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can predict the future? I can

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predict you'll like that message. What

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don't have kids. Hmm, you don't say? You're

1:35

listening to How to Be a Better

1:37

Human, I am your host Chris Duffy.

1:40

Today on the podcast, we are talking

1:42

with the host of one of the

1:44

most unique and long-running audio shows around,

1:46

The Memory Palace. Nate DiMeo, who created

1:48

that show, is someone who for me

1:50

really embodies the spirit of curiosity. Nate's

1:52

able to find these deep, powerful meanings

1:55

in stories from the past, and he has

1:57

this superpower where he can tell a true

1:59

story. from hundreds of years ago and make

2:01

it feel completely alive. And at the same

2:04

time, he shines a light on the historical

2:06

context and also the parallels to today. So

2:08

when I think about questions like,

2:10

how do you make sense of the present

2:12

and how do you find wonder in the

2:15

past? There's no one who is better at

2:17

answering those questions in my opinion than Nate

2:19

Di Mayo. And Nate is on the show

2:21

with us today to help us answer those

2:23

questions and so much more. To get started,

2:25

here's a clip from Nate's new audio book,

2:27

which is also titled The Memory Palace. Something

2:29

moved me once. That's how all

2:32

these stories begin for me. Some

2:34

historical something, some fact

2:36

or anecdote came into my

2:38

day, usually unannounced, over the

2:40

radio at a museum, and a

2:42

text from a friend on one of

2:44

the 700 tabs open on my browser,

2:46

or embedded in some larger work, and

2:49

changed it. Somehow managed to cut through

2:51

the were and sputter of life and

2:53

move me. Often I don't know why. That

2:55

fascinates me. Why this story?

2:57

Why this video? Why has some other

3:00

person's experience and memory from some

3:02

other time made their way into

3:05

mind? Why in the rushing, roiling stream

3:07

of information that inundates pretty

3:09

much all of us, pretty

3:11

much every day, pretty much all

3:13

day long, was this bit of the

3:15

past the thing that glinted and caught

3:17

my eye and connected, snapped me

3:19

into presence, filled me with

3:22

wonder? And why was this the thing

3:24

that stayed with me, sometimes for years?

3:26

these things that moved me once.

3:28

So often, I think, the answer

3:30

to that question comes down to

3:32

this. In that moment, I knew that

3:34

that thing about the past was real.

3:36

I got it. I felt that flash

3:39

of connection. I understood that

3:41

that person in the story, or

3:43

who made that object in that

3:45

museum, or who was on my

3:48

screen in some archival footage, Lindy

3:50

hopping, or walking down the street

3:52

with their child on their shoulders,

3:54

had once been alive. As

4:00

you can already tell, Nate is

4:02

able to tell stories from history

4:04

in a way that no one

4:07

else can. He takes these events

4:09

from the past and he uses

4:11

them to snap us more fully

4:13

into the present. We're not

4:16

just learning about history,

4:18

we're also feeling it. I'm

4:20

so excited that we were able to

4:22

get him on the show and have

4:24

him here with us today. are known

4:27

for telling stories about the past in

4:29

the podcast and the book The Memory

4:31

Palace, but you don't approach it as

4:33

a historian. So for someone who is

4:36

new to your work or not necessarily

4:38

familiar with it, how do you think

4:40

about conveying a deeper meaning and

4:42

connection to the past that's not

4:44

really about dates or even necessarily

4:46

facts as much as it is

4:48

about the narrative and the emotions?

4:50

Yeah, I think that it really comes down

4:52

to this sort of initial urge I

4:55

had to start the podcast at all.

4:57

Like all these years ago, I noticed

4:59

that I had become something of a

5:01

history buff without wanting to claim that

5:03

title. You know what I mean? There

5:05

was something about history buff that sounded

5:07

a little bit dad core as a

5:09

younger person, and even as a... dad

5:11

now, and even as like a middle-age

5:13

dad, it still doesn't quite match up.

5:16

And like I am not, you know,

5:18

sort of on the couch of the

5:20

History Channel, or, you know, in the

5:22

den with history books. Like I mostly

5:24

am reading history on the clock. But

5:26

I love movies, and I love novels,

5:28

and I love poetry, and I love

5:30

music, and I discovered that when I

5:32

was a younger person that

5:35

I was really starting to

5:37

find a lot of what

5:39

I loved in those things, like

5:41

on museum tours and on

5:43

like tours of historic homes.

5:45

And often I found that

5:48

historic stuff, historic stories, matched

5:50

up and broadened, you know,

5:52

something that I was already

5:55

fascinated, you know, with the

5:57

way that a dream I

6:00

would have would be in my head,

6:02

the images from that dream would be

6:04

in my head in the same way

6:06

that things that actually happened to me,

6:08

that I realized that one was real

6:10

and one was not, but at the

6:12

same time in my memory, they were

6:14

kind of the same thing. And I

6:16

also noticed in these formative experiences of

6:18

listening to my parents and my grandparents

6:20

tell stories about their past, I was

6:22

noticing that their memories, the things that

6:24

they were sharing with me, kind of

6:26

like lived in my own head. And

6:29

there was some real magic in that.

6:31

The idea that the past, no matter

6:33

how true it is, no matter that

6:35

we can, you know, dig up the

6:37

bones and read through the diaries and

6:39

or even watch the videos of things

6:41

that happened in the past, no matter

6:43

how real they are, where they live

6:45

is in our imagination. There's really been

6:47

this abiding fascination that, you know, that

6:49

exists. in the memory palace and that

6:51

I try to articulate. And the easiest

6:53

way to kind of say it, this

6:55

is a history show that is much

6:57

more about feelings and wonder than it

7:00

is about facts, even though it is

7:02

factual. What is wonder for you? What

7:04

does that mean? Because I think it's

7:06

a really important piece of my experience

7:08

of listening to the memory palace. Let's

7:10

take it this way that it's not

7:12

hard to find out stuff about the

7:14

past. Like it's easier all the time,

7:16

you know, A, if you want to

7:18

look something up, you can just Google

7:20

it, if you want to find out

7:22

what happened in, you know, in Indiana

7:24

or whatever. And it's not difficult for

7:26

me as a professional to, like, think

7:28

of, like, find things that might someday

7:31

be a story. But I learned really

7:33

early on that. in that chaos, in

7:35

like the all the tabs you have

7:37

open and all of the stuff that

7:39

is coming into your feed, or all

7:41

of the facts that you might encounter

7:43

when you're on, you know, a historic

7:45

home tour, or all the things that

7:47

you might learn about Lewis and Clark

7:49

in a seven-hour Ken Bernstein about Lewis

7:51

and Clark, there's going to be something

7:53

in there, if you're lucky, that steps

7:55

out and moves you, that where suddenly

7:57

things crystallize, where it connects deeply with

7:59

something that is in you, whether it

8:02

has triggered. trauma or whether it factors

8:04

into something you've already been like rolling

8:06

around in your head and it helps

8:08

crystallize that. And to me, those moments

8:10

when something kind of reaches out of

8:12

the past here and touches you, you

8:14

know, I never thought to define it

8:16

before, but what wonder is, is something

8:18

that snaps you into presence. You know,

8:20

it's something that like takes you out

8:22

of the kind of word and sputter

8:24

of the day to day and moves

8:26

you. where you have learned something about

8:28

your present because it just matched up

8:30

with something paired with something in the

8:33

past like, oh, in learning this thing

8:35

about Dwight Eisenhower, I've actually learned something

8:37

about my dad or something like that.

8:39

And those moments of connection are both

8:41

the things that drive, you know, my

8:43

work, like I am looking, you know,

8:45

among the millions of different stories one

8:47

could tell about the past. I am

8:49

trying to find the things that move

8:51

me. and then trying to find ways

8:53

to move other people and share that

8:55

experience of wonder, share that experience of

8:57

connection, share that moment when I really

8:59

do understand that the people in the

9:01

past are real people, which despite, you

9:04

know, the banality of that statement is

9:06

also a fairly profound thing. When you

9:08

are really present with this fact, that's

9:10

when wonder can kind of step into

9:12

the room, I guess you would say.

9:14

It's so interesting because how to express

9:16

and how to think about finding the

9:18

thing that is funny, the little seed

9:20

of a comedy piece. And it's really

9:22

cool to talk about this with you,

9:24

because in addition to the incredible work

9:26

that you do as a writer and

9:28

producer and the author of Memory Palace,

9:30

you also. have written for comedy shows.

9:32

You've written for Parks and Rec. So

9:35

you know about this as like a

9:37

professional piece of comedy too, but is

9:39

how do you be really present so

9:41

that you can find the odd little

9:43

detail, the thing that is like a

9:45

tiny bit off, that's the start of

9:47

something funny, that either the observation or

9:49

the emotion or just the weird little

9:51

bit, and it actually sounds like that

9:53

little grit that turns into the pearl

9:55

is the same thing that you're looking

9:57

for when you're finding historical stories as

9:59

well. I think that that's true. The

10:01

process for finding stories, you know, whether

10:03

they're in the book or whether they're

10:06

on the show, is kind of the

10:08

same thing all the time, which is

10:10

I'm just, you know, professionally open to

10:12

history stuff, right? And so I am

10:14

paying attention to it when an interesting

10:16

thing like comes into my feed, you

10:18

know, or I'm reading in a novel

10:20

or some larger work that there's the

10:22

strange detail that just kind of jumps

10:24

out at you. And I'll go off

10:26

and I have a document and I'll

10:28

write those things down. So there's two

10:30

things going on there. One is that

10:32

I have learned to kind of trust

10:34

that if it had jumped out to

10:37

me, then there's some reason. And that

10:39

if I really interrogate... what that is,

10:41

then I might find something within myself.

10:43

And then there's this giant list, and

10:45

it might be dozens and dozens and

10:47

dozens and dozens of, you know, of

10:49

small things, like the first elephant arrived

10:51

in the United States in 1803 or

10:53

whatever. And... Is that a real fact?

10:55

I'm not sure about the date, but

10:57

it is a fact, you know, and

10:59

at some point it did. You know,

11:01

and so there'll be this list of

11:03

things that, you know, just kind of

11:05

sits there. And sometimes I'll be like,

11:08

oh, what am I going to do

11:10

for this episode that's coming up? And

11:12

I will look at that list. And

11:14

there might be dozens and dozens of

11:16

things that at one point, like said,

11:18

oh, that's cool. But they won't mean

11:20

anything to me. Like I will say

11:22

that that elephant thing is ridiculous. Like

11:24

who cares about the elephant thing? And

11:26

so what often I'm doing is I

11:28

am waiting for this factoid, this person's

11:30

biography to allow me to articulate something

11:32

about the present, where suddenly like... this

11:34

story about the first elephant might allow

11:36

me to just kind of explore something

11:39

that is about like the wonders of

11:41

like kind of animal cognition like of

11:43

like living with your dog and like

11:45

knowing them so well but truly not

11:47

knowing what's going on there like let

11:49

me really think about what it meant

11:51

to you know for the person that

11:53

brought the elephant why did they choose

11:55

to bring this creature you know all

11:57

across the world. When they are bringing

11:59

this Indian elephant to the United States,

12:01

like... What are they not doing? What

12:03

are they not loading their cargo hold

12:05

with? What is the economic calculation of

12:07

like, okay, I could have brought this

12:10

all this T, but instead I'm going

12:12

to bring this elephant? Like, let's take

12:14

this thing seriously. Not only do you

12:16

find a story, you'd find something with

12:18

characters and motivations and stuff like that,

12:20

but you start to find, you know,

12:22

resonant things that comes up over and

12:24

over again, but one of things I'm

12:26

just always interested in is the way

12:28

that novelty wears off. And it becomes

12:30

this kind of mundane thing in the

12:32

same way that your phone with its,

12:34

you know, when you first learn how

12:36

to make a bit mogee, you're like,

12:38

oh cool, get a bit mogee. And

12:41

then after a while, not only do

12:43

you not care, after all, you feel

12:45

kind of dumb for even having done

12:47

it. You know, it's not just that

12:49

these are historical stories, and they are

12:51

stories about the wonder of like living

12:53

with the past and living through time,

12:55

living with time. As

13:00

you continue to

13:03

live with time,

13:05

we're going to

13:07

take a little

13:09

bit of it

13:11

right now to go on

13:14

a quick break. We will be

13:16

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every time. Things people love. And

31:03

we are back with Nate Damayo, host

31:05

of the podcast The Memory Palace, and

31:07

author of the book of the same

31:09

name. Nate was just telling us about

31:11

an episode of his show he did

31:13

where he dove into the history of

31:15

Florence Chadwick, whose photo he had stumbled

31:17

across on the wall of a hotel

31:19

bar. So for someone who's listening and

31:21

they're like, I wish that I could

31:23

do something similar, how do you build

31:25

that muscle of creativity to get that

31:27

little photo that you saw and then

31:29

to start? pulling deeper threads out of

31:31

it. And I don't necessarily mean to

31:34

make a public work, but just to

31:36

enrich your own life maybe. How do

31:38

you like find, how do you build

31:40

that muscle of being curious as an

31:42

adult? Because I think kids are really

31:44

good at this. And a lot of

31:46

adults are not. They see that photo

31:48

and they go, huh, maybe that's swam,

31:50

interesting. And then they never think about

31:52

it again. Some of it's like sort

31:54

of a self-knowledge question. And it's about

31:56

sort of like knowing, like, like, like,

31:58

like, like that starts maybe for me

32:00

it started earlier than most or something

32:02

like that because like I do actually

32:04

think that that is the thing about

32:06

me I feel like I've been very

32:08

self interrogating for a very long time

32:10

but what we were talking about in

32:12

terms of like how the idea then

32:15

spurs another thing there is like a

32:17

kernel that I feel like a sort

32:19

of universal in that we are what

32:21

we pay attention to like we are

32:23

what we care about pay attention to

32:25

what you care about it's the kind

32:27

of thing that like you know ten

32:29

poets walk into the same garden you

32:31

know, they're going to come up with

32:33

a bunch of different things because one

32:35

person is really into flowers, one person

32:37

is really into soil, and one person

32:39

really is to like the way that

32:41

light through the leaves. And, and we

32:43

are each unique in our own way,

32:45

that like our attentional lens, like, is

32:47

truly definitional to like our character. It

32:49

comes from trauma, it comes from epiphany,

32:51

it comes from a million different things.

32:53

appealing, like who knows? But it is

32:55

like part of the cultivating, the curiosity,

32:58

begins sort of with yourself. Start to

33:00

pay attention to like what you are

33:02

noticing. Like what is it like within

33:04

your tick-talk feed? Like what are the

33:06

things that like you really wanted to

33:08

turn to your like boyfriend later that

33:10

night and be like... Oh man, I

33:12

saw this incredible thing about this like,

33:14

otter, this otter, like, lives in this

33:16

crazy way. Like, what is it about

33:18

that otter? What's, why is that the

33:20

thing? And when you start to like

33:22

kind of understand, like a little bit

33:24

about, of like the patterns and the

33:26

themes that kind of keep recurring. Like

33:28

there's art to be made there, you

33:30

know, I keep being really interested in

33:32

these people that like figure out mechanical

33:34

stuff And you may well be you

33:36

may well discover that like you're you

33:38

will be the next great inventor of

33:41

conveyor belt technology number But it starts

33:43

with Just noticing what you pay attention

33:45

to and noticing what tickles your brain

33:47

and stuff like that. It's interesting to

33:49

also think about this in light of

33:51

modern technology I mean you brought up

33:53

Tik to and I think social media

33:55

is really big thing. And I just

33:57

want to say, I wouldn't have a

33:59

career if it wasn't for new technologies,

34:01

right? It's not like podcasting existed a

34:03

hundred years ago. So I'm grateful that

34:05

there are new weird technologies that people

34:07

have invented and that it has allowed

34:09

people like you and me to have

34:11

a way to reach people. At the

34:13

same time, some of the ways that

34:15

technologies are optimized are to get our

34:17

attention. And so I feel myself when

34:19

I am more on my phone. that's

34:21

that's not my goal. Yeah, sure. But

34:24

when I am like binging, let's say,

34:26

whatever that means, I feel that my

34:28

attention muscles get a little weaker. Yeah.

34:30

It's harder to pay to pay slow

34:32

quiet attention. So for people, especially young

34:34

people, right, who are dealing with AI,

34:36

with misinformation, with just this whole attention

34:38

economy, how can you allow yourself the

34:40

space to think about the present and

34:42

the past while not becoming some sort

34:44

of, I want to say Luddite, but

34:46

I actually feel like you're going to

34:48

have some sort of really interesting historical

34:50

revelation about what the Luddites were actually

34:52

like. So how can you, without the

34:54

Luddite in the way I mean it?

34:56

Like I could go on and on

34:58

about my own sort of relationship with

35:00

technology and I constantly end up taking

35:02

Instagram off my phone because I actually

35:04

feel like it's also not feeding me

35:07

stuff that's very exciting. Like the algorithm

35:09

just doesn't work very well. For me,

35:11

the key is that what actually bothers

35:13

me is algorithmic thinking. that's okay. Like

35:15

I don't mind like if someone is

35:17

curating stuff and they're firing it at

35:19

me a lot of times like there's

35:21

joy in that there's joy in someone's

35:23

letterbox you know feed but it is

35:25

the fact that like the algorithm like

35:27

is is steering you towards things artificially

35:29

you know because if the memory palace

35:31

is interested in anything it is what

35:33

is the life that has lived between

35:35

this plot points and What the algorithm

35:37

does on some level is it is

35:39

it is only plot points. It is

35:41

only like these are two songs that

35:43

people have said are fantastic and we're

35:45

going to put them back to back

35:48

and they might be fantastic. But if

35:50

you're only following a chain of songs

35:52

that people thought are fantastic then are

35:54

never going to hear the in-between songs

35:56

that might mean more to you. And

35:58

so the thing that bothers me about

36:00

the the Instagram algorithm or the Spotify

36:02

algorithm or any of them, it's not

36:04

that they're feeding you interesting things because

36:06

they probably are. They probably are interesting,

36:08

but it is what life is what

36:10

life we're missing out on by only

36:12

being led in those directions. That is

36:14

fundamental to what I'm trying to do.

36:16

If the memory palace were algorithmic, then

36:18

we would not find Florence Chadwick. I've

36:20

had the experience a few times where

36:22

I've worked on a project for a

36:24

long time and it kind of felt

36:26

like that was my thing. Sure. And

36:28

then for whatever reason, either it ended

36:31

or I decided to move on from

36:33

it and it's a really strange feeling.

36:35

I think it's a really strange feeling.

36:37

I think I'm really lucky that I've

36:39

been together with my wife for long

36:41

enough that she has known me through

36:43

a few of those so she can

36:45

always remind me. Sure. as a fan

36:47

of your work. I'm not in any

36:49

way trying to suggest that you should

36:51

move on from the Memory Palace, but

36:53

I wonder how you personally deal with

36:55

that. As someone who does and has

36:57

many other talents as well, how do

36:59

you personally find that line between here

37:01

is me, Nate DiMio, and here is

37:03

me, the person who makes the Memory

37:05

Palace. The truth of the matter is

37:07

like, I think that a smart thing

37:09

that I, like, when I was in

37:11

my 20s, I was in like, you

37:14

know, a band that literally no one

37:16

knows that like got to open up

37:18

for our favorite bands for like a

37:20

year and a half in Providence. But

37:22

it was this wonderful thing like to

37:24

be in this band. You know loved

37:26

it. It was like a number of

37:28

different things I was attempting to achieve

37:30

a bunch like it was a great

37:32

lesson to like to meet some of

37:34

your heroes and like realize that they're

37:36

just people like all these things were

37:38

very important to me. But there was

37:40

a point where the band broke up

37:42

because bands break up and like the

37:44

dream would have been like a There

37:46

was just a sort of moment in

37:48

my life where I was like, well,

37:50

what do you do next? I was

37:52

like, listen, like, let me really think

37:54

about what I love about doing this

37:57

thing about being in this band. Like

37:59

I like making art. I love hanging

38:01

out with my friends. I love the

38:03

possibility that we might travel. I love

38:05

having, working really hard on something and

38:07

then having it go out into the

38:09

world, like performing the show. And I'm

38:11

like, is there a way without just

38:13

getting some other band to achieve some

38:15

of those things? And I started to

38:17

find over time that a lot of

38:19

those things were embodied in public radio.

38:21

Like, I could travel. I could make

38:23

these little beautiful things that I, you

38:25

know, could like fuss over and then

38:27

it's just over, you know. And I

38:29

could collaborate. And there were just a

38:31

number of different things, but I kind

38:33

of like set this idea that like,

38:35

all you can really do. is you

38:38

just gotta like, it's like you have

38:40

a flashlight. You shine it out front

38:42

and like you go in this direction

38:44

and anything outside of this flashlight, you

38:46

can't do it because it's out there

38:48

in the darkness. But you just have

38:50

to cast a wide enough beam and

38:52

start walking. And hopefully, you know, if

38:54

you set your goal straight, like anything

38:56

that happens within that beam is probably

38:58

gonna be pretty cool. It might like

39:00

lead you to that next thing. And

39:02

so I just kept. Like had these

39:04

in the back of my head that

39:06

there were just some things that I

39:08

wanted like I wanted like an art

39:10

project with an audience like I would

39:12

wanted to like want to do something

39:14

publicly like was important for me to

39:16

like kind of test myself against the

39:18

world and not be too hermetic and

39:21

stuff like that and At some point

39:23

I stumbled onto the the format of

39:25

the memory palace that there was like

39:27

that I'd always been interested in small

39:29

things and pop songwriting and like always

39:31

wanted to have something where I could

39:33

move from thing to thing and not

39:35

have to be an expert in anything

39:37

and like get to know a lot

39:39

of different stuff and at some point

39:41

I just had stumbled realize that I

39:43

had achieved that that in that the

39:45

memory palace itself even though It's a

39:47

very basic, you know, it's the same

39:49

format every single time, it's just me

39:51

talking over music, like, or me just

39:53

writing a short story for the book,

39:55

finding a couple of pictures. That for

39:57

as small as it was, that it

39:59

was kind of like writing songs, that

40:01

like, whether the chorus goes on, whether

40:04

you're repeat the course twice or whatever,

40:06

like it becomes a fundamentally different thing,

40:08

even though it's just a thing with

40:10

a four, four beat that lasts between

40:12

two and a half and five minutes.

40:14

And I was doing the same thing,

40:16

but like it was infinitely reconfigurable. And

40:18

in the same way that like people

40:20

are still writing songs, different ways to

40:22

talk about, you know, romantic love, like

40:24

the past is a big enough subject.

40:26

And the format is flexible enough. It

40:28

is sort of like a vessel that

40:30

is, that I've discovered is just kind

40:32

of like capacious enough to hold whatever

40:34

I pour into it and like whatever

40:36

I want to talk about. I mean,

40:38

I'm sure at some point I'll do

40:40

it less frequently or it will wax

40:42

and wane. But there is a version

40:44

where I'm doing some version of the

40:47

memory palace and whatever that might be.

40:49

And whether it's in some different format

40:51

or in some different form, you know,

40:53

we are who we pay attention to.

40:55

you know, change that much about what

40:57

I pay attention to. Well, Nate Damayo,

40:59

thank you so much for being on

41:01

the show. This was seriously a fantastic

41:03

conversation. I'm so glad we were able

41:05

to do it. Thank you so much.

41:07

That is it for this episode of

41:09

How to Be a Better Human. Thank

41:11

you so much to today's guest, Nate

41:13

Damayo. His podcast is called The Memory

41:15

Palace, and his book is also called

41:17

The Memory Palace. The audio clip that

41:19

you heard up top was excerpted courtesy

41:21

of Penguin Random random random random- random

41:23

house audio. I am your host Chris

41:25

Duffy, and you can find more from

41:27

me, including my weekly newsletter and other

41:30

projects, at Chris Duffy comedy.com. How to

41:32

be a better human is put together

41:34

by a team who live inside of

41:36

an audio palace. On the TED side,

41:38

we've got historical icons, Daniela Balaoresoe, Ben

41:40

Ben Chen, Chloe, Shasha, Brooks, Laney Lott,

41:42

Antonio Lay, and Joseph DeBrien. This episode

41:44

was fact-checked by Julia Dickerson and Matthias

41:46

Salus, who makes sure that we are

41:48

keeping the record books accurate. On the

41:50

PRX side, they are a team whose

41:52

work will live for Eons, Morgan Flannery,

41:54

Norgill, Patrick Grant, and Jostlin Gonzales. And

41:56

of course, thanks to you for listening.

41:58

Please share this episode with someone who

42:00

you think would enjoy it. We will

42:02

be back next week. with even more

42:04

how to be

42:07

a better human.

42:11

Until

42:13

then, thanks

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