Karen Duffy, WISE UP: Irreverent Enlightenment from a Mother Who's Been Through It

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[0:58]Karen Duffy is the author of Why's Up, a Reverend Enlightenment from a mother who's been through it.

[1:03]Karen is the New York Times best-selling author of Model Patient.

[1:07]She is a producer, actress, and former MTV VJ.

[1:10]She has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and oh, the Oprah magazine.

[1:14]She lives in New York.

[1:15]And this is one of the episodes guest-hosted by best-selling author, Allison Fataki.

[1:20]Hi, I'm Allison Fataki, and I am here with Karen Duffy,

[1:25]the author of the incredible new book, Why's Up, a Reverend Enlightenment from a mother who's been through it.

[1:33]Karen, thank you so much for joining us.

[1:36]Thank you so much for having me.

[1:38]It's really a gift to share the wisdom of the stoic philosophers with as many people that can listen.

[1:45]Absolutely.

[1:46]This book is definitely a gift to the world and to readers. I cannot tell you I laughed, I cried, I learned so much about you and just about how to live a good life.

[1:58]Will you just start by telling us how and why you wrote this book, Why's Up?

[2:04]Well, I wrote Why's Up initially as a, I was contracted by a publisher to write a book for millennials.

[2:16]And then I was like, no way. Like, I can't do that. That's not my met today.

[2:20]So I gave the money back and I wrote the book that I wanted to write, which was how reading the stoic philosophers and connecting to classical wisdom has given me a scaffolding.

[2:33]A scaffolding, a backbone. It's helped me think when I don't know what to think.

[2:39]And so the book thesis is based on a stokeful loss of her name, Epictetus.

[2:45]And he said, if you make beautiful choices, you will make a beautiful life.

[2:51]And that reverberated through me, like a firecracker in a silverware drawer.

[2:57]I'm like, yes, it's so simple.

[2:59]Making beautiful choices, you will make a beautiful life.

[3:03]And so I wrote the book as a series of essays.

[3:05]And then I felt I really wanted the reader to feel like I had my arm around their shoulder.

[3:14]And we were having a conversation, but I wanted this radiant feeling of love.

[3:19]And so I asked my son, may I address the letters to you because there is a stoic tradition where they wrote an epistolary form.

[3:27]Meaning they wrote letters to me.

[3:30]So my amazing son said, yes.

[3:33]And I said, are you sure?

[3:34]And he said, I'm just going to ask you, use my real name because I'm really proud of you.

[3:38]So it was very nice that my son Jack allowed me to use his name.

[3:42]So Jack stands in for the reader.

[3:45]I just wanted to get into the intimacy of a letter.

[3:50]Oh my goodness.

[3:51]He's proud of you as he should be.

[3:53]So you can just sort of feel it, the radiating love, radiant love, as you said, for him too.

[3:58]And just what a wonderful young man you're raising.

[4:00]And what I'm going to come back to Jack in one minute.

[4:03]But will you just tell us all for those of us who unlike you are not able to quote the Stoics, you know, ancient Greek and Latin Roman philosophers at will, which you're just amazing, the knowledge and the depth of familiarity you have with these Stoic writers.

[4:21]Will you set the stage for all of us? Who were they?

[4:24]Why do they have such a prominent role in inspiring you and in your life journey and how you wove them in not only to your life but into this book?

[4:34]So it's interesting.

[4:35]We're familiar of the word Stoic meaning a stiff upper lip.

[4:40]But that has nothing to do with the Stoic philosophers.

[4:43]The word Stoa in Greek means porch.

[4:47]So in the golden age of Greece, Plato had his academy.

[4:52]Aristotle had the parapetatic school of philosophy, meaning he believed that our highest thoughts came in parapatu when we were walking.

[5:01]So he had the walking school and there were all these philosophers, but they were hidden away.

[5:06]And the Stoic said, no, this is a philosophy for everyone.

[5:11]This is simple practical guide points.

[5:15]It's interesting that after Emperor Constantine of Rome was baptized to Christian and all of the philosophers were banished.

[5:25]But what's interesting, they left the writings and a lot of that became the New Testament.

[5:30]So the Stoics call on us to act for the greater good.

[5:38]Marcus Aurelia says, how long will you wait to expect the best of yourself?

[5:43]So I love that they are very clear and practical.

[5:48]And it is not bogged down with a lot of language, which when you think about philosophy, you imagine people in turtlenecks smoking gal walls, having fun to being impenetrable.

[6:00]So I find that stoic philosophy and epic tatists, there's a beautiful translation by my friend Sharon Lebel called the Art of Living, and that book is a masterpiece and changed my life.

[6:12]And I highly suggest that we all read that every page has maybe five to ten sentences.

[6:19]So for mom to don't have time to read books, this is a perfect book.

[6:23]Yeah, but it's really it's impacted in my life where I can handle the fact that I live with chronic pain, chronic illness.

[6:31]I have multiple disabilities.

[6:33]I had a career at one point and then got sick and I had to mourn for my old life and figure out a whole new life as many people do.

[6:43]And I have just found the Stoics to be a wonderful motivation.

[6:49]So I've been reading them every day for 30 years and I think I'm a slightly better person for it.

[6:54]Just, you know, some light stoic philosophy over breakfast, right?

[6:58]You said your family, you're always reading, you're always discussing this.

[7:01]It's been just part of the fabric with which you raised your son and built your whole life, right?

[7:07]And also, thank you for teaching us how to pronounce epic status.

[7:11]I love reading everything you said about him in the book, but I didn't actually know how to pronounce his name.

[7:17]So there you go.

[7:18]There's many, there's many when I stick to epic status.

[7:21]There are a few Greek pronunciations.

[7:23]But yes, it was interesting. So in our family, there's no tech at the table.

[7:27]Only the sports pages and philosophy books.

[7:31]And I figured at some point, my son might actually crack one open.

[7:36]And I am a reader.

[7:39]And it's interesting, my husband and son are jocks and they read, but not to, I think, the passionate level that I do.

[7:49]Like I can read a book a day.

[7:51]I can go to bed with the book and my husband wake up and I've just finished that one and I'm onto the next.

[7:57]I, I have read myself a new brain.

[8:01]And what I love is that we forget 80% of what we've learned the day before.

[8:09]So unless you write it down and teach yourself mnemonics little memory aids we often forget.

[8:16]So I've really made an effort to memorize quotes so that they live inside me.

[8:23]And so if somebody's really being a jackass, I can just remember that Marcus Aurelius says, the best way to deal with an adversary is to not be like them.

[8:33]So then I'll try not to be a jackass and teams to work out.

[8:37]And it also seemed to work out that your son absorbed it that you got through to it because we hear from jack at the end.

[8:43]He writes a letter back to you. And gosh, how did you feel when you read his letter?

[8:49]I mean, you know, Allison, it was amazing because this is my book and he's grown up with me writing and collaborating and I travel world speaking about stove philosophy.

[9:04]I'm actually off to Greece in two days for a week to speak at three conferences, which is amazing because I'm with like the greatest human library of modern stoic thought.

[9:16]And I'm like, and I'm the person from dumb and dumb.

[9:20]And the philosopher that is putting it together, he was like, dumb.

[9:25]I don't know how you do it, but you find all the funny stuff in philosophy and I was like, because that's what I look for like you're looking from an academic perspective.

[9:35]I'm looking for a way to take these ancient ideas that feel as if the ink is still wet, they feel so modern contemporary.

[9:46]So reading Jack's letter was such a gift. I had to, you know, I asked him permission and then I asked him to read the book and then he said, you know, I'd like to write a letter back.

[9:57]And we always kind of joke around.

[10:00]because in France, if a mother posts a photo or writes about her child, that child can then

[10:07]sue the mother in court. And so I was like, in case you're looking just like you read it.

[10:14]And it was really beautiful because he lists all the, he always says, you know, mom, it just

[10:22]seems like the mother is the worst role in all the books. And he's like, you know, Daisy Buchanan,

[10:29]in F. Scott Fitzgerald, she's like, he's like, we don't even hear about little Pami, the daughter.

[10:37]So he was very funny and saying, like, and I'm proud that you're a good mom and a good writer.

[10:42]Oh, my goodness. It was Greek fire ignited in the hard side. Exactly. And the evidence,

[10:48]the proof is in the letter. You'd pose this question to the reader that you, it seems like you

[10:54]posed to yourself basically every day of your life, which is this question of, how does a person

[10:59]live a good life? You know, how do you define that? And then how, how would you define that for us?

[11:05]Well, I think in order to live a good life at which the Stoics would call you to Monia and they didn't

[11:12]believe in chasing after happiness because happiness is fleeting. And that would, that wouldn't be worth

[11:20]your time because it would never happen. You could never really be happy all the time.

[11:24]They are more after purpose, what they call flourishing. And so I heard Joe Biden give a great

[11:33]definition of finding your purpose. And he said, having your purpose is having something to love,

[11:40]something to do and something to look forward to. And I think that you may not get all three

[11:48]on the same day. But it's a great idea to have that in the back of your mind, something to do,

[11:54]something to love, something to look forward to. Part of the, my daily life is I live with a chronic

[12:02]illness. So it takes me about two or three hours when I get up in the morning to take medicine

[12:09]that I'm well enough to put on clothes. Otherwise, I'd be doing this topless. So in this quiet time,

[12:17]I write thank you letters. And that is part of my practice. And I don't have a return address

[12:23]because it's not about the idea of expecting people to respond. There's no, you know, if there's

[12:32]no pressure, I am just sending a thank you out into the world. And it can be somebody that read

[12:38]about the paper or someone local. And I just love sending thank you notes through the US Postal

[12:44]that is a great little gift for me because we all have a lot of obstacles. And I think it allows

[12:51]me to find something to be grateful for and then share it. And then when I'm ready to attack the

[12:56]world, I'm like, wow, okay, done one thing. And again, having my, the still looks always talk about

[13:06]like, you know, having manageable steps don't as Martin Luther King says, you don't have to take

[13:12]the whole staircase. Just take the first step in faith. So just taking small actionable goals

[13:20]is a way, I believe, that you can find your purpose and live happiness. And I think right now,

[13:27]we're all in this sense of transition and being awake to that and taking actions where we understand

[13:34]that we have a choice. We can be useful or useless. And every box I can take that I have been

[13:42]a bit useful is a win. Oh, I love that. You also write a lot about humor and how you call yourself,

[13:49]you look for the imp of the perverse, whether it's in motherhood or marriage or friendships or

[13:56]your professional work. And so can you talk a little bit about how you bring laughter into human

[14:02]connection and just everyday life and your relationships? Well, it's interesting, laughter is

[14:09]the way that that homo sapiens grew me each other where primates, you know, will truly grew

[14:17]me each other with their monkey paws and going through their monkey fur. But in humans, the way

[14:23]it's laughter is essentially social grooming. And I read that on all these match.coms. The first

[14:32]thing that people want is somebody who's funny. But then I think, are you funny yourself? Like,

[14:37]so I think people are a lot more humorous that we're not professional comedians. But finding

[14:43]the lighter side of life is such a gift. And that I read that laughing for an hour burns off like

[14:51]200 calories a day, 200 calories an hour. It's sound like, okay, maybe that will be my physical

[14:58]fitness plan for this upcoming fall. It's a win win, right? And then you, yes, everyone around

[15:04]you gets to win too. Can you talk about just your background and sort of your journey to get here with

[15:11]your chronic illness and your pain and not only how laughter has been such a medicine for you,

[15:15]but how the stoic philosophy has been and just sort of how how you attack each day as a survivor and

[15:22]just with your incredible outlook. And I'm just, I think we're all, you know, inspired by you.

[15:29]Thank you. I'm feel so grateful for every day. And so I was diagnosed with

[15:34]sarcoidosis of the central nervous system. So it's a rare disease. And I grew a tumor

[15:41]a lesion in my brain that grew so big and your skull is a contained environment. So it crushed

[15:49]the nerves from about my ear to the top of my shoulder. So this whole per quadrant of my body

[15:58]is it feels like I have this evil phantom parrot that just landed on my shoulder and it pecs

[16:06]invites it and it doesn't stop. And so I realized that in medicine, we often used so many war like

[16:17]metaphors, like we're going to battle this. We're going to blast it. We're going to kill these cells

[16:22]and we're going to, you know, eradicate it. And then it's just so many war like metaphors that I

[16:28]told my doctor, I was like, whoa, I'm a lover, not a fighter. And if I hated my illness,

[16:35]my incurable oil on this, which I don't give up on by saying that, but hopefully there'll be

[16:41]a better treatment. But if I hated sarcoidosis and if I hated in feared chronic pain,

[16:48]that would be fearing way too much of my life. So I decided that I had to, you know, they always

[16:57]say you're suffering with an illness. Well, I'm not suffering. I'm not enjoying it. I would say I am

[17:04]peacefully negotiating. I am cohabitating with it. And I think that comes from acceptance. And

[17:11]I got here because I have spent just maybe five minutes every day reading through the Stoics

[17:19]the way you would devotional, you know, it is a philosophy. It's not a faith, although it is connected,

[17:25]many faiths draw from the Stoics. But just the beauty of being a leader, being kind,

[17:32]Marcus Aurelius says, when you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is

[17:38]to live, to laugh, to love. That to me says it all. So if I could read that in the morning and I'm

[17:46]ready to go face the subway station at Union Square. Absolutely. Karen, what advice would you give to

[17:55]aspiring writers? To aspiring writers, I would say thank you. Keep writing. I have a very,

[18:03]very well known writers, one of my best friends. She is infuriated anytime anybody writes a new

[18:10]book because she just is like, nope, like books are mine. And I was like, okay, that's not the way.

[18:17]I feel that the best advice that I ever got was to get as much black on white, get as much

[18:24]ink out of the paper onto the page. I still write long hand. And every day from one to three

[18:32]or my writing hours, I have my reading hours and I have this set time where I work with an editor.

[18:38]And that to me is a great relationship. This is within the past six years prior to that,

[18:47]I was always doing it on my own, but I found being accountable to an editor. And reading,

[18:54]you can't be a great writer without being a great reader. And books are not lumpless

[19:00]lives of paper. They are minds alive on our shelves. Galileo said that, and he said this is in

[19:08]the 1500s, he said reading is like a superpower where we can transcend time. So I just think if

[19:16]you're going to be a great writer, you've got to be an even greater reader. Absolutely. So that

[19:21]that is what this feels like. It feels like you have invited us to come sit on your porch with you

[19:28]and just hear your mind and you're just sharing the wealth and the wisdom that you have acquired

[19:35]through study and life and experience and love and relationships and loss. This book is truly a gift.

[19:42]I just, I love this book. I dogeared and wrote and read with a pen because I love your advice to just

[19:49]come back and memorize those little nuggets and quotes. There's, there's so much in here to digest.

[19:54]Are you, I know you're writing now every day from, you know, your designated hours of 1-3. Are you

[19:59]writing?

[20:00]your next book. What are you working on now? Yes. Well, I have, I'm a producer of a new film coming

[20:07]out on September 30th, which just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last night. It's called

[20:14]the greatest beer run ever. And my son's babysitter, he was a film student at NYU. And he's such a

[20:23]great smart kid. So I saw his first movie, which won the Tribeca Film Festival. So we started a

[20:31]production company and we made a documentary about Bill Murray, which closed the Cannes Film Festival

[20:37]last year. And this is a story that is an amazing, it's a true story. Andrew Moscato is the producer

[20:45]and he was the gentleman that was a student when I met. And we were out at a party and I introduced

[20:52]him to a journalist friend of mine. And he asked the greatest question. He asked her, what is the

[21:01]best story that you never reported on? And she told us the story of the greatest beer run ever.

[21:07]How in 1967, Chicky Donahue lived in Inwood would serve as a marine. Six of his best friends were

[21:15]drafted. Inwood in Northern Manhattan is a zip code that had more, more young men drafted than

[21:22]any others have code in the US because of it's a population of working-class immigrants. And so Chicky

[21:30]got on a munitions ship and snuck into Vietnam with a duffel bag of perhaps blue ribbon and

[21:37]brought perhaps blue ribbon to his best friends who were serving. So last night, all the

[21:43]veterans were together and the actors would start Zach F. Ron, Russell Crowe and Bill Murray.

[21:50]And it is a beautiful film. So I love working on that. I've got another film. I'm speaking all over

[21:58]the world about stoic philosophy, which is such a gift. And I have a new book that I'm working on

[22:03]right now, which is about liminal spaces, the in betweeny time. Amazing. Liminal is such a great

[22:12]word, right? Liminal, I don't know that everyone, you know, uses that word that regularly,

[22:16]but it's such a great concept. Was that also from the Greeks or is it is it last? Yes.

[22:22]Yes. Agree. Gliminal means your threshold at your door. So you are we are standing and it's

[22:33]I tend to write to women. And we often I think our lives change so many times and that that we are

[22:42]I think coming out of we're within a cultural revolution and women are the leaders. And I love that

[22:51]Sanika said every new beginning comes at some other beginnings and totally. So, you know, my kid just

[22:59]went away to college and I am figuring out a whole new life and it's beautiful. And when people are

[23:09]saying, Oh, empty nast, I was like, do I look like somebody who needs a full nast? I mean, I

[23:16]this is the way that mothers know that we've done it right is when we become obsolete when

[23:23]they fly the coup. So I just when I dropped Jack off at school, I said, you know, I gave him a hug and

[23:30]I just just remember your mother was your first home. And now you're out in the world. So

[23:36]absolutely. Karen, because of you, I used that quote for my own daughter at the beginning of her

[23:43]new school year too. This book is just chock full of wisdom and love and just pearls that we can all

[23:50]live by. How can readers find you and connect with you and learn about all of these amazing

[23:56]exciting projects you have going on? Thank you. We have a website called Wise Up Stoic where we have

[24:03]lots of information. If you'd like to read more about stoke philosophy and I met Duffy and YC

[24:10]on Instagram and Twitter and you can find the book anymore. Yeah, absolutely. So you're headed to

[24:17]Greece. You're producing movies. You're working on liminal space, but nothing liminal about this

[24:23]Wise Up, available to readers, irreverent enlightenment from a mother who's been through it. Karen

[24:29]Thank you so much. And just all the best and we are going to keep reading everything you're putting

[24:34]out. Thank you so much, Alison, right back at you. Can't wait to read your next one as well.

[24:39]All the fun. Thank you so very much. Great to meet you. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to this

[24:44]episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at

[24:49]ZB Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at

[24:54]ZB Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every

[24:58]other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you

[25:03]to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.