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>>Jesse Nichols: Thanks for everyone for coming to today's AuthorsGoogle talk. Today, we have
Rainn Wilson, co-author and one of the founders of the site soulpancake.com here to talk about
his book, "Soul Pancake: Chew on Life's Big Questions."
We're very excited to have him and we're looking forward to a great hour. We're gonna start,
though, by watching just a couple of videos on the site. Go ahead and roll clip.
[pause]
[plays video clip]
[rock music]
>>Jesse Nichols: Where is sound?
[video clip – music and group singing: Ooh]
Can we start that one more time, guys, with the sound?
[rock music and group singing: Ooh]
[end clip]
>>Jesse Nichols: While they queue up the next video, here's also a reminder. It's not only
in bookstores. It's also at the back of the room. So feel free to pick up a copy before
or at the end of today's talk.
[plays video clip]
>>Man #1: Life's biggest questions. Well.
[music playing in background]
[Man #1 sighs]
>>Man #2: Umm.
>>Man #3: Umm.
>>Woman #4: Umm.
>>Man #5: Umm.
>>Woman #6: Umm.
>>Man #7: Umm.
>>Boy #8: I got a good question.
>>Woman #6: Why am I here? What is my purpose?
>>Man #7: What is God?
>>Man #9: Why does white milk turn to yellow butter?
>>Man #10: Will I be successful? [whistling along with music in background]
>>Man #11: Is all of this worth it?
>>Woman #12: Why doesn't racism die?
>>Woman #13: Can religion make us better people?
>>Man #14: Is love all that matters?
>>Boy #8: Why are girls so weird?
[end clip]
[laughter]
>>Jesse Nichols: Nice. So welcome to the stage of NBC's "The Office," Rainn Wilson.
[applause and cheering]
>>Rainn Wilson: Hi everybody.
>>Jesse Nichols: Welcome, welcome. And for those of you who don't know, this is actually
a bit of a tour enjoying that chair a little too much.
>>Rainn Wilson: You can't afford better chairs at Google?
>>Jesse Nichols: Those are the better chairs. Those, actually,--
>>Rainn Wilson: Yeah.
>>Jesse Nichols: those are the better chairs.
>>Rainn Wilson: All right. I'll make do.
>>Jesse Nichols: But, yeah. You got a chance to visit our New York office, as well. I appreciate
you stopping on the Best Coast. You know, the West Coast, whichever.
>>Rainn Wilson: You know, this campus kicks New York's ***.
[cheers and applause]
New York. I mean, don't even go to New York. Don't even bother. It's like, it's in the
meat packing district. It's depressing. It's boring. Obviously, the best, brightest minds
and the best looking--
[laughter]
people are here at Google. Where are we? Which town is this?
[laughter]
>>Jesse Nichols: San Francisco.
>>Rainn Wilson: Silicon Valley.
>>Jesse Nichols: The valley. [laughter]
>>Rainn Wilson: This is really cool. I know a lot of you have your little camera phones
working now. So, I'd thought we'd take this time for a photo opportunity. Ready? Get your
cameras out. Ready? Five. Four. Three. Two. And here we go.
[laughter]
Now, when you show these pictures, it's like I'm a motivational speaker.
[laughter]
Get it? This side of the room? Good. OK.
>>Jesse Nichols: Very nice.
>>Rainn Wilson: Thanks for having me, Google. It's a pleasure to be here. Larry and Sergey,
are they here? Larry?
[laughter]
They'll probably show up later.
>>Jesse Nichols: They have a private box office. They're like the two grumpy old men from the
Muppets. They just sit and judge.
[Rainn Wilson laughs]
>>Rainn Wilson: Very good.
>>Jesse Nichols: Well thanks again for coming. "Soul Pancake". I got a chance to breeze through
this a little bit, but, as well as your site. I'd love to hear your synopsis of what went
into the start of this project and your thoughts on how successful the site has been so far.
>>Rainn Wilson: Great. Well, when I started getting well-known for doing "The Office,"
I just, I realized that I had a great opportunity to do something really special and unique
on the web, just because of my celebrity and stuff.
And I really thought long and hard and consulted about it with--. The co-founder of the website,
soulpancake, is here. Devon, do you want to stand up? Devon Gundry. Here's here. Stand
up.
[applause]
Stand up. And my co-authors are here. I'll introduce them later. But we just talked about
things that I was passionate about. And I really wanted to do something unique and special
on the web that wasn't there.
I think that the web has progressed a lot since we started having these conversations
about four years ago. But at the time, there wasn't very much positive on the internet.
There wasn't very much that was uplifting, or that was actively working to make the world
a better place. I mean, granted of course, there's charity websites and stuff like that.
But so, the thing that we came up with was looking at life's big questions because I
didn't want it to be like, "Oh, I have the answers," or anything like that. 'Cause I
don't have the answers. But this is something that I've been passionate about. I grew up
in a kind of crazy, Bohemian household.
And we would have long debates about philosophy and religion and art and go to galleries and
museum openings. And the intersection between art and philosophy and spiritual belief, was
just always very vibrant in our household. It was really totally *** up in every other
way, but that was a real positive thing that we had going on. And then I got into school
and continued that interest.
And I took Great Books classes through high school. They had a Great Books course in my
high school where we didn't write papers. We just debated the great authors. And you
were tested on your ability to break down "Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo and talk about
the ideas of social justice in there and really present your case.
And then when I moved on to college and took philosophy classes. I've also been--. Spirituality
is an important part of my life and investigating the world's religions and stuff like that.
And art has always been an important part of my life and moving to New York and being
kind of a crazy Bohemian, doing plays in downtown theaters and doing weird clown shows off off
Broadway and stuff like that.
I always was intrigued by all of these things and how they intersected, because I think
that in our culture, we're very compartmentalized. We have our -- you have your work life, here,
and then maybe outside of your work life you have your social life. And maybe your friends
are from college or high school, or people that share hobbies.
And then you have your romantic life and your family life. And maybe there's a little bit
of a spiritual life here, or maybe there's your exercise here, or whatever it is that--.
There are all these different boxes. And I think that this is a -- there's a lot of great
things about the modern world. But I think there's one of the difficulties of the modern
world is how fractured all of that is.
And I, personally, believe that it's all really one and the same thing. We can talk more about
that later, but, see, I'm talking too much already. So why we founded it. We just wanted
to build a cool place, to make it cool for people to talk about what it is to be a human
being, to continue the discussion that started really with the ancient Greeks, but it really
started before them. Just to continue that same discussion about love and justice and
life and the soul.
And this is the best way we could think of to do it was to do the website. And then,
as soon as we finished our version, our current version of the website that's up there, we
moved on to--. We're shooting these webisodes for the Oprah Winfrey Network. And we did
this book.
And we really want Soul Pancake to be a brand, or a platform, to have a fresh, irreverent,
unique way of looking at the world and what it is to be a human being. Does that make
sense?
>>Jesse Nichols: It does. It does. And the structure of the site, for those of you who
haven't visited it, I recommend it again. soulpancake.com. The structure of the site
is very conversational in nature. And so, there's a lot of banter between commenters.
So, you post a question--if I'm not mistaken--you post a question and people just respond as
they will.
Some long form, some short form. But then you have the ability to respond to specific
comments as well. So, as a platform, were you trying to recreate something similar to
this class, or what were you going for when you were actually thinking about the structure
of Soul Pancake?
>>Rainn Wilson: I think the--. It was a lot of guesswork. Like, we just wanted to get
something up and running. And none of us had really built a website before with any kind
of traffic. So, we also, besides the-- we call it the "question collective"--we also
have challenges on there that we post every day. There's content.
And a lot of it is about not just talking, but doing-- creating art and responding with
visual images and responding with poetry and not just saying, "Well, I believe that blah,
blah, blah, blah," you know? That kind of thing. But yeah. The point was to create a
community of people that are just searching and interested in discussing something a little
bit deeper.
I found that it just, it had become so--. It was one of the personal things. It was
so rare to be able to find people to have a really deep conversation with. Not a pretentious
one, but just to--. It isn't done much in our society. And I think that it should be.
I think that the rich, soul-filled conversations need to be part of our daily lives.
There's nothing to be scared of. But the reason that we're scared is usually that those discussions
are either people have an agenda, like they wanna convert you to a way of thinking or
religious belief, or an atheism belief or whatever.
But there's an element of like, "I wanna convert you to how I think". Or else, it's really
New Age-y and airy fairy and hippie dippie and lovey dovey in a way that makes me wanna
vomit. So we just wanted to find something that was in-between that. And there's a share
of--. There's New Age hippies on Soul Pancake and there's also born-again Christians and
born-again Atheists on Soul Pancake. But it's for everyone.
And that's the great thing of what we've done. I would say the single greatest success from
this version of Soul Pancake is that we have created something where there are--. There's
no other website where there's Muslims, Buddhists, Judists, Christians, and atheists and agnostics,
all talking civilly to each other in one place. And that's a really cool thing and a real
unifying thing.
>>Jesse Nichols: Judists. For those of you who didn't catch that reference, that's Jewish
Buddhists, not an interpretation of the Jewish faith.
>>Rainn Wilson: Yes, Judists. Exactly.
>>Jesse Nichols: You made an interesting point, though, that it's not--. We don't talk about
these deep subjects as much either in current society. I have a hard time believing it was
ever really done that frequently.
But I mean, do you feel like there is something about the nature of the internet, or maybe
about your site specifically, that allows people to talk about these. Or, do you think
most people would be willing to talk about them if only these subjects came up more often?
>>Rainn Wilson: You know, I think it's a little all of the above. I think that—yeah, I think
that – [pause]. I don't know. It's easy to just get, it's easy to get doors shut in
your face if you wanna talk about them, I think. And I don't know. I don't know why
that is. I don't know why that is exactly.
>>Jesse Nichols: Do you find yourself bringing up these kinds of subjects? I mean, these
are fairly, not just thought-provoking questions, but they're very like blisteringly honest
questions where you have to be true to your own beliefs to really have a good conversation
about them.
>>Rainn Wilson: Yeah.
>>Jesse Nichols: Do you find [ ]?
>>Rainn Wilson: Yeah, I do. I do all the time and it clears the room like a ***.
[laughter]
It's crazy. Like, you bring up just the big question, "Do you believe in God?" And people
are like, "Uh-oh. Here it comes." And then they're like, "No," or, "Yes." Or whatever.
"Why? How do you believe that?"
Or, "What do you think's gonna happen when you die? Really? Do you think that just your
body starts to decay? That's it? No more consciousness? That's what happens?" "Yes," or, "no," or,
"I don't know." Or whatever, but I think that Thoreau--. I think that Soul Pancake is really
inspired by the transcendentalists.
And one of the things I realized in writing this book is like, "Wow, I really came back
around." Like, oh yeah, I used to read all those transcendentalists in high school. I
was like, "I really am a transcendentalist."
I believe that art and spirituality and the expression of being human is -- transcends
just our normal pooping and *** and *** and eating lives that we all live, that we're
longing for something more and something deeper.
And Thoreau said. 'The unexamined life is not worth living' and it's just about examining
our lives a little bit, a little bit deeper, just to get "Who are you? Who are we? What
do I stand for? Where's my integrity? What's my legacy? What is my relationship to the
earth and to other people and to a higher being, or to nature?" Whatever it is.
>>Jesse Nichols: The Thoreau quote, "The unexamined life," that definitely came to mind when I
was looking at this. And the feeling that I've always gotten--. I was growing up, I've
always wanted to have conversations, found it as difficult, is that it's--
>>Rainn Wilson: You can talk to me, Jesse.
[laughter]
>>Jesse Nichols: it's really difficult. It's really difficult to examine, right? You have
to be honest and you often realize is this disconnect between what you'd like to think
you believe and what you actually do. And so, these conversations get, like I said,
very honest and sometimes depressingly so.
Do you feel like that your site is an effective conduit, though, for people to be honest,
or they constantly putting out there what they think they'd like to believe?
>>Rainn Wilson: You know, it's a lot of it is -- we'd like to do a lot more with the
site than what's up there, to be really honest with you guys. I think it's a good start.
And we need funding and we need a development team and we need a lot of things to be able--
>>Jesse Nichols: Wink.
>>Rainn Wilson: to do that.
[laughter]
But, Larry, Sergey.
[laughter]
But I think that, yeah. I think it's a good start towards that. I think ultimately, a
bunch of anonymous people saying, "Well I think blah, blah, blah," is not necessarily
the best way to go about it.
And sometimes, the site devolves into that. And we're figuring out a lot of other ways
that we wanna really, especially, bring the arts into the site, and creativity and have
the people be able to have more artistic challenges and people to post videos and express themselves
beyond just text writing and saying, "Well I think this, that, and the other thing."
So, it's partially successful, I would say. It's a good stab at it. And I think it's really
the only place on the web that is trying to do that. I think there's not really much to
compare it to. I think that belief.net may be, but that's a really fractured thing. If
you're a Buddhist, you go to this page of belief.net. And if you're a Christian, you
go here.
And if you're Catholic, you go here. And you know what I mean? It's all very fractured.
We're trying to just bring people together. It's about the human experience. It's not
about your little belief box.
>>Jesse Nichols: I really like the idea of engaging your visitors. I'd like to ask about
how much response you feel like you've had to when you put out these challenges? But
certainly, in this book, you've challenged your readers to do things.
One of the things you challenge to do often is create lists, these pros and cons lists.
And this has happened over and over and over again in the book. Could you give me five
reasons why you think lists are a good idea, or is there a specific reason why you've chosen
that approach? It seems to be pretty common.
>>Rainn Wilson: Lists, we do it a lot on the site and we did a lot in the book. We do "list
the five things that you blah, blah, blah." Or, 'write down the three things," or "the
ten most important things," or something like that.
And I think it's just an easy way to get the conversation going. I don't think the lists
are the be-all and the end-all. I think that lists make it--. It's just an easier way to
just start that conversation.
>>Jesse Nichols: And when you start that conversation the harder way, which is create art, do poetry,
paint a picture or something like that--
>>Rainn Wilson: Yeah.
>>Jesse Nichols: do you feel like you've had a good response from your community? Or has
it been pretty tough to get that going?
>>Rainn Wilson: Oh, very much so. I mean, we have--. You guys can help me more with
the content stuff that we've done, but we've had such incredible artistic challenges. What
are some of the ones that you think that have been really good with like, people sharing
their art specifically for Soul Pancake that they've created?
>>Woman #1: Photos are nice. We did a photo on capturing light that reflects your soul
and that got a ton of photos.
>>Rainn Wilson: Like a photo challenge that capture light with a camera that reflects
your soul and get hundreds of responses. I mean, it's a really beautiful gallery when
it's done.
>>Woman #1: We did a Haiku on--
>>Rainn Wilson: Haiku's are always good.
>>Woman: We did a Haiku on [ ] what things can happen when you die.
>>Rainn Wilson: Haiku and what you think happens to you when you die. That kind of thing. So
those artistic social interactions.
>>Jesse Nichols: Haiku's are particularly nice--
>>Rainn Wilson: Yeah.
>>Jesse Nichols: because they're short, fairly non-committal. You can get someone to write
something like that--.
>>Rainn Wilson: Yeah, you can dash one off, but then you start to dash it off and then
you go, "Oh, this is trickier than it seems." And you start to retool it and retool it and
strip it away and pare it down and think about it and find the right word. And it's interesting
'cause it's like a little Rubik's cube.
>>Jesse Nichols: Well, yeah. But it has a really great hook for engagement. So, have
you found other ways to--. I mean when you present something like "paint a picture" or
"do something large-scale" that expresses X, Y, Z, again, you're gonna weed out a lot
of people just because of the amount of effort.
Have you found ways to almost trick people into getting to think more deeply, which I
find is probably the best way to get these conversations started, is don't let them know
that you're getting the conversation started.
>>Rainn Wilson: Well, I think--. And that's what the whole thing of Soul Pancake and with
our content is. And a little bit of what we do in the book is exactly what you're talking
about. It's like, tricking people into ways of getting the conversation started.
And I think that's what we do. I think that's what lists do. I think that's what Haikus
do. I think that if something is really simple like, what's the most, what's the happiest
you've ever been, or something like that. People can go, "Oh, that's this. It's that."
It's easy, but it gets you putting yourself out there and engaging in them, in the mush.
>>Jesse Nichols: You take that into what is real happiness and all of a sudden, next thing
you know, you're quoting more and--.
>>Rainn Wilson: There you go.
>>Jesse Nichols: It's great people.
>>Rainn Wilson: Yeah.
>>Jesse Nichols: Well, I find, I found a lot of the comments rather fascinating on some,
at least the more recent conversations. I didn't go tremendously far back. But do you,
or your team, ever read through the comments?
Do you ever comment yourself? I know it's a loaded question I'm asking, but do you ever
join that discussion, or at least monitor it?
>>Rainn Wilson: I do, sometimes. But I read the site every day. And I read the--. I get
up and I check it and I read what the challenges are and look at the responses and stuff like
that. I don't read every single one, but I like to see where it's going and where it
needs to be going and stuff like that.
So, I'm very engaged in it. I just think it's like a dream come true. It's really cool that
there's teenagers from Dubuque, and there's college students in Namibia and there's born-again
Christians in Athens, Georgia. And they're all just digging into the stuff of life and
into the intersection of creativity and spirituality and philosophy.
>>Jesse Nichols: Well I find it very genuine, too. It's not, to be honest--
>>Jesse Nichols: with something like--
>>Rainn Wilson: I find you very genuine.
>>Jesse Nichols: Oh, well. You know, it's because I mean it. It's because I care.
[laughter]
That's what it's about. But with something like this, you could easily expect it to go
into what's known as a flame war, or where the comments just become inane. If you look
at the comments of a lot of very popular social sites, they just get ignorant or racist or
just extremely hyperbolic.
>>Rainn Wilson: The people that use Soul Pancake regularly and it's not a ton of them, but
however 20 thousand people that congregate there, they are very protective of the site.
And they really don't like trolling.
And they really don't like *** just posting stuff. And they'll kick 'em out. They'll flag
them and get rid of them. They're very--. They really want it to be a special place.
You see that a lot in the comments. And that's another very successful thing about it.
>>Jesse Nichols: When I signed up for an account, it was fairly non-invasive. There wasn't a
lot that you were asking from me. But you also -- so which again, made the cost of entry
very low. But do you monitor at all the, or do you have a sense of the demographics that
play around this site? Do you have a sense of who your audience is composed of?
>>Rainn Wilson: Oh, we track every user.
[laughter]
We know everything. We know their buying habits. We know how often they defecate, their regularity.
>>Jesse Nichols: You follow their Twitter feed, is what you're saying.
>>Rainn Wilson: Yes.
[Rainn Wilson laughs]
Very good. Boom.
[laughter]
I'm doing Twitter tomorrow. Any messages you want me to pass on to the folks over at Twitter?
[pause]
[laughter]
Get a life? What? Anything?
[laughter]
Your site will be obsolete in three years.
[laughter]
And ours won't.
[laughter]
Anything? Umm, umm no. What was the question? I don't know.
>>Jesse Nichols: Well, I mean do you monitor the demographics, the profiles, the types
of people, where they're coming from?
>>Rainn Wilson: No. We haven't. We may. We're trying to get some funding. So, that's gonna
require us to figure out the ages and demographics of who's using the site regularly and stuff
like that. So, but we haven't to this point. No.
>>Jesse Nichols: Well, there's not any advertising on the site now, is there?
>>Rainn Wilson: There's not. No.
>>Jesse Nichols: So, would you ever consider this a profit, a profitable venture? I thought
it was more of a non-profit--.
>>Rainn Wilson: It is not--. It is a for-profit venture with a non-profit heart.
[laughter]
And uh--.
>>Jesse Nichols: The best of intentions.
>>Rainn Wilson: But we haven't figured out how to make any money off of it yet.
>>Jesse Nichols: That's fair.
>>Rainn Wilson: But the book is doing well. The book was in the New York Times bestseller
list for the last six weeks. So, that's been pretty cool. And--.
[applause]
Yeah. Yeah. New York Times bestselling author. What?
[laughter]
Who are those people on that TV screen having a conference room meeting?
[laughter]
Who are those people?
>>Jesse Nichols: It's a bit magical. We have, literally, people all around the world.
>>Rainn Wilson: Wait. Now they're waving at me. How are you hearing?
[laughter]
But they're talking to each other like they're having a meeting. Who are those people?
>>Jesse Nichols: They're definitely talking about you. That's for sure. They're actually
in San Francisco. So, we have video-conferencing abilities to bring in--.
>>Rainn Wilson: Why don't they come out here? Why are they in San Francisco?
>>Jesse Nichols: Well, you know, it's a packed house. We wouldn't wanna make this a little
bit too crowded. It's already getting warm in here. They would only add to it, really.
>>Rainn Wilson: How you doing? You in the striped shirt. What's your name?
[laughter]
>>Jesse Nichols: They're good people.
>>Rainn Wilson: I'm serious.
>>Jesse Nichols: They're good people.
>>Rainn Wilson: OK. They're good people?
>>Jesse Nichols: You can trust them.
>>Rainn Wilson: I don't like them.
>>Jesse Nichols: Well, I don't know about that.
[laughter]
Well, in any case, [laughter] the book is doing well. The book is doing well. It's [ ].
>>Rainn Wilson: The book is doing well. So we made a little coin off the book. And now
we're doing these Oprah webisodes, which some day we hope to turn Soul Pancake into a little
bit more of a TV format as well.
So, it can be books. We've even talked about like a Soul Pancake music label, supporting
artists that just share our vision. And that doesn't mean like, wimpy--. I'm not talking
about Sarah McLachlan kind of music. I mean, to me--.
[laughter]
>>Jesse Nichols: Nothing against Miss McLachlan, I'm sure.
>>Rainn Wilson: Is she here, or what?
>>Jesse Nichols: Great.
>>Rainn Wilson: She'd kick my ***. But nothing--. Well, 'cause to me, the most spiritually and
philosophically uplifting music in my mind is Radiohead, or Sigur Ros. You know what
I mean? There's people that can be making music about--. And that's what I think is
so interesting about the arts is that, what was I just talking? This is way off topic,
but I'm gonna say something interesting.
[laughter]
Write this down. Where you going?
[laughter]
Seriously.
[laughter]
What did she say? All right. Get outta here. Go on.
[laughter]
It's a stupid scarf.
[laughter]
>>Jesse Nichols: Ooh.
>>Rainn Wilson: I am the Don Rickles of authors. The, what was I saying? Oh.
>>Jesse Nichols: I think of a label.
>>Rainn Wilson: There's an interesting theater game that I used to play back in theater school
and doing improv and stuff like that. And it was where you would, it's a fascinating
thing. You guys should do it when you're doing like you're group mime classes down in the
courtyard, or whatever you do here.
[laughter]
You, everyone writes down an emotion and you stick the emotion in a hat. And then, every
group of like three or four people picks an emotion out of the hat. And then that's the
emotion that they need to try and make the audience feel. So you come up with a scene
to make the audience feel that emotion.
And it's really interesting because if it's like, anger, it's like, how do you do a scene
in front of people to make them feel angry? Like, you do an angry scene, you might get
laughs. And it might actually be really entertaining. 'Cause at the end, you say, "What did you
guys feel? What did you actually feel?
Not what did you think you were supposed to feel, but what did you actually feel?" And
it's fascinating. 'Cause the anger one, like there was a famous scene that was done when
I was in school, where people pretended to be like these sweet, little, old ladies who
started using the "n" word all the time. And it was just like--.
And I mean, people were just outraged, but it really worked. It really made them feel
anger, but it's interesting how that works. And you can also make people feel angry by
boring them. So, just doing a really bad scene can really make people feel angry.
But it's interesting because we talk about like, what is art that inspires, or what is
art that uplifts, that makes you feel connected, that it feels like soul-enriching. 'Cause
a lot of times for me, that's stuff that the artist, that was not their intention. It's
not what they set out to do.
Radiohead sets out to write these weird, jarring soundscapes that all are about human alienation.
But nothing makes me feel more like, euphoric and connected and loving and just transported
and transcendent than their music. You know what I mean? So it's an odd thing. So that's
just a little interesting thing. Wasn't that interesting? OK.
>>Jesse Nichols: [laughs] Something that--. Especially that you mentioned you were going
to Twitter. You have a very large Twitter following. And I think there are aspects of
the comments on your site that remind me of Twitter.
The little tidbits of information, especially the banter back and forth. But in an age where
I think a lot of the communication online is very brief and oftentimes without a lot
of justification, do you really feel like you're able to make significant progress on
any of these questions without long form answers, or more of an academic approach to answering
these questions?
>>Rainn Wilson: Yeah, no. No. I mean, I think it's--. I don't think we ever really will.
I think that ultimately, what Soul Pancake, like I said, aimed to be, this is a brand
and there's gonna be a number of different platforms from it.
And I think ultimately, what we're starting to see now, which is really cool, are Soul
Pancake Meetups. 'Cause I think that talk is cheap and anyone can get on a message board
and say, "Well, I think this, that, and the other thing." I think the harder thing is,
and the most important thing, is putting it into practice in your life.
So, this is what I believe. This is what I stand for. And getting people together in
rooms. There have been people springing up all over the country, like Soul Pancake breakfasts
and stuff like that where they use the book as a tool and talk about life's big questions
and do some of these challenges together and take it out in the real world.
So, we're just trying to figure out new and interesting ways to do that. So, that's where
our--. That's where we're headed.
>>Jesse Nichols: Well we're gonna start taking questions since we've got about 20, 25 minutes
left.
>>Rainn Wilson: Awesome.
>>Jesse Nichols: Please feel free to line up. The people in the aisle might wanna make
a little bit of room for those who are gonna line up and take questions. There are some
of the questions on these books are very interesting.
Some of the questions on the site are very interesting. I actually saw a user post a
question, though, that said, "Why don't we hear anything from the authors?" And, "I had
to go to Wikipedia to look up your religious beliefs." Or something like that. Are there
any of these questions that you'd like to present some sort of philosophy on?
I mean, there are questions on there about regrets and guilt over taking chances, rather
than regrets over not. There are questions on faith versus reason. Any question that
you'd like to particularly share your philosophy on? We'll get the front of the line.
>>Rainn Wilson: Well, but this is the great thing, I think, is like no one cares. Look.
I'm a weird-looking comic character actor from a TV show. No one cares what I think.
>>Jesse Nichols: With the microphone though.
>>Rainn Wilson: With an awesome microphone.
[laughter]
And, but really. No one cares what I think. And I think that's important. That's the last
thing I wanna be doing is pontificating or saying, "Here's what I believe." I think that's
what celebrities do way too often.
And it's just like, "Shut up, man." So this is a place for--. This isn't what I believe.
What I believe is that we're human beings and we all have a lot of the same thoughts
and feelings and emotions. And when we experience death in our families, or illness, or trouble,
or beauty, like, we share things. Our neurons fire in the same ways and there's a collective
transcendent consciousness to that.
And let's explore that realm. It's a little bit underexplored. That's what I believe and
that's what Soul Pancake's about. So, my specific beliefs about my faith, or regrets, or this
or that, like, I don't know. I don't think anyone really cares. I mean, if you care you
can ask me what I think about something.
>>Jesse Nichols: I'll ask after the talk. It'll be--.
>>Rainn Wilson: You're very loyal wearing a Google t-shirt.
[laughter]
Is that your only clean t-shirt, or what?
[laughter]
Yeah.
>>Jesse Nichols: That's not true.
>>Rainn Wilson: That's cool.
>>Jesse Nichols: Oh, man.
>>Rainn Wilson: Here's a brave soul. [pause] Hello.
>>Male Audience Member #1: Hi. Uhh, OK. First of all, thank you so much for coming. I appreciate
it. So obviously, everybody knows you from being on TV and acting and doing all those
types of things. And so, my question is do you ever find that there's space to have these
types of conversations with the people that you work with in that setting? Or, is it all
so busy and so preoccupied with getting the product out?
>>Rainn Wilson: So you're really talking about the set of "The Office", or just in show business
in general?
>>Male Audience Member #1: We could say the set of "The Office", just to clarify.
>>Rainn Wilson: Yeah. We, sure. We have a really great loving family on The Office.
We're really lucky. I'm gonna burp.
[laughter]
And we talk about a lot of things and share a lot of things. And it's really open to that.
And people come to the Soul Pancake site and the book signing and stuff like that, and
are really interested in it. But we're a really unique situation in that way. We've been together
and had our ups and downs and stuff.
And we've been working together for seven years now. So, but we'll get together in Carell's
trailer and say, "What would you cut your pinky toe off for?" You know, some of these
[laughter]
Not really, but you know what I mean.
>>Male Audience Member #1: Thank you.
>>Rainn Wilson: OK.
>>Jesse Nichols: Well, actually that's, so--. Your character on The Office, Dwight Schrute,
is actually at times fiercely ethical, or fiercely philosophical at the very least,
almost to the point of sociopathic, where he doesn't care what the ramifications of
his beliefs are. He just believes them. And at other times, he's--.
At times, he's devoted and loyal and ethical, and other times, malicious and a little bit
evil. Does this character come from somewhere? Do you feel like there's a reflection of the
way that you approach problems in a way that tend to push out to your character? I'm not
calling you a bad person. I think you're great.
[laughter]
>>Rainn Wilson: No, that's interesting. Yeah, Dwight has a very specific philosophy that
is sometimes really warped and sometimes really right on. And it's a subject of his own little
weird petri dish of his strange Amish family--clannish, Nazi family, and his survival of the fittest,
Darwinist theories. But he is definitely a person of principles that are just really
messed up principles. Yeah. Yes.
>>Male Audience Member #2: I wanted to present a gift for your trip to Twitter tomorrow.
>>Rainn Wilson: Thank you. A gift to my trip to Twitter. Thank you. [pause] Oh, thank you.
[laughter]
>>Jesse Nichols: That is the Gmail bow tie, if you couldn't, didn't recognize that one
right off the bat.
[laughter]
>>Rainn Wilson: And I will wear this tomorrow at Twitter.
[laughter]
Yeah.
[applause and cheering]
My son is down there, cackling like a weird little demon. And he's [laughter] six years
old and he can't stand that I'm the center of attention right now. [laughter] It's a
very competitive thing. He's a little natural performer.
>>Male Audience Member #2: I could probably get him one, too.
[Rainn Wilson laughs]
>>Rainn Wilson: He just did a pratfall. [laughter] Very good. Thank you so much for that t-shirt.
Yes.
>>Female Audience Member #1: Sorry, I don't have a gift, but I do have a question.
>>Rainn Wilson: Yeah.
>>Female Audience Member #1: So you said earlier in your talk that we have all these areas
of our life that are fragmented, family, work, friends. Yet we hear in our professional life,
that it's really important to separate, if you wanna be most professional, separate work
and your personal life.
It sounds to me like what you're saying is that the best way to live is to meld all of
these things together. And if that's not the case, could you clarify, or tell us, how you
think we could remedy having all these fragmented bits of our life, other than what you've talked
about just coming together and talking about kind of important questions?
Or, are there other things we could do to unify our existence, for lack of a better
words?
>>Rainn Wilson: Yeah. That's an excellent question and very specific. I appreciate it.
I think that what I'm talking about is not necessarily melding them and bringing them
all together, but viewing them all as a whole.
I think that just earlier this morning, it was interesting. We took my son over to park
over here, Shoreline Park, to play around on a playground and there was this dad there
with a Bible. And he was reading the Bible and he had two kids there. And I'm not meaning
to mock on anyone who reads the Bible or Christians at all, 'cause I really love the Bible and
I respect it greatly.
But he was reading the Bible and his kids were running around and one kid had his shoes
off and was running around in the dew grass and his feet were all muddy and weird and
he didn't even notice. And sometimes the kids would come over and they'd wanna talk to him,
but he would like shrug them off and he was just reading his Bible.
And it was like, "Wait a minute! Dad, you're missing the spiritual moment. The spirituality
is with your kids in the sunshine, experiencing life and taking in each breath and seeing
them grow and socialize." And if you're looking for something, what would Jesus do? Jesus
would play with the kids. You know what I mean?
So it's, in a way, that's what I'm talking about. It's a fragmentation where things are
viewed as very separate, but it's all one expression of what it is to be human. When
people talk about spirituality and religion, they get a really bad rap in this day and
age. And I think really what we've done is just thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
It's like, "Well, religions are stupid and people kill each other in their name and it's
a stupid superstition. So we throw it out. And it doesn't exist." You know what I mean?
It's like, well, wait a minute. There is something to--. It's interesting that most Americans
describe themselves as spiritual, but not religious.
But spirituality is very important to Americans. So I'm talking about is that spirituality
is your work, your occupation, and being of service and providing the tools that Google
provides for the world community. I mean, it's free. You get to use a search engine
and you have this great email and do all this really cool stuff, including the Wave and
Chrome that no one ever uses.
[laughter]
You get to, you do all this stuff for free and it's a great service. And that your occupation
is the same as worship. And your family and being of service to them is the same as worship.
And your friends and fostering friendships and bringing people together is worship. And
being in the park with your kids is worship.
And it's all a human expression. So rather than thinking of it in these compartments,
"This is what I do for this, this, that, and the other thing", that it's all one greater
transcendent social human need. And you don't even have to believe in God to think that.
You know what I mean. I don't know if that clarified it, but that's my thoughts.
>>Female Audience Member #1: It does. Thanks.
>>Rainn Wilson: OK. [pause] Do-do-do-do-do-do.
>>Female Audience Member #2: Sorry. Hi.
>>Rainn Wilson: Right. Hi.
>>Female Audience Member #2: So, earlier you mentioned--.
>>Rainn Wilson: I wanna say that New York, there were like, three microphones. They had
lines of people up at each microphone. And they were like, "And this, what about this?
What about this?" And they were grilling me. I don't know. I may have to take back my thoughts
on New York versus Cupertino, or wherever we are.
[booing]
[laughter]
I don't know. Alta Vista.
[laughter]
Ask Jeeves.
[laughter]
I wanna ask Jeeves whatever happened to Ask Jeeves.
[laughter]
I'm trying internet jokes out. It's not working very well.
[laughter]
Yeah, go ahead. What's your question?
>>Female Audience Member #2: So earlier you mentioned your sort of Bohemian everything’s
interconnected upbringing and I was wondering if you had carried that forward with your
son. And if so, how do you find these deeper conversations to go with someone so young?
>>Rainn Wilson: Yes. Well, that's an excellent question. For my wife and I, and she's sitting
right over here, the beautiful Holiday Reinhorn. We believe very strongly in the, I'll call
it the "spiritual education" of our son. And that doesn't mean like, indoctrination into
a certain way of thinking, or rote memorization or something like that. But we do classes
with local parents that are virtues-based.
It's virtues-based education. So that you learn--. So the child learns about compassion,
humility, honesty, and all of these kinds of virtues, qualities. And that's just as
much an important part of his education as arithmetic and stuff like that. We also believe
in emotional education, really, like we did ever since he was really young.
Like, if he'd throw a tantrum or something like that, we'd be like, "Oh, what are you
feeling right now? Oh, you're feeling disappointment. Oh, what's that like to feel disappointment?"
And he'd be like, "I feel disappointed." And it's like, "Oh, that's cool. I know what that's
like. I feel that, too." But I think that emotional and virtues-based spiritual education
is something very missing in our schools.
And I do think that's ultimately the responsibility of parents or their faith community, or whatever
community you cull together of like-minded people.
>>Female Audience Member #2: Awesome. Thanks. [pause]
>>Male Audience Member #5: Hey.
>>Rainn Wilson: Hey.
[laughter]
>>Male Audience Member #5: So, you make your living as a comedian.
>>Rainn Wilson: Yes.
>>Male Audience Member #5: Do you have a philosophy on comedy? Or, do you just go out there and
do what you think's funny?
>>Rainn Wilson: Do I have a philosophy in comedy? I have a number of things. I mean,
it's hard to sum it up. I mean, it's been like, I was acting a long time before I did
any TV or film. I did ten years of theater in New York.
And I did a lot of – I did clowning and improv, physical theater and just Shakespeare
clowns. And so, exploring comedy from a number of different things. But I would say that
the most important thing that I think of with comedy, that I think Dwight aligns with, is
that the actor can never think that it's funny. I hate comedy movies where you can tell that
the actors think it's hysterical what they're doing. And--
>>Male Audience Member #5: So you don't like Will Ferrell?
>>Rainn Wilson: No, I mean--.
[laughter]
That's a tricky one. I don't like "Anchorman." But there's other Will Ferrell movies that
I love. I love "Talladega," and I just saw "The Other Guys" and I thought they were great.
And I think that, 'cause I think that there's stories there and characters there, and even
when they just go and riff and the improv stuff, I do think that they're able to keep
it on story and keep it in character and stuff like that.
So, I mostly believe--. I'm not really a comedian. I don't do stand-up stuff, but I believe in
really great characters with really high stakes, pursuing what they want and having no idea
how ridiculous they look. And I think that's the origin of most great comedy. Yeah.
>>Male Audience Member #5: Thank you.
>>Rainn Wilson: OK. Go away. [laughter] Right now. Hi.
>>Female Audience Member #3: Hi. So, you're earlier answer about integrating all the different
>>Female Audience Member #3: made me think about some of the things that prevent people
from doing that is just a general pettiness and fleshiness and monkeyness of being human.
>>Rainn Wilson: Ahh.
>>Female Audience Member #3: I think Dwight expresses that, like the philosophy and the
principles that he abides by, but also how petty he is.
>>Rainn Wilson: Uh-huh.
>>Female Audience Member #3: And it made me think of this quote from "The Adventures of
Baron Munchausen", where he goes, "I'm busy running the universe. I don't have time for
orgasms and flatulence." So I'm just wondering how you, how do you integrate these parts
of your life along with the pettiness of humanity, or just being human?
>>Rainn Wilson: How do I do it?
>>Female Audience Member #3: Yeah. How do you do it?
>>Rainn Wilson: Really? Do you really care how I do it?
>>Female Audience Member #3: Well, we're--
>>Rainn Wilson: I think we should ask this guy how he does it.
[laughter]
I mean, it doesn't--. I will say that it doesn't really--. Thank you for the question. I don't
mean to be disrespectful. How do I do it? I have a set of spiritual beliefs and philosophical
beliefs that I try and set my sail toward and that enrich my soul.
And I try and make all aspects of my life a soul, heart-centered, soul-enriching, parts
of my life. I don't view my work as playing Dwight is any different than worshipping or
being devotional. I think it's a service that I do. I have the ability to look weird and
make people laugh in a weird haircut. And so, but it's hard.
It's hard to integrate the stuff. And it's hard to bring people together. So I struggle
with it and fail a lot. You could ask my wife, daily. But that's what I try and do. What
do you try and do?
>>Female Audience Member #3: Meditate. I try to do the same thing, but I definitely find
that I fail more often than I succeed.
>>Rainn Wilson: Yeah, me too. Totally. And meditation is something that I try and do
every day, but it's something I really love. And it's really cool. And I kinda need it
for the way my mind works.
>>Female Audience Member #3: Thanks.
>>Rainn Wilson: Can I introduce the other authors of my book? They're all up here. Devon
and Golriz and Shabnam. Will you come up and wave hello to everyone?
[applause]
Where'd the guy in the striped shirt go?
>>Jesse Nichols: I think you scared him away.
>>Rainn Wilson: Where'd he go? Tell him to get back in there. I'm serious. I'm gonna
kick his ***. I'm going in to Twitter tomorrow, in San Francisco. Not out here in the 'burbs.
[laughter] I want his name. You know, just come up here you guys. Just say hi. What?
[laughter]
Hi. These are my co-authors. They're awesome. They help run the site and the company and
they just shot these webisodes. And they're awesome and I just wanted to--. Please shower
them with loving applause right now.
[applause]
All right? Right. Now, now, now I'd like you to shower them with urine.
[laughter]
No, sit down. You guys wanna sit down? Sit down. Thanks, Jesse. Thanks. [pause] Do you
guys have anything to say at this point? Do you have any thoughts? Do you have any questions
for the Google people? [pause]
>>Golriz Lucina: He has a question.
>>Devon Gundry: We need help with our website. All of you. You know, if you have any ideas
or anything, if you guys see the website--. I know there's some of the brightest minds
in the whole world in here. So, if you have any ideas, send it to wehavegoodideasfromGoogle@soulpancake.com.
I'm gonna make that address right now. And--.
>>Rainn Wilson: For real?
>>Devon Gundry: Yeah. I'll make it right now. Well, five minutes from now.
>>Rainn Wilson: wehavegoodideas--.
>>Devon: wehavegoodideas@Google. No, that doesn't work.
[laughter]
There's too many at's in there.
>>Rainn Wilson: Googleideas?
>>Devon Gundry: Yeah, googleideas@soulpancake.com.
>>Rainn Wilson: Googleideas.
>>Devon Gundry: You can all send us.
>>Rainn Wilson: So you guys are like the most brilliant collective of brains outside of
Facebook, and--
[laughter]
[groaning]
that. No. Outside of just a few. Facebook and Yahoo, Twitter--
[laughter]
and a few of these places.
>>Jesse Nichols: We're just a small start-up. So we're working on it.
>>Rainn Wilson: And that's pretty good. Fourth or fifth best.
[laughter]
So, Microsoft. What? The, so, googleideas? If you have ideas, just look at the website.
And if you have an unemployed developer friend, 'cause we will hire. We'll pay like, not very
much, but. Or, if you have ideas how to make the site better and stuff like that, googleideas@soulpancake.com.
Yeah, I like it. OK. Good. Thanks. And your resident hippie is here. Yes.
[laughter]
>>Devon Gundry: I thought I was the resident hippie.
>>Male Audience Member #7: What did you just say about haircuts a second ago? So, thank
you for coming, though. I think a frequent criticism of younger people these days is
that we're self-absorbed and fundamentally unserious and don't have the attention spans
for anything longer than say, a YouTube video or 140 characters.
And so, as an artist encouraging people to make art, do you think we're past the days
where a symphony can cause a riot? Or, to what extent do you think art still has consequences?
>>Rainn Wilson: That's an awesome question. You're smart.
[laughter]
What do you work on? You work on Maps?
>>Male Audience Member #7: Facebook.
>>Rainn Wilson: Facebook?
>>Devon Gundry: I could work on that.
>>Rainn Wilson: That's a good question.
>>Devon Gundry: [ ] you got?
>>Rainn Wilson: Devon, you're smart, too. Do you want--?
>>Devon Gundry: No.
>>Golriz Lucina: [ ]
>>Rainn Wilson: You talk. OK, take this one. Take it. You take it.
>>Shabnam Mogharabi: Well look at what happened in Denmark with the comic illustrations of
Muhammad. I mean, that was serious consequences of art. I think that, of course, art has consequences.
It just comes in different formats now.
I mean, you can look online and see videos that move you more than the Mona Lisa did
a hundred years ago. But it's just taken a different format. I think it still does.
>>Rainn Wilson: That's a very good point. I think that the reason there were riots in
the theaters when Ubu Roi was performed back in the turn of the century in Paris and is,
there's--. Society had so many constraints and arts were always butting up against those.
Ever since you had the--what is it?-- the cup girls, the three girls in the cup kind
of thing--.
>>Male Audience Member #8: [ ]
[laughter]
>>Rainn Wilson: No. Ever since that, you can't do anything worse than that. You know what
I mean? [laughter] Like, humanity reached its low point. We had literally like--. Everything
had become totally, it was just the worst. [laughter]
I see a bunch of people like, "What's he talking about?" It's like, "Oh, don't." [laughter]
Do not--. Do not Yahoo search that, OK?
[laughter]
Don't, don't. But that's an interesting thing. I think that everything is--. You can't really,
Shabnam makes an excellent point. There are certain sectors of the world, I think, that
still can be, that has great ramifications.
But in this day and age, everyone has seen everything. And it's all so fractured and
dispersed. I think that when the systems continue to break down, our political system is breaking
down more every election cycle. I think when our economic system is breaking down, environmental
systems are breaking down, flocks of birds are falling from the sky, all of these systems
are gonna break down.
People are gonna start going like, "Holy ***. The whole thing is starting to unravel. Holy
***. What the *** do we do?" And they will try and pull together in communities and be
like, "We've gotta make the world a better place and we gotta take it on ourselves."
Obama's not gonna do it. Or John ***, whoever, is not gonna--.
They're not gonna do it for us. The United Nations isn't so, we have to do this ourselves.
So, I think art will be an expression of that. So, the power of art, I think, is to ultimately
in the future, to bring people together to unite and to bring a cause and a mission and
a movement. So, that's a good question. I don't know. That's a long discussion. You
should post it on Soul Pancake. Yeah. Yes.
>>Female Audience Member #4: So you talk about how we have trouble talking to each other
about deeper questions. And I think your website is really interesting in a way because I feel
like with the onslaught of social media, a Twitter, Facebook, iPods, everything. I feel
like, in a way, we're a lot more disconnected.
Like, you go sit next to someone on public transportation, they've got their iPod on
and this like, "*** you" look, "don't talk to me." And how do you think that affects--.
Do you think that affects how we deal with each other and why, maybe, we're not talking
about these things?
>>Rainn Wilson: Yeah. I think that communities of people used to go to dances, square dances,
and then they used to go bowling. And now, they play Call of Duty in their own world.
So I think that--. I do think that it's an issue that humanity will have to face because
we're social beings. And being social is a need of ours. And it's drifting away. I'm
losing the audience rapidly. Bye, everybody.
>>Jesse Nichols: As we approach the end of the hour, we actually have time for one more
question. But we have to wrap this.
>>Rainn Wilson: Did I answer, I didn't answer that. Well, is that clear? What am I thinking?
Yeah. It's a problem. Yeah. It's a problem. We need to bring people together and be social
beings again. And I have that problem, too. I'm always checking my phone and my emails.
And I play Call of Duty, too. So, it's balancing it. Thanks.
>>Female Audience Member #5: All right. I don't know if my question is worthy of being
the last one, but this is an actor--.
>>Rainn Wilson: Get out of here. You. Yeah.
[laughter]
OK, go ahead.
>>Female Audience Member #5: This is an actor question. Since actors portray different types
of characters, depending on what their role is, do you think that actors are, in some
way, more in touch with the human experience to be able to bring themselves to those different
types of characters? And if so, how do you think they gain that ability?
Is it something that's natural? Is it something that can be learned or developed upon?
>>Rainn Wilson: That's a good question. I think that acting--. I don't think that actors
are smarter or more in touch or anything like that. I really don't. I mean, it's just a
weird, it's a weird thing. It's definitely a skill that can be learned. Like, when I
started, I was not a very good actor and I had to--. And I think I'm a pretty good actor,
now.
But I had to work really hard at it. I had to go to three years of grad school and do,
be a spear carrier in Shakespeare plays.
[laughter]
I had to really work at it to gain my confidence and figure out what I was doing. But I've
worked with kid actors that have never taken a lesson and they just do it. And they're
like, incredibly facile and brilliant at what they do. And it's a weird mystery. I mean,
why do some kids pick up the guitar at age 9 and then all of a sudden they're just writing
albums on their, what's it called? Band camp? The thing on the--?
>>Devon: GarageBand.
>>Rainn Wilson: GarageBand. And they're composing symphonies. It just, I don't know. It's one
of the mysteries of the arts. So, I wish I had a better answer. Any thoughts on that?
>>Female Audience Member #5: Thank you.
>>Rainn Wilson: Any of you guys? I think that's all the time we have. So, I'm sorry my man.
>>Male Audience Member #11: No, it's all right.
>>Rainn Wilson: If you see him later, give him a hug.
>>Jesse Nichols: Yeah, well. We do have a table back there. So please make sure you
pick up a book. And, again, Soul Pancake, the book. Buy it. Soulpancake.com. Visit it.
Rainn Wilson.
>>Rainn Wilson: Thank you, Google. Thanks for having me.
[applause]