:46.029 the result of all this? The nephew says that, 00:17:46.150 --> 00:17:48.609 aside from the natural history itself, When Planey 00:17:48.609 --> 00:17:51.930 died, he left behind 160 volumes of notes written 00:17:51.930 --> 00:17:54.769 extremely small on both sides of the parchment. 00:17:55.230 --> 00:17:58.069 An unbelievable amount of data. But I have to 00:17:58.069 --> 00:17:59.990 push back on this entire methodology. I mean, 00:18:00.069 --> 00:18:02.529 I have to ask. If you are so obsessed with speed 00:18:02.529 --> 00:18:04.950 that you get angry about losing 10 lines of text 00:18:04.950 --> 00:18:08.529 to a pronunciation error, are you actually synthesizing 00:18:08.529 --> 00:18:11.140 knowledge? Or are you just hoarding data? That 00:18:11.140 --> 00:18:13.279 is the big question. It feels like having 500 00:18:13.279 --> 00:18:15.740 browser tabs open. You tell yourself you're doing 00:18:15.740 --> 00:18:17.579 deep research, but really you're just skimming 00:18:17.579 --> 00:18:19.480 and aggressively bookmarking things you'll never 00:18:19.480 --> 00:18:22.440 truly process. I see the temptation to use the 00:18:22.440 --> 00:18:24.960 browser tab analogy, but I actually think it 00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:27.259 doesn't go far enough in explaining his situation. 00:18:27.710 --> 00:18:30.589 Having browser tabs open implies you can easily 00:18:30.589 --> 00:18:32.609 click back and search through them later. That's 00:18:32.609 --> 00:18:35.309 true. He couldn't just control F his notes. Exactly. 00:18:35.789 --> 00:18:38.130 Pliny's situation was more like trying to download 00:18:38.130 --> 00:18:40.329 the entire internet onto a physical hard drive 00:18:40.329 --> 00:18:42.650 while someone is actively chasing you and there 00:18:42.650 --> 00:18:44.869 is no search function. It wasn't just skimming. 00:18:45.269 --> 00:18:48.549 It was an archival panic. Archival panic. I like 00:18:48.549 --> 00:18:50.730 that phrase. But your critique is exactly right. 00:18:50.789 --> 00:18:53.250 And it is the exact critique that modern historians 00:18:53.250 --> 00:18:57.680 have of Pliny. This manic unfiltered high -speed 00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:00.539 consumption explains the precise nature of the 00:19:00.539 --> 00:19:02.559 natural history itself. Because he couldn't filter 00:19:02.559 --> 00:19:06.119 it. Right. Because of how he worked, Plani was 00:19:06.119 --> 00:19:08.559 essentially a compiler. He was a human search 00:19:08.559 --> 00:19:11.140 engine. He was not a critical evaluator of the 00:19:11.140 --> 00:19:13.859 information he was consuming. His time management 00:19:13.859 --> 00:19:17.160 system entirely prioritized breadth and speed 00:19:17.160 --> 00:19:21.460 over deep skeptical vetting. Right. So, if you 00:19:21.460 --> 00:19:24.700 read 2000 Scrolls, while writing in litters, 00:19:24.940 --> 00:19:26.880 waking up at midnight, and being scraped in the 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:29.920 baths, what exactly does your final product look 00:19:29.920 --> 00:19:31.900 like? Let's actually look at the source text 00:19:31.900 --> 00:19:34.160 of the natural history itself, because the text 00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:37.180 is wild. Oh, it's all over the place. It is a 00:19:37.180 --> 00:19:40.500 total rollercoaster of profound scientific observation 00:19:40.500 --> 00:19:43.720 right next to absolute unhinged nonsense. It 00:19:43.720 --> 00:19:46.519 is the ultimate mixed bag of antiquity. Let's 00:19:46.519 --> 00:19:48.720 start with the brilliant stuff, because we have 00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:51.490 to give the man his due. When he is right, he 00:19:51.490 --> 00:19:55.029 is astonishingly right. His astronomical observations 00:19:55.029 --> 00:19:57.650 are incredibly accurate for the time. Very impressive 00:19:57.650 --> 00:20:00.369 stuff. He correctly explains the mechanics of 00:20:00.369 --> 00:20:02.569 eclipses. He writes that the eclipse of the Moon 00:20:02.569 --> 00:20:04.509 is caused by the Earth coming between the Sun 00:20:04.509 --> 00:20:06.670 and the Moon, and he specifically notes that 00:20:06.670 --> 00:20:09.309 the shadow of the Earth forms a pyramid or a 00:20:09.309 --> 00:20:11.390 cone shape, which is why it covers the Moon the 00:20:11.390 --> 00:20:13.589 way it does. And he understands the phases of 00:20:13.589 --> 00:20:16.960 the Moon perfectly. Yes. He even notes that the 00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:19.700 planet Venus is called Lucifer when it appears 00:20:19.700 --> 00:20:22.220 in the morning, and Vesper when it appears in 00:20:22.220 --> 00:20:24.779 the evening, recognizing that they are not two 00:20:24.779 --> 00:20:28.220 different stars, but the exact same celestial 00:20:28.220 --> 00:20:30.680 body. And what's crucial there is how he frames 00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:34.339 that knowledge. He takes a very strong philosophically 00:20:34.339 --> 00:20:37.160 advanced stance for science over superstition. 00:20:37.319 --> 00:20:39.359 Because eclipses were scary back then, right? 00:20:39.539 --> 00:20:41.640 In the ancient world an eclipse was terrifying. 00:20:41.940 --> 00:20:44.109 People thought it was the end of the world. But 00:20:44.109 --> 00:20:46.990 he explicitly mocks people who believe that an 00:20:46.990 --> 00:20:49.609 eclipse is a sign of witchcraft. Or those who 00:20:49.609 --> 00:20:52.130 beat pots and pans in the streets to save the 00:20:52.130 --> 00:20:54.309 moon from being swallowed by a monster. He's 00:20:54.309 --> 00:20:56.869 just rolling his eyes at them in the text. Exactly. 00:20:57.109 --> 00:20:59.650 He champions a rational, mechanical, predictable 00:20:59.650 --> 00:21:02.490 universe in those passages. He is acting as a 00:21:02.490 --> 00:21:05.609 beacon of enlightenment. He is. But then, we 00:21:05.609 --> 00:21:08.269 turn the page. Because of his cardinal rule that 00:21:08.269 --> 00:21:10.789 no book is too bad, he includes some of the most 00:21:10.789 --> 00:21:13.819 bizarre folklore imaginable. and he reports it 00:21:13.819 --> 00:21:16.359 with the exact same straight -faced academic 00:21:16.359 --> 00:21:18.579 tone he used for the eclipse. There we go. We're 00:21:18.579 --> 00:21:20.160 talking about elephants that can trace Greek 00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:23.359 letters. Ah, yes. The highly literate elephants. 00:21:23.660 --> 00:21:25.700 He rates that an elephant was taught to write 00:21:25.700 --> 00:21:28.339 Greek words in the sand. I mean, come on. He 00:21:28.339 --> 00:21:30.880 also records stories of people living for impossible 00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:33.460 lengths of time, like a king of the lupiae who 00:21:33.460 --> 00:21:36.359 supposedly lived to be 800 years old. Just casually 00:21:36.359 --> 00:21:38.980 dropping an 800 -year lifespan into a history 00:21:38.980 --> 00:21:41.849 book. Yeah. And my absolute favorite. He writes 00:21:41.849 --> 00:21:44.970 about a giant octopus at Cartilla, which was 00:21:44.970 --> 00:21:47.509 a town in Spain that used to climb out of the 00:21:47.509 --> 00:21:50.829 sea, walk on land, and steal salted fish out 00:21:50.829 --> 00:21:53.349 of open pickling tubs. We have to give some context 00:21:53.349 --> 00:21:55.549 to the octopus story because it's so vivid. Please 00:21:55.549 --> 00:21:58.809 do. The Romans produced massive amounts of garum, 00:21:58.829 --> 00:22:01.750 which was a fermented fish sauce that was an 00:22:01.750 --> 00:22:03.589 absolute staple of their diet. They put it on 00:22:03.589 --> 00:22:06.240 everything. Like ancient ketchup. Exactly. and 00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:08.799 they would leave these huge vats of salted fish 00:22:08.799 --> 00:22:11.779 out in the sun to ferment. So the visual of a 00:22:11.779 --> 00:22:14.180 giant ancient octopus hauling itself out of the 00:22:14.180 --> 00:22:17.140 ocean, slithering into a Roman fish sauce factory, 00:22:17.700 --> 00:22:19.299 and raiding the vats in the dead of night is 00:22:19.299 --> 00:22:22.740 just incredible. It's hilarious. Imagine reading 00:22:22.740 --> 00:22:25.539 an encyclopedia today. And between the entry 00:22:25.539 --> 00:22:28.299 on thermodynamics and the entry on plate tectonics, 00:22:28.380 --> 00:22:31.299 there is a totally serious article about a fish 00:22:31.299 --> 00:22:33.799 -stealing octopus. It's definitely jarring. And 00:22:33.799 --> 00:22:36.039 alongside the brilliant and the bizarre, you 00:22:36.039 --> 00:22:38.440 have these obsessively minute details where he 00:22:38.440 --> 00:22:41.500 suddenly focuses in like a laser. He spends an 00:22:41.500 --> 00:22:43.859 extraordinary amount of time breaking down the 00:22:43.859 --> 00:22:46.440 exact process of harvesting the Murex snail, 00:22:46.720 --> 00:22:49.180 which the Romans used to make Tyrion purple dye. 00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:52.079 And that detail is invaluable. to historians 00:22:52.079 --> 00:22:54.880 because Tyrian purple was the color of the emperors. 00:22:54.880 --> 00:22:57.779 It was staggeringly expensive. And gross to make. 00:22:58.259 --> 00:23:00.640 He details exactly how the tiny vein in the snail 00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:03.480 is extracted, how it's steeped in salt for exactly 00:23:03.480 --> 00:23:06.259 three days, no more, no less. And then he explains 00:23:06.259 --> 00:23:09.180 the chemistry. It has to be boiled in tin vessels, 00:23:09.720 --> 00:23:12.420 specifically tin, by applying a moderate heat 00:23:12.420 --> 00:23:14.319 through a pipe connected to a distant furnace. 00:23:14.460 --> 00:23:16.359 It really gets into the weeds there. So we have 00:23:16.359 --> 00:23:18.940 to ask, what does this bizarre amalgamation of 00:23:18.940 --> 00:23:21.740 facts mean for us as readers today? Well, when 00:23:21.740 --> 00:23:24.259 we look at this text, we are seeing the direct, 00:23:24.700 --> 00:23:28.359 unedited output of his daily routine. When your 00:23:28.359 --> 00:23:30.420 secretary is wearing gloves to take notes in 00:23:30.420 --> 00:23:32.619 the freezing cold, while you bounce around in 00:23:32.619 --> 00:23:34.720 a litter on your way to a meeting with the emperor— 00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:36.880 You're not stopping to fact -check. Exactly. 00:23:37.160 --> 00:23:39.839 You simply do not have the time to stop and fact 00:23:39.839 --> 00:23:41.799 -check whether an elephant can actually write 00:23:41.799 --> 00:23:45.000 Greek. You don't pause to ask if an 800 -year 00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:47.819 -old king makes biological sense. You just document 00:23:47.819 --> 00:23:50.680 it. You write it down, catalog it, and demand 00:23:50.680 --> 00:23:53.299 the next scroll. He was a victim of his own ruthless 00:23:53.299 --> 00:23:55.619 sufficiency. He really was. It's a testament 00:23:55.619 --> 00:23:57.740 to the dangers of information overload without 00:23:57.740 --> 00:24:01.000 curation. And that is a profoundly relatable 00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:03.000 problem for you listening right now. Oh, totally. 00:24:03.099 --> 00:24:05.299 We live in an era where we are bombarded with 00:24:05.299 --> 00:24:08.500 data, articles, feeds and hot takes. If we just 00:24:08.500 --> 00:24:11.039 consume, consume, consume, if we prioritize the 00:24:11.039 --> 00:24:13.460 sheer volume of our inputs without pausing to 00:24:13.460 --> 00:24:16.039 evaluate, synthesize or question them, we end 00:24:16.039 --> 00:24:18.279 up building our own mental encyclopedias filled 00:24:18.279 --> 00:24:20.759 with the modern equivalent of fish stealing octopuses. 00:24:20.779 --> 00:24:23.740 That is such a great point. Planey's work is 00:24:23.740 --> 00:24:26.299 a monument to human curiosity, but it's also 00:24:26.299 --> 00:24:29.000 a glaring warning about the limits of human cognitive 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:31.440 bandwidth. Absolutely. Okay, so we've established 00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:33.880 how we worked. The 1 a .m. wakeups, the cold 00:24:33.880 --> 00:24:36.900 baths, the relentless dictation in the litter. 00:24:37.559 --> 00:24:41.339 And we know what he produced, this massive, chaotic, 00:24:41.640 --> 00:24:45.420 brilliant, and bizarre text. Right? But the question 00:24:45.420 --> 00:24:47.380 that keeps bothering me as I read this is why? 00:24:47.559 --> 00:24:50.140 What was the engine inside this man? What drove 00:24:50.140 --> 00:24:52.980 a highly successful, extraordinarily wealthy 00:24:52.980 --> 00:24:56.500 Roman official to punish his own body and mind 00:24:56.500 --> 00:24:58.140 this way? It's the million -dollar question. 00:24:58.380 --> 00:25:00.480 He didn't need the money, he didn't need the 00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:02.480 fa - He was already in the emperor's inner circle, 00:25:02.539 --> 00:25:04.849 so why do it? To answer that, we have to look 00:25:04.849 --> 00:25:06.990 closely at his underlying philosophy, which he 00:25:06.990 --> 00:25:09.210 lays out quite explicitly in Book 7 of The Natural 00:25:09.210 --> 00:25:11.289 History. And what we find there is surprising 00:25:11.289 --> 00:25:13.990 and honestly a little heartbreaking. Plenty had 00:25:13.990 --> 00:25:16.970 a deeply pessimistic, almost grim view of human 00:25:16.970 --> 00:25:18.930 life. He really did. Reading the opening of Book 00:25:18.930 --> 00:25:21.349 7 is actually quite depressing. It is. He begins 00:25:21.349 --> 00:25:23.369 by examining the human condition from birth, 00:25:23.650 --> 00:25:26.349 and he calls man the only tearful animal. The 00:25:26.349 --> 00:25:29.210 tearful animal? Yeah. He looks at human infancy 00:25:29.210 --> 00:25:31.910 and sees nothing but frailty and vulnerability. 00:25:32.119 --> 00:25:34.559 He points out that other animals are born with 00:25:34.559 --> 00:25:37.619 armor like shells or thick fur or claws, and 00:25:37.619 --> 00:25:40.400 they knew instinctively how to swim or walk or 00:25:40.400 --> 00:25:44.380 hunt. But a human infant is born naked, cast 00:25:44.380 --> 00:25:46.839 onto the bare earth, capable of doing absolutely 00:25:46.839 --> 00:25:50.220 nothing but crying. He views human existence 00:25:50.220 --> 00:25:53.900 as being inherently fraught with disease, vulnerability, 00:25:54.440 --> 00:25:56.819 and inescapable sorrow. That's a really bleak 00:25:56.819 --> 00:25:59.339 outlook. And crucially, and I think this is the 00:25:59.339 --> 00:26:02.039 linchpin to his entire psychological profile, 00:26:02.099 --> 00:26:04.440 he entirely rejected the idea of an afterlife. 00:26:04.579 --> 00:26:07.319 Yes, completely. He writes very clearly, all 00:26:07.319 --> 00:26:10.339 notions of immortality are a mere delusion. He 00:26:10.339 --> 00:26:12.579 explicitly states that after death, the soul 00:26:12.579 --> 00:26:14.940 has no more existence than it had before birth. 00:26:15.059 --> 00:26:17.619 Just nothingness. Right. He thinks the very idea 00:26:17.619 --> 00:26:20.259 of a future existence is ridiculous vanity born 00:26:20.259 --> 00:26:22.859 of human arrogance. In his words, this delusion 00:26:22.859 --> 00:26:24.960 spoils that greatest blessing of nature death. 00:26:24.940 --> 00:26:27.700 He actually believed that sudden absolute death 00:26:27.700 --> 00:26:29.579 was the greatest blessing nature could grant 00:26:29.579 --> 00:26:31.920 to a human being, because it was a release from 00:26:31.920 --> 00:26:34.799 the suffering of consciousness. It's a very stark, 00:26:35.339 --> 00:26:37.980 stoic, almost nihilistic perspective. This is 00:26:37.980 --> 00:26:39.799 where I want to offer an analogy, because this 00:26:39.799 --> 00:26:43.380 blew my mind when I was reading it. Is his insane 00:26:43.380 --> 00:26:46.519 work ethic the ancient equivalent of existential 00:26:46.519 --> 00:26:49.339 FOMO? Existential fear of missing out. I like 00:26:49.339 --> 00:26:53.599 that. Think about it. If you truly, deeply believe 00:26:53.599 --> 00:26:56.119 that there is absolutely nothing after death, 00:26:56.500 --> 00:26:58.259 that your consciousness will just be snuffed 00:26:58.259 --> 00:27:01.359 out like a candle flame, forever does that create 00:27:01.359 --> 00:27:04.680 an unbearable, crushing pressure to consume every 00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:07.440 piece of information, to read every book, to 00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:10.119 know every single fact about the world before 00:27:10.119 --> 00:27:12.369 the clock runs out. I think you've captured the 00:27:12.369 --> 00:27:14.670 psychological mechanism perfectly. Yeah. If we 00:27:14.670 --> 00:27:16.809 connect this to the broader picture of his cosmology, 00:27:17.069 --> 00:27:18.950 Pliny believed that the world itself, the physical 00:27:18.950 --> 00:27:21.930 universe was divine. Nature was God to him. Exactly. 00:27:21.990 --> 00:27:24.869 He writes that the world is a deity eternal without 00:27:24.869 --> 00:27:27.690 bounds. So he doesn't believe in a personal God 00:27:27.690 --> 00:27:29.869 who cares about humans, and he doesn't believe 00:27:29.869 --> 00:27:32.549 in a personal soul that survives death. Therefore, 00:27:32.710 --> 00:27:34.309 his only way to commune with the divine, his 00:27:34.309 --> 00:27:36.470 only way to touch eternity, was to understand 00:27:36.470 --> 00:27:38.890 the natural world as completely as possible while 00:27:38.890 --> 00:27:41.579 he was still breathing. His productivity wasn't 00:27:41.579 --> 00:27:44.359 about ambition at all. It was an existential 00:27:44.359 --> 00:27:47.259 coping mechanism. Precisely. He was trying to 00:27:47.259 --> 00:27:49.380 swallow the universe before the universe swallowed 00:27:49.380 --> 00:27:52.660 him. The frantic note -taking, the anger over 00:27:52.660 --> 00:27:55.700 the lost ten lines at dinner, the absolute refusal 00:27:55.700 --> 00:27:58.799 to sleep. It was all a desperate, unwinnable 00:27:58.799 --> 00:28:01.839 race against the void. He was trying to cram 00:28:01.839 --> 00:28:04.660 the infinite majesty and detail of nature into 00:28:04.660 --> 00:28:07.599 a finite, fragile human life. Which brings us 00:28:07.599 --> 00:28:10.680 to the tragic and frankly incredibly cinematic 00:28:10.680 --> 00:28:13.920 climax of his life. The final deadline. The ultimate 00:28:13.920 --> 00:28:16.319 deadline. Because this relentless drive, this 00:28:16.319 --> 00:28:19.140 absolute uncompromising commitment to both his 00:28:19.140 --> 00:28:22.059 imperial duty and his scientific curiosity eventually 00:28:22.059 --> 00:28:24.519 led him straight into the most famous volcanic 00:28:24.519 --> 00:28:26.920 eruption in human history. The eruption of Mount 00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:30.480 Vesuvius, August 79 AD. Let's set the scene based 00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:32.680 on the letters. Pliny is stationed at Messenum, 00:28:32.819 --> 00:28:34.859 commanding the Roman fleet. He is the admiral. 00:28:35.079 --> 00:28:37.299 It is early afternoon about 1 p .m. Just a normal 00:28:37.299 --> 00:28:40.180 day so far. It's just a normal day. His sister, 00:28:40.339 --> 00:28:42.660 who is Pliny the Younger's mother, points out 00:28:42.660 --> 00:28:45.539 a strange cloud appearing over the Bay of Naples. 00:28:46.359 --> 00:28:48.799 The nephew describes it beautifully in his letters. 00:28:49.240 --> 00:28:52.220 He says it looked like a pine tree, a massive 00:28:52.220 --> 00:28:54.940 towering trunk of smoke rising up into the sky 00:28:54.940 --> 00:28:57.220 and then spreading out at the top into branches. 00:28:57.400 --> 00:28:59.480 And it's amazing because modern volcanologists 00:28:59.480 --> 00:29:02.980 actually call this a Plinian eruption, based 00:29:02.980 --> 00:29:05.640 entirely on this specific accurate description 00:29:05.640 --> 00:29:08.440 from the nephew's letter. That's so cool that 00:29:08.440 --> 00:29:11.160 his name lives on in the science. But what is 00:29:11.160 --> 00:29:13.339 Planey the Elder's first instinct when he sees 00:29:13.339 --> 00:29:16.180 this apocalyptic cloud? Scientific curiosity. 00:29:16.359 --> 00:29:18.059 Of course it is. She is the guy who wrote the 00:29:18.059 --> 00:29:20.759 encyclopedia. He doesn't panic. He immediately 00:29:20.759 --> 00:29:23.700 orders a light laburnian vessel, which is a fast 00:29:23.700 --> 00:29:26.839 maneuverable ship, to be got ready so he can 00:29:26.839 --> 00:29:28.880 sail across the bay and get a closer look at 00:29:28.880 --> 00:29:31.079 this geological anomaly. He just wants to go 00:29:31.079 --> 00:29:33.440 study it. Yeah. He even asks his nephew if he 00:29:33.440 --> 00:29:35.640 wants to come, and the nephew says, basically, 00:29:36.039 --> 00:29:37.750 no thanks. gave me homework to do, I'm gonna 00:29:37.750 --> 00:29:39.670 stay and study. The decision that undoubtedly 00:29:39.670 --> 00:29:41.910 saved the nephew's life, by the way. Definitely. 00:29:42.130 --> 00:29:44.549 But as Pliny the Elder is walking out the door 00:29:44.549 --> 00:29:46.890 of his villa carrying his writing tablets, because 00:29:46.890 --> 00:29:49.089 of course he always has his tablets, the situation 00:29:49.089 --> 00:29:52.569 shifts. He receives a message. Right, a courier 00:29:52.569 --> 00:29:54.549 arrives. Yes, and his second instinct kicks in, 00:29:54.730 --> 00:29:57.630 imperial duty. He gets a desperate written plea 00:29:57.630 --> 00:29:59.890 for help from a woman named Retna, whose villa 00:29:59.890 --> 00:30:02.490 was at the foot of the mountain. The ash is already 00:30:02.490 --> 00:30:05.190 falling, and her only possible escape route is 00:30:05.190 --> 00:30:08.990 by sea. She's trapped. She is. So Pliny immediately 00:30:08.990 --> 00:30:12.150 changes his plans. He drops the idea of a simple, 00:30:12.509 --> 00:30:15.690 fast scientific observation trip. He orders the 00:30:15.690 --> 00:30:18.009 large heavy quadrium galleys to be launched. 00:30:18.289 --> 00:30:20.589 He is going to sail the Roman fleet directly 00:30:20.589 --> 00:30:23.289 into the disaster zone to save the coastal population. 00:30:23.710 --> 00:30:26.470 This moment is the synthesis of his entire identity. 00:30:26.569 --> 00:30:29.210 It really is. The commander of the Roman fleet 00:30:29.210 --> 00:30:31.890 and the obsessive naturalist merge perfectly. 00:30:32.250 --> 00:30:34.829 He's going to perform a massive rescue operation 00:30:34.829 --> 00:30:37.250 and he's going to study the volcano while doing 00:30:37.250 --> 00:30:40.349 it. As they are sailing across the Bay of Naples 00:30:40.349 --> 00:30:43.650 toward Vesuvius, the conditions become apocalyptic. 00:30:44.370 --> 00:30:47.349 Dense hot ashes are falling on the ships. Pumice 00:30:47.349 --> 00:30:50.049 stones blackened and shattered by fire are raining 00:30:50.049 --> 00:30:52.029 down onto the wooden decks. It must have been 00:30:52.029 --> 00:30:54.589 terrifying. The sea is suddenly retreating due 00:30:54.589 --> 00:30:56.930 to the volcanic earthquakes, and the shoreline 00:30:56.930 --> 00:31:00.029 is blocked by massive debris. The pilot of his 00:31:00.029 --> 00:31:02.970 flagship is terrified and begs Pliny to turn 00:31:02.970 --> 00:31:05.630 the ship back to safety. And Pliny gives this 00:31:05.630 --> 00:31:08.210 legendary, almost cinematic response. I love 00:31:08.210 --> 00:31:10.789 this quote. He looks at the pilot and says, Fortune 00:31:10.789 --> 00:31:14.259 favors the bold. Conduct me to Pomponianus. He 00:31:14.259 --> 00:31:16.599 sails right past the point of no return. They 00:31:16.599 --> 00:31:19.059 manage to land at Stabier a few miles down the 00:31:19.059 --> 00:31:21.180 coast where his friend Pomponianus is waiting, 00:31:21.559 --> 00:31:24.359 absolutely terrified. And how does Pliny react 00:31:24.359 --> 00:31:26.980 to being in the middle of a literal rain of fire? 00:31:27.140 --> 00:31:29.460 This is the craziest part to me. I want you to 00:31:29.460 --> 00:31:32.099 picture this scene because it is the ultimate 00:31:32.099 --> 00:31:35.400 final manifestation of his daily routine. The 00:31:35.400 --> 00:31:38.240 earth is rocking violently. Flaming stones are 00:31:38.240 --> 00:31:40.900 falling from the sky. The sky is pitch black 00:31:40.900 --> 00:31:43.109 with ash. even though it's daytime, people are 00:31:43.109 --> 00:31:45.950 shrieking. Total ca - What does Pliny do? He 00:31:45.950 --> 00:31:49.309 asks for a bath. Of course he does. He eats a 00:31:49.309 --> 00:31:52.890 meal. And then, he calmly goes to sleep. And 00:31:52.890 --> 00:31:55.069 his nephew makes a point to note that the servants 00:31:55.069 --> 00:31:57.750 waiting outside the door could hear his loud 00:31:57.750 --> 00:32:01.049 snoring because he was a heavy, asthmatic man. 00:32:01.470 --> 00:32:04.490 It's an astonishing display of stoicism. Or, 00:32:04.490 --> 00:32:07.460 well... Perhaps sheer exhaustion. I mean he is 00:32:07.460 --> 00:32:10.779 treating the apocalypse with the exact same Scheduled 00:32:10.779 --> 00:32:13.640 rigor he applied to a normal Tuesday in Rome 00:32:13.640 --> 00:32:20.279 bath Dinner sleep He refuses to let the exploding 00:32:20.279 --> 00:32:22.859 mountain disrupt his routine. But the ashes and 00:32:22.859 --> 00:32:24.779 pumice are piling up so fast in the courtyard 00:32:24.779 --> 00:32:27.000 outside his door that his friends realize if 00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:29.160 he sleeps much longer, he'll be physically buried 00:32:29.160 --> 00:32:31.160 in the room. He won't be able to open the door. 00:32:31.400 --> 00:32:33.859 Exactly. So they wake him up, they hold a council, 00:32:33.880 --> 00:32:35.380 and decide they have to leave the house because 00:32:35.380 --> 00:32:37.380 it's collapsing from the earthquakes. They tie 00:32:37.380 --> 00:32:39.279 pillows to their heads with towels to protect 00:32:39.279 --> 00:32:41.200 themselves from the falling rocks, and they make 00:32:41.200 --> 00:32:43.519 a run for the shore to see if the sea has calmed 00:32:43.519 --> 00:32:45.619 enough to sail. The sea is still too violent. 00:32:45.960 --> 00:32:49.269 It is. The waves are too huge. Pliny lies down 00:32:49.269 --> 00:32:50.910 on a sail that was spread out for him on the 00:32:50.910 --> 00:32:53.549 beach. He asks for cold water twice and drinks 00:32:53.549 --> 00:32:56.670 it. And then the flames and the overwhelming 00:32:56.670 --> 00:32:59.509 smell of sulfur approach them. The toxic gases 00:32:59.509 --> 00:33:03.430 from the volcano. Yes. His friends scatter. Pliny 00:33:03.430 --> 00:33:05.450 tries to stand up with the help of two enslaved 00:33:05.450 --> 00:33:08.150 servants, but he instantly collapses and dies. 00:33:08.569 --> 00:33:10.630 His nephew attributes it to suffocating from 00:33:10.630 --> 00:33:13.809 the dense sulfurous vapor, noting he always had 00:33:13.809 --> 00:33:16.849 a weak chest and a narrow throat. His death perfectly 00:33:16.849 --> 00:33:19.049 encapsulates the two overriding pressures of 00:33:19.049 --> 00:33:21.650 his life. He was on that beach because of his 00:33:21.650 --> 00:33:23.869 duty to the Roman people, the rescue mission. 00:33:24.410 --> 00:33:27.190 But he stayed, he observed, and he died because 00:33:27.190 --> 00:33:29.769 of his insatiable need to be present with nature, 00:33:30.230 --> 00:33:32.390 even in its most terrifying destructive form. 00:33:32.549 --> 00:33:35.710 He really did. He died exactly as he lived, actively 00:33:35.710 --> 00:33:37.900 engaging with the world. pushing his physical 00:33:37.900 --> 00:33:40.339 limits to the breaking point and absolutely refusing 00:33:40.339 --> 00:33:42.880 to retreat. He was literally sailing into an 00:33:42.880 --> 00:33:44.819 exploding volcano. And the sources suggest that 00:33:44.819 --> 00:33:47.380 up until the very end, he was dictating notes 00:33:47.380 --> 00:33:49.539 about the changing shape of the ash cloud to 00:33:49.539 --> 00:33:52.480 his secretary. It's just breathtaking. It really 00:33:52.480 --> 00:33:55.900 is. So let's briefly recap the awe -inspiring 00:33:55.900 --> 00:33:58.579 and honestly slightly terrifying work ethic of 00:33:58.579 --> 00:34:01.420 Kleine the Elder. Here was a man who viewed sleep 00:34:01.420 --> 00:34:04.210 as a failure of the human condition. A man who 00:34:04.210 --> 00:34:06.529 slipped in fractions, read while being scraped 00:34:06.529 --> 00:34:09.289 in the bath, rode in a litter just to avoid wasting 00:34:09.289 --> 00:34:11.989 walking time, scolded his friends for costing 00:34:11.989 --> 00:34:14.309 him ten lines of text, and ultimately wrote a 00:34:14.309 --> 00:34:17.630 foundational text of human history. A text that, 00:34:17.829 --> 00:34:19.949 for all its flaws and, you know, riding elephants 00:34:19.949 --> 00:34:23.050 and fish -stealing octopuses, served as the primary 00:34:23.050 --> 00:34:25.090 scientific authority for Europe for over a thousand 00:34:25.090 --> 00:34:27.630 years. It was the blueprint for how humanity 00:34:27.630 --> 00:34:30.590 organized knowledge. Exactly. So, to you listening. 00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:33.440 The next time you feel overwhelmed by your endless 00:34:33.440 --> 00:34:35.360 to -do list or the next time you feel a pang 00:34:35.360 --> 00:34:37.480 of guilt for taking a 20 -minute nap on a Sunday 00:34:37.480 --> 00:34:40.420 afternoon, just remember Pliny. Remember the 00:34:40.420 --> 00:34:43.639 crushing weight of his existence. Yeah. Remember 00:34:43.639 --> 00:34:45.800 that even the guy who tried to read literally 00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:49.000 everything ended up including a story about an 00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:51.840 800 -year -old king because he was moving too 00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:54.340 fast to critically think about what he was consuming. 00:34:55.090 --> 00:34:57.869 It is okay to log off. It is okay to put the 00:34:57.869 --> 00:34:59.809 book down. It is okay to just sit in the bath 00:34:59.809 --> 00:35:02.269 and relax without a scribe reading to you. You 00:35:02.269 --> 00:35:05.750 are allowed to rest. Very well said. But I want 00:35:05.750 --> 00:35:08.230 to leave you with one final provocative thought. 00:35:08.349 --> 00:35:11.309 All right, let's hear it. Pliny firmly, passionately 00:35:11.309 --> 00:35:14.010 believed that there was no afterlife. He wrote 00:35:14.010 --> 00:35:16.590 that the immortal soul was a delusion. He thought 00:35:16.590 --> 00:35:19.690 that death was the absolute final end of consciousness. 00:35:19.909 --> 00:35:21.989 The lights go out and you return to the void. 00:35:22.110 --> 00:35:25.530 Right. And yet... Because he sacrificed his sleep, 00:35:25.750 --> 00:35:28.110 his leisure, and ultimately his very life to 00:35:28.110 --> 00:35:30.449 document the world, because he aggressively squeezed 00:35:30.449 --> 00:35:33.190 every drop of utility out of his nights, we are 00:35:33.190 --> 00:35:35.630 sitting here, 2 ,000 years later, intimately 00:35:35.630 --> 00:35:38.170 discussing his daily routine. That's true. We 00:35:38.170 --> 00:35:40.730 know about his uncle, his friends, his annoyance 00:35:40.730 --> 00:35:42.909 at dinner parties, his snoring, his thoughts 00:35:42.909 --> 00:35:46.530 on eclipses. Did his extreme, arguably toxic 00:35:46.530 --> 00:35:49.030 obsession with productivity actually grant him 00:35:49.030 --> 00:35:51.409 the exact immortality he insisted didn't exist? 00:35:51.429 --> 00:35:54.519 Wow. He built a monument out of words and sheer 00:35:54.519 --> 00:35:57.000 source of will, and he basically engineered his 00:35:57.000 --> 00:35:59.380 own eternity. Something for you to ponder. Let 00:35:59.380 --> 00:36:01.340 that sit with you, catch up on your sleep, and 00:36:01.340 --> 00:36:03.260 we'll see you next time on The Deep Dive.