#5 - Alex Ebert | Death Rituals, Status Anxiety and Being Cool

Alex Ebert is a Golden Globe-winning singer-songwriter and composer. He is best known for being the lead singer and songwriter for the bands Ima Robot and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. He is also a philosopher, exploring ideas around death, self-hood, creativity, media, status anxiety and coolness.

Topics include:

* Alex’s creative process (i.e. meeting the daemon)

* Why memes have made everyone into philosophers

* That time when Alex got too meta for Bono and Robert Redford

* The perils of success and how it tempts you to be formulaic

* Status anxiety and the philosophy of cool

* Why “selling out” stopped being a thing around the year 2000

* Death initiations and managing death anxiety

* Why you need a gang with a shared mission

* Why society is perfectly primed for virtue to become cool

* How wokeness acts as a shield for capitalism

* The benefits of having a stoic conversation partner

* Alex’s anxiety-inducing ritual before going on stage

Resources:

* The dancing man at Sasquatch Festival

* Alex Ebert’s Substack

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