Tim Dillon on Charles Bukowski's advice of "Don't Try" | Lex Fridman Podcast Clips 

We're all going to die, all of us; what a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities. We are eaten up by nothing. - Charles Bukowski -

‘I didn’t need Gary vaynerchuck to tell me to do my thing’. I love this guy lmao, just real.

Amidst all the positive and uplifting messages, Tim Dillon has found a place reminding us that we're not all special in the most agreeable way possible.

Tim Dillon hit the nail on head. Bukowski wrote for 2 decades before he could make a living off of his writings. He failed more times then He could count. What kept him going wasn't a Gary vee saying. Grind!

Marcus Aurelius in meditations says the secret to happiness is just to do less. He advocates just focusing on a few things to stay happy.

Excellent point by Tim. Lex's "I like robots, I followed my dream and became successful" does not work when you look at his background. He comes from a family of academics and his passions were supported.

I remember being extremely passionate about the arts in grade school and then when it came to "pick a career" everyone was shocked when I said I wanted to be an actor. "Be practical. Be realistic." That still blows my mind. Your generation encouraged us to follow our dreams but then when we pick something you love you say "not like that". Thanks for pointing this out Tim. I prefer "don't try"

"Don't try" is a road map and soundboard for recognizing your true passion. "Don't try" underscores, "if this is work then move on". He gave us a flashlight. I believe he spent his life gifting us with words. It makes sense his last ones would be a gift as well.

My interpretation of "don't try" is that he is saying if you're going to dedicate yourself to something, it should be something you could do for hours without it being work. Hence, you do not try. He also said, "If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start". If you are going through something that you cannot bring yourself to complete, you should never have started, much less continue. Don't try doesn't mean things are going to be bad anyways so don't put your effort into a system that doesn't work. While there is truth to that, that's just not what he is saying at all.

“Dedication without talent is meaningless” -Bukowski

I can't read Bukowski's mind, but the "Don't Try" slogan seems to me to be a reference to probably his most famous poem, "Roll the Dice" if you’re going to try, go all the way. otherwise, don’t even start. if you’re going to try, go all the way. this could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs and maybe your mind. go all the way. it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days. it could mean freezing on a park bench. it could mean jail, it could mean derision, mockery, isolation. isolation is the gift, all the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. and you’ll do it despite rejection and the worst odds and it will be better than anything else you can imagine. if you’re going to try, go all the way. there is no other feeling like that. you will be alone with the gods and the nights will flame with fire. do it, do it, do it. do it. all the way all the way. you will ride life straight to perfect laughter, it’s the only good fight there is.

Perfect cut-off to make me go over and watch the whole interview. Love Tim and Lex...

I also take the quote "Don't Try" to mean "Don't force it". If you aren't obsessively writing constantly, then "don't try" to be a writer because you'll never make it without enough obsession. Be what you are naturally.

"Dream in a pragmatic way" - Aldous Huxley... I think this is pretty much what Tim Dillion was saying.

Find your bliss, follow it, don't push it and it will flow. He was referring to writing, the creative flow comes when it comes. Ask any songwriter, their best stuff just happened spontaneously.

Lex, your questions are truly phenomenal. You have this wonderful way of viewing guests as opportunities. Every time you open your mouth there is so much deliberation in what you’re thinking. Makes your podcast really enjoyable and fresh, as you’re genuinely trying to dig and be curious. It’s funny how Tim sees himself as not fitting into your world, as I feel you both have a great energy about you that seems to compliment well.

Don't try if your trying for a end-goal. Try if the act of trying is the goal.

I love the way in which Tim Dillon just kept it real. He's right some people might follow their dreams and succeed at making them a reality. But most people, no matter how hard they try, they never reach their ultimate goals. I'm one of these people. I went for my dreams and failed. But, i know that i gained so much as well. 😉

I find Tim not only funny, but spot on with a lot of his insights.

I understand this Bukowski quote like this: Do, as doing is an act of faith. To try, on the other hand, is to expect failure.

Lex wearing his suit while Tim wear an oversized Polo Sport t-shirt is an underrated aspect of this intellectual interview

Don’t try could also mean “just do”

Love this interview!! I'm 55 and I wish I heard this content at 25!

God damn Tim is spitting the absolute truth. It’s very easy for somebody like Lex that is smart and talented to lose sight of the fact that very few people share those attributes. People need to find a career that is useful and they don’t hate doing. And just work on that. You can pursue “your dreams” in your spare time.

Needed to hear this today. I Appreciate you RU-vid algo.

Great talk, keep up the great content brother!

The "you can be anything you want to be" phrase is not necessarily wrong, but leaves out a lot of caveats. The key emphasis imo is on "want", which is in reality constrained by environmental, social and personal factors which shape this into a specific selection of possible options. Then it's up to your effort and whatever circumstances align to make one (or several) of these happen

The problem is the alternative, which is potential regret when you didn't try out your dreams. This problem can be formulated as the exploration/exploitation problem with a certain regret or loss function, which is also the multi arm bandit problem.

I'm only six and seven years younger than Tim and Lex. I received a lot of the "follow your dreams" and "you can be anything you want" rhetoric they got, which may have been in its waning days. I also got the beginning of "you're amazing the way you are" messaging, which is completely destructive; it's such a passive and defeatist attitude, especially for people who don't currently have much or who don't feel personally fulfilled. It's like 'really, this is the best it gets? If I'm already amazing and all?' I think its intention was some form of empowerment, but a much better empowering message is about taking charge of your life, forcing yourself to improve your station, responsibility, etc.

That is spot on. Following dreams that are realistic. I am 4,,'11" the NBA or NFL is not realistic. That is ridiculous only to point out that fits any situation. Thank you Tim Dillon. For saying that.

It seem the conversation veered off into something else. I would say Bukowski's advice "Don't Try" refers to don't try to succeed but just do the thing. Love the process. He talked a lot about how all he wanted to do was to be able to pay bills and be at home alone and write while listening to classical music, drinking, smoking cigars. Bukowski loved it. He never wanted fame. But our economic system, capitalism, turned art into a profession. It raises up certain people to celebrity status in order to dangle carrots. It's all a freak show. Bukowski wasn't saying anything we haven't already thought within our own minds, and you find this a lot. Most of the people who we are attracted to are saying things we relate to, meaning we already know these things, but the industry creates celebrities and lavish aesthetic lifestyles for us to chase. So now we have a flooded market of people trying really hard, trying really hard to not have to work a soul sucking job, and it's producing an algorithmic level of art that has nothing to say. It's just aesthetic and trend. Theodore Adorno also discusses this, he calls it the "Culture Industry". The economic system turned art from a spiritual reward, something you can do as a process and find some kind of inner peace at, into some kind of entertainment. When you need money to survive, it has perverted everything into this artificial thing. Don't try, get a job, pay your bills, and do the "art" or "passion" on the side out of love and spiritual offering or whatever. If you love to sit down at night and do crosswords, doodle, play music, but don't try and turn that into a profession because you inevitably fall into trying to please an audience because you need money to survive. We have perverted "art".

A further testiment which I think lives in tandem with "Don't Try" is what Bukowski wrote in his poem "So you want to be a Writer?" "If you have been chosen it will do it itself, and it will keep on doing it until you die, or it dies in you" That's what I'm fucking talking about. A raw way of saying, in my opinion, that your muse chooses you, be that a creative endeavour or otherwise, and that you have little to no power over that which grips you in a profound way. Furthermore, to pursue something where that calling in you is absent is to disregard and dishonour the greatest potential in you (which god only knows the extent to where that could lead you in life), which can only be attained by committing yourself to that which you are truly and instinctually with.

Totally agree with Lex. My parents told me security was the most important thing and dissuaded me from following my dreams which resulted in me holding down multiple miserable jobs. Follow your passion and work harder than you think your capable of to make it your reality is what I’ll teach my kids.

I swear to God if another youtube ad comes along and kicks me out of the comment section

Tim is hilarious and really bright. Love listening to him. Mike Rowe had a wonderful TED talk where he destroyed the notion that you should do what you love. And Tim’s Gary V take is spot on.

When it comes to writing, some moments I've experienced are blissful beyond the ability of words to describe. The story transcends just me, my fingers, my wants for approval or money, fame of some sick kind or other. He speaks of writing as the goal and the journey, the path and the tool, the medicine and the sickness. "Don't try" seems more like his work I just caught on another channel called "So You Want To Be A Writer" where he says only to be one if it's natural beyond sense and effortless. Many lay over empty doc files and sweat, bleed from their eyes like Hemmingway. He seems to think they're wasting their time. Interesting stuff. Hope whoever reads this is well.

Better video title for SEO: "Tim Dillion rips apart Gary Vaynerchuk"

"You can be anything that you want to be." I've always hated this passionately. Thankfully someone I love like Tim does too.

I think another thing we all need to keep in mind is that you always should have a backup plan in a field that you like. It might not be as glamorous or as benefitting as the dream job, but if its something you can do every day that provides stability and eight/nine times out of ten you LIKE showing up to that job, life becomes way less of a struggle. Easier said than done I know, but too many times I've seen people go all in on one thing and think of absolutely nothing else and then end up absolutely miserable because they didnt have a backup plan.

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." --War Games

I like Bukowski. He also reminded us you have to die a few times before you can live. For me his 'Don't Try' is in the vein of Wu Wei. When you are doing that which you are made to do you don't have to try, it's just what you do. That doesn't mean it wont be hard you just go with the hard. If you seem to be trying too hard then maybe you are not doing what you are supposed to be doing.

Love it! I am a maintenance worker and don’t aspire to anything greater than contentment.

As long as I’ve been a fan of you and Tim I can’t believe I never watched this. Thank you sincerely.

Lex could you do a question on what is solitude or discuss that in an AMA? I feel like it is really satisfying and yet I have no clue what it is

These two have great conversations

I admire Tim's high tolerance for people thinking he is a scumbag.

this was like an amalgamation of everything in my feed into one video

"so speaking of fun people that want to die..." *panics at lowering volume while at work*

Hey Tim Dillon. Most people are not encouraged. Encouragement is a precious resource.

"Don't try" refers to advice for young writers. It is a Rorschach test. If you're a writer don't try will be interpreted as something yodaesque "there is no try, do or do not" if you're not a writer, you will interpret it as being told to give up. Bukowski was tricky like this and loved to F with people who asked him for advice on how to become a writer.

Bukowski is dope

Tim is all truth! We need more Tims in this world

I never got the whole follow your dreams movement for kids. When you're a kid you dont know what the world is or what you want. As you get more experience in life, you start to see what excites you, what you are good at, though a lot of people are so preoccupied with other trivial things in life they never look inwards or realize their talents. Pursuing the thing you are good at is more important than pursuing a passion. Sometimes they line up, sometimes not, but that doesnt mean you cant get fulfillment from a job well done, no matter what it is.

Heart-felt give-ups all around.

Wow that was one of the most intelligent, civilized, and interesting exchanges I've ever heard on here.

when you're following your passion, effort becomes effortless. this is what it means not to try.

If you want to be successful at wiping your ass you have to try. Maybe find the thing that's easy and do it until it's hard and then do it until you collapse. Doing the easy thing isn't passion. Loving something until you hate it is. "Without passion, there is nothing." -John Waters

This is some of the best advice ive heard this year.

The thing is is that we hear the success stories but we never hear the failures

Finally someone talking about Charles.

My own little theory: if you’re truly passionate about something, you’d go out of your way to practice/learn whatever it is you love. You wouldn’t have to “try” to get yourself to learn more about what it is you truly love. With that amount of practice, care and attention, how could you fail, really? You’re taking your time to learn the ins and the outs of whatever it is you love, more so than other people who are “trying”. You’ll truly stand out if that’s the case. Hardest pill for me to swallow: It’s much easier to take on a shitty corporate job and get that stable monthly salary than to really find what it is that you’re truly passionate about.

I think it’s important to have a dream. I don’t think that dream necessarily has to be huge. For some people making a good living and having a family is their dream. Feeling like you’ve settled for a life that you don’t particularly like or enjoy, that’s exhausting.

I think he just means if you have to try to be good at something then its not coming naturally and you probably don't want to do it anyway its a way of finding yourself and what you should do

Follow your dreams - is the best 3 worded advice or any advice that you could ever be told - however the elements in effect are - does the person have dreams - if they do, do they believe in their dreams (do they believe its possible to make it a reality) and finally - will your parents support you on your way to your dreams or will they laugh at you every step of the way that you fall? every single person is made different

Yoda said the same thing. I take it mean, if trying and effort are the only reasons you're doing something, pursuing the interest had been lost. Work as hard as you can, but on something that compels it from you

The real lesson to success is this; Once you achieve stability and discipline, then you can follow your dreams.

Tim is literally the only person who calls out the scam artist dorks Gary V and the rest of those types of guys

2 years late but I might actually watch this full episode

Tim’s 100% right - it’s dangerous- we all know many people that could never achieve their unrealistic “dreams”. In a world of unicorns they’d say they always dreamt of being a cow.

This one was particularly good

If the left and right hemispheres of my brain made a podcast together, Tim and Lex would be the hosts.

1:25 Important shit!

Tim makes some good points. Follow dreams and believing anyone can possess or learn the skills of potential capability is delusional. It is bad advice if you look through the lenses of a different view point, perspective, and different context. It can be motivational and constructive but in mass, most fail then succeed

I woke up in the Philadelphia train station at 16, woken by a cop banging his stick against the bench. Walked into the bookshop and saw "Love Is a Dog from Hell." It changed my life because so many ppl told me the poetry I wrote was unpublishable and too vulgar. I read this book and realized I might not have been vulgar enough.

"Do or do not... there is no try"- Yoda

I love how the end of the clip suggests: why the fuck did you even invite me to your robot thing, I hate math...

Tim Dillon with THE AVALON scrappy Coco haircut

I love that advice

When Tim doesn't wear a polo he wears a t shirt that says polo

"Don't 'try' to hit me Neo, hit me" There is your answer Lex. It's a very Zen Buddhist and very 50s/60s beatnik attitude which Bukowski would have appreciated.

"Don't Try" is a double entendre. There's also the figure of a boxer on his tombstone. It means both don't try, in the grand overall existential sense, but also more immediately in the here and now, don't try me, don't mess with me, you don't want this smoke, etc.

Dreams are a grate motivator to get things done.

The last statement Brendan Schaub begs to differ man willed a comedy career with absolutely no comedic talent.

Spot on

His quote only is for men of steels who Embrace win and loss with a smile on their face . They don’t value success based on end result but on manly struggle they put in

Well said

I so agree with this. And the original poem. I'm an artist who makes a living at what I do and if I didn't HAVE to do it, I'd never have made it. I've met more talented people in my life than I, and most opted for something safer and more consistent. They lament to me now, but they do it while owning a house and a hefty 401k.

Life is a process, that process is entirely different for every person. All we can do is search for meaning 🙏

Nothing fails like success.

"Somebody asked me: "What do you do? How do you write, create?" You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks, you make a pet out of it." - Charles Bukowski

Most dreams IMO are just peoples fantasies of being loved. I think you can tell if something is a dream vs a passion (dream being love of what a pursuit can get you vs love of the pursuit) by whether you actually enjoy doing the thing minus the reception or rewards you get from others.

I tried to follow my dreams but when I bit into my house it didn't taste like cookies😢

Chuck lives in my head. I make my bed every morning. I don't like to do it necessarily, but I do it anyway because I like getting into a made bed at night. In addition to "Don't try" Bukowski also said something like, "Show me a man who makes his bed everyday and I'll show you a man who doesn't have a soul." I think of this phrase often when I'm making my bed and I say to myself, "Nope, sorry Chuck...just gotta do it." Sometimes later in the day I'll pop a beer and say to myself, "Well, here's to you, fucker," and I'll swill it. Maybe he'd like that, but it's more likely that he wouldn't give a shit. LOL

"Let me push back..." "Lots of people do!" hahaha

As someone thatll descripe myself an artist in every way, I know exactly what Bukowski is reffering to. If I want to paint I cant. When I dont neccessarily want to, I have to. When I have no inspiration im not trying...it just flows occasionally and define the media. And no...I dont make any money or is a world champion in anything. When im inspired its basically out of my hands

Choose something and go forward

Excellent

Damn I just found out about Larry, RIP in peace

I'm always amazed when Tim comes in with something smart... that sounds bad, I know, but thats what I like about him. He is smart, but can be dumb in the same note.

I can only stand to listen to Lex is 1.5x speed