Disrupting Expectations with Skye Cleary

Exploring Love, Freedom, and Authenticity with philosopher Skye Cleary Andrea Hiott speaks with Skye Cleary, a philosopher at Columbia University, about existentialism, love, and authenticity. They delve into Simone de Beauvoir's influential ideas, questioning societal expectations, and the concept of authentic love as mutual recognition of two freedoms. Skye shares her personal journey, from challenging traditional roles to embracing unique paths, including her experiences in the army, management consulting, and academia. This episode provides insights into living a reflective life, pushing beyond societal norms, and finding genuine connection in relationships.

#existentialism #loveandphilosophy #expectations #philosophy #Beauvoir #sartre #skyecleary #andreahiott

00:00 Introduction to Beauvoir and Sartre's Influence

00:13 Exploring Authentic Love and Personal Choices

01:05 Welcome and Guest Introduction

01:28 Skye Cleary's Background and Works

03:23 Discussion on Expectations and Personal Story

05:17 Questioning Life's Expectations

09:33 Discovering Existential Philosophy

18:04 Challenging Relationship Norms

28:27 Exploring the Concept of Choice and Freedom

29:49 The Role of Agency in Shaping Our Lives

31:02 Reflecting on Life's Path and Societal Expectations

33:37 The Importance of Reflection and Philosophical Inquiry

35:02 Beauvoir's Optimistic Existentialism

37:55 Balancing Individual and Societal Expectations

44:44 The Dynamics of Romantic and Authentic Love

48:56 Challenges and Realities of Parenthood

52:32 Mutual Recognition and Expanding Perspectives

01:00:16 Concluding Thoughts on Love and Freedom

https://skyecleary.com/

Skye on Twitter: https://x.com/Skye_Cleary

Skye on Instagram:   / skye_cleary  

Skye on LinkedIn:   / skyecleary  

Buy the book! How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment: https://us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

Existentialism and Romantic Love: https://link.springer.com/book/10.105...

Love and Philosophy substack: https://lovephilosophy.substack.com/

Community Philosophy Way and Lifeworld: https://communityphilosophy.substack....

Beyond Dichotomy started as research conversations towards noticing the patterns that connect across traditional divides. When I started my studies, there was so much I wanted to explore that I was told I shouldn't explore because it didn't fit into this or that discipline, but having studied and worked in so many fields, those barriers no longer made sense. The same felt true relative to passions and love. So I decided to open myself to all of it beyond traditional distinctions, towards learning and development. This podcast is where those voices gather together in one space as I try and notice the patterns that connect. It's part of my life work and research, but it's also something I hope to share with you and to invite you to share your perspective and position. Thank you for being here. The main goal is to have conversations across disciplines to understand how our approach to life and cognition might address some of the urgent divides we face today. By love and philosophy, I mean the people, passions, and ideas that move us, shape the trajectories of our lives, and co-create our wider social landscapes. Partly due to my trajectory in philosophy, technology, & the cognitive sciences, I’m hoping to better observe binary distinctions in our academic & personal lives: What positive roles have these structures played? How might rethinking these structures & their parameters open new paths & ecological potentials? Thank you for being here.

TRANSCRIPT:

Disrupted Expectations: Existential Life and Love with Simone de Beauvoir and Skye Cleary

Skye Cleary: [00:00:00] that's what I appreciated about Bouvoir and Sartre. That's what Bouvoir opened up for me, like a way to, you know, think that it's okay to challenge expectations or at least question them. And, if you go back to the expectation, that's, that's fine. At least you've thought it through.

her concept of authentic love was really something that captured me this idea, as you say, of authentic love being, the mutual recognition of, of two freedoms

I could choose to stop loving. I'm like, if, if, if I can choose to stop loving, why can't I choose to start loving? So that was one of the questions that was consuming me.

I was reminded of Frederick Nietzsche with who was like, one of the important things is to say yes to life, to leap in and to affirm life, to affirm that we're here, that to affirm our choices in a strong way.

And that kind of clicked for me in marriage. And I'm like, I want to say yes. I want to, you know, try this path, see where it goes and yeah, [00:01:00] let's, let's leap in, let's, let's do it

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to love and philosophy. Today, I'm speaking with Skye Cleary. She's a philosopher at Columbia university. And I want to say thanks to Scott Barry Kaufman of the psychology podcast. Yeah, which you should definitely listen to, if you haven't already because he put sky and I touch and I'm so glad he did.

Andrea Hiott: It's a wonderful conversation. And I learned so much from her books, the ones I read and that we discuss. Here or that frame, this conversation are Existentialism and Romantic Love. And then the second is How to Be Authentic which is about Simone de Beauvoir and the quest for fulfillment. This is a a bold beautiful expression of a lot of philosophical ideas in everyday real life language. Skye is not afraid to talk about our own personal life in certain [00:02:00] sense. As I discuss here, I had certain expectations of what maybe her life was like. And the more I started reading the books, the more I realized I had. Really wrong expectations. And we talk about that about. How. She did a lot of things that maybe people didn't expect from her, like becoming a Lieutenant in the army, for example. Learning TaeKwonDo, not only learning it, but excelling at it. All these kinds of things, that defy expectations, so to speak, but then make you realize that why did you have those expectations in the first place?

Where did those come from? Which I find a fascinating turn of thought and one, we certainly need more of. So check out her books if you haven't already. And I hope you enjoy this conversation and that some of the places we go here. Feel familiar to you or open up something for you and resonate in a way that will [00:03:00] add something to your day. Thank you for being here.

Hello, Skye. Good morning to New York. Thank you so much for being here today.

Skye Cleary: Hi, Andrea. Thanks so much for having me.

Andrea Hiott: Um, I've been Walking around, listening to you on audio books and, reading your stuff lately. And there's so much I would love to get into, but we've got about an hour. So I do want to start with your personal story I wonder when you were growing up. Did you feel a lot of expectation coming from the people around you, but also, you know, maybe putting it on yourself? That word, expectation I just want to start with that word and what comes to mind early in your life.

Skye Cleary: Yeah

for sure. I definitely did grow up with a lot of expectations on me. And, I mean, I think we all do. Um, and, uh, you know, Simone de Beauvoir, I'll jump right in, calls this, uh, sedimentation. So, you know, as we grew up, we, there are things that we [00:04:00] collect and, you know, which include one of the big ones is expectations. That's, you know, shape, they don't necessarily determine completely who we are, but they definitely shape who we become in, in, um, sometimes very strong ways. so. Yeah, I, I did grow up with, um, expectations and, um, with respect to, say, love where I just assumed that I would, um, you know, fall in love, uh, get married, have babies, live happily ever after.

That was sort of my internalized expectation. Why

was that your expectation? Was it coming from just culture? You grew up in Australia, right?

Yeah, and I think Australian culture is fairly similar to American culture in, in many ways. And yeah, we have these influences of, yeah, pop culture, movies, romantic comedies, um, and you know, I, I guess I watched a lot of them, but also, um, from family [00:05:00] expectations, it was just X.

It's what my parents did. It's what everyone was doing. It's what we were all expected to do. And, that was just sort of the, the life trajectory. Oh, that was the formula for a happy life that was, was laid out for me.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, I understand that. I guess what I'm trying to get at is how aware you were of it and when you became aware of it, um, because we all do grow up with expectations and they're different, but sometimes our parents or our caretakers say, hey, this is what we want from you, or they give you little nudges.

In the case of my family, I, quite young, they were already sort of giving me these little code words of, marriage or when you have kids and all of this. So , you just kind of assume that's the path you have to take. But at some of us and quite often a lot of the philosophers that you talk about and write about and, you yourself in different ways, we push against those or we start to question them and we start to develop a different kind of agency about them.

So what I'm trying to understand is when you started to Think about that.

Skye Cleary: Yeah, I guess. [00:06:00] For a long time, I was like, just sort of accepted them and didn't really question them.

But it it wasn't until like I was in my twenties, I think that I really looked around and I sort of thought, okay, well. Look at all these people getting divorced. Look at all these people in unhappy marriages. And so I started having a lot of questions about whether that's Um, I think that the formula for a good life and a fulfilling life and whether that was the point because, um, you know, I, I saw that, you know, so many, relationships, they weren't happy.

They, there wasn't the one because, you know, there were lots of other people. Um, who they would date after who I would date after them. Like, how do I know this boyfriend is the one like, what's the criteria? How do we judge that? Um, and so, yeah, it was really, I guess, certainly once I started dating, there was some questioning, but it wasn't until [00:07:00] kind of, you know, I got to my mid twenties when there was pressure from people around me, like, Oh, when you get married, what do you, what do you think about grandkids?

You better not leave it too long. Like, I know

Andrea Hiott: those words.

Skye Cleary: People saying, Oh, 28 is the best age to get married. Oh yeah,

Andrea Hiott: yeah, yeah. In your twenties, definitely before you're 30, you know, it's like, okay, okay. Nobody means harm really with it either. And a lot of it's their own expectations that were given to them.

And then you just kind of pass this stuff along, but some of us end up questioning it and shifting it a bit. And that's the interesting point. Of course we're going to talk about authenticity and Simone de Beauvoir and you write about existentialism and this, that's all tied up with these wonderful, questionings of that kind of stuff.

But as you were talking, I was thinking about how my own parents didn't have, this kind of relationship, and you see the pain and the heartache and the breakup. I don't know if you're, maybe your parents are still together, but I saw that and a lot of us do see that and then you can't help but question it in a way. When you're looking around and [00:08:00] seeing all this on a personal level, was it, did you start to think about it in terms of, uh, like, was it hurting you? Was it uncomfortable or was it more like you had a kind of a step back? I know at some point we'll get into your own relationships, romantic relationships, but I wonder if you remember that thought process at all, like how it felt, if it felt intimate or if it felt away from you, like you were already a philosopher in a way.

Skye Cleary: well I I'm not sure if I was a philosopher, but I was questioning. I think what it really came to a crux when I had one boyfriend who was very controlling and had very strong ideas about, um, how our relationship should be and, and what I should be doing. And, And, you know, for example, sort of not doing a PhD.

A step back in my career to make space for marriage and babies and things like this. And it was really sort of, that was kind of a really [00:09:00] difficult relationship for me. And I found that these sort of the weight of these expectations on me at that time were extremely demanding, but I felt this internal.

Resistance towards it. I'm like, I know this is wrong and I know this is not right for me, but you know, how do I, how do I explain it? How do I put it into a language? Um, that is as meaningful. How do I put it into language? It's meaningful in the context of, of this society. And that was sort of a real tension that I, I really struggled with for quite a while.

Um, and then sort of at that time was, , when I started discovering the existential philosophy.

Andrea Hiott: Well, this is to get to my expectations of you, right? So of course I didn't even know I had expectations, but just having seen things associated with you, Columbia University and this and that, and and I had this idea of this path of being a philosopher and I'd kind of put it on you. And then I started actually reading, How to be Authentic. [00:10:00] And you start talking about, you were doing stock trading and you were, doing a business degree and all of this.

So I was like, Whoa, what? Okay. This is unusual because that's not the typical philosophical route. Not that there is one again, but I would love to hear about, you know, Like, how did this all happen? And I think this also coincides with your meeting, finding the existentialist, as you said, and especially Beauvoir.

Skye Cleary: Yeah, I guess I'll preface this by saying, you know, one of the things I discovered early on, like at university when I did join the sort of the Australian Army Reserves is that I kind of enjoyed, um, disrupting exercises. Me because I'm, you know, fairly, uh, you know, on the petite side and, you know, nobody, and, you know, I had trouble like the machinery and stuff.

And, you know, I didn't look like the sort of person you would, um, that would be in the army reserves. And I also, I, I got a black belt in Taekwondo. I didn't look like that sort of person either. Um, and so [00:11:00] I kind of, um, I don't know, maybe got some. some kind of pleasure out of, you know, not being what people expected.

Andrea Hiott: I'm really glad you brought that up because I I wondered if you were kind of rebellious, early on, or if you just liked, Discovering the other side of things or, you know, I talk a lot about beyond dichotomy and I started to notice this in your, in your, in your book , there's something about doing what might not be expected or exploring the other side. I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but yeah.

Skye Cleary: I wouldn't say I was rebellious in any classic sense. In fact, in some ways I was kind of conforming. But I think in many ways, like, you know, I like what you said about exploring the other side. And I think I did enjoy that exploring. You know, little, um, in, in these kinds of ways, like who I could be or trying, trying on different personalities.

I was going to say that, but that's a bit of a cliche, just trying [00:12:00] different things with my life to see, see where I could take them. So I think that's, I think that what you said there is a really nice way of summing that up. That resonated. It also

Andrea Hiott: resonates, I think, with. It's Beauvoir and transcendence and the way, I feel like you show it too in the way you write about her and in your own work, but she's opening up the space between those either ors through I think what you call like projects too sometimes so that you don't self sabotage yourself and there's this, also the way that you talk about transcendence as being almost like a perspectival shift or something.

There's some kind of practice in there that's feels really important to me and I think is important in our lives. Because when I look at your life, it looks like those are. I mean, everyone's life would look that way, but there, there are really important moments there when you can look at things from a different perspective, right? And that's connected with agency

Skye Cleary: yeah. And that's, I, I really, um, appreciate that you brought up the transcendence, you know, overcoming the fear. Or stretching yourself beyond the facts of your [00:13:00] existence beyond your, you know, the path that you meant to go down.

And, you know, even though I was, I think, stretching myself in, in these ways of, you know, army reserve and, and, um, Taekwondo and things like that, you know, I was doing Taekwondo cause my brother did it first and I was doing the army reserve because I, I think my uncle did it or something. So I was still in some ways, Trading that path of not what was expected, but, you know, what was familiar and open to me.

And, you know, I appreciate that, appreciate that about my parents that they sort of pointed out these possible paths, um, and, and as you say, you know, that, that was a very kind of, it's a Bavarian thing in many ways. And she, uh, being a woman writing philosophy in the 19 sort of 30s, 40s, 50s was always challenging that kind of, uh, narrative of what a woman is, is Expected to do, which is more, you know, be tends to be more, you know, keep quiet, stay to themselves, not, not disrupt too many things.

But [00:14:00] of course at that time I didn't really know who Simone de Beauvoir was. I didn't discover her until much later we have to get

Andrea Hiott: to that. There's two things we kind of opened up that we we haven't unpacked yet.

You, you talked about joining the, I would say the army, you became a lieutenant, which is another like surprise when I'm reading your book yeah, so I hadn't said that yet.

You, you mentioned it, but that, that was another one of those, of those moments of, you know, Yeah, awakening, but I guess like let's, all of that, but let's go back to when you were going to do a business, an MBA, I think, you'd been working in, I think, finance and stocks or something, and then, you know, to do your MBA.

And then this is kind of where you discovered, I guess, existentialism in the way that it took hold of you

Skye Cleary: or. Yeah, it was in a very, so yeah, before that I worked on a trading desk. I was one of the very few females there. And, but yeah, so, and that was in New York Work visa ran out, moved back home. Um, and. Yeah, still did finance from back home and then, but just, I don't know, I got sick of [00:15:00] being like, um, I felt a bit like a vampire because I was trading, you know, international markets and up all night and I'm like, I need to do something different.

I'm like, how about an MBA? So yeah, and what I didn't expect out of that was my MBA at Macquarie University in Sydney. Um, there were, uh, philosophers on faculty there, um, and so I was, you know, in my first semester kind of the, one of the professors started talking about, I guess she, her PhD was on freedom and responsibility in the boardroom, like the existential board, something like that.

And so she was talking about some of these ideas of, of Sartre and Beauvoir, and I was like, I don't know. Wait, who are these people? And it was just one lecture. And at the end of the lecture, I went out to her and said, okay, I, what, what is it? Tell me more about this Simone de Beauvoir person. And funnily enough, I'd studied, um, some philosophy in my undergraduate degree, but it was very sort of [00:16:00] analytical and all about logic and all that sort of thing, which was.

fine, but it didn't really grab me enough to continue it. But I'm just like, if they told me about this in my undergraduate degree, maybe I would have had a different path, but it was, I don't know, there was something about this, this language of, as you said, facticity and transcendence and freedom and responsibility and authenticity.

And I'm like, this is super interesting. I want to know more. And at the end of that lecture, After I'd asked the professor, she's like, oh yeah, I'll bring you some recommendations. And sure enough, beginning of the next class, she hands me a list and Oh, cool. But was the Mandarin wonderful teacher? I

Andrea Hiott: love teachers when they

Skye Cleary: Yeah, all of you.

Yeah. Professor Annemarie Moody. Yeah. Alright,

Andrea Hiott: good. Good. Shout out.

Skye Cleary: She, yeah. And so, and so I started bringing the Mandarins and I was kind of hooked from there on. Oh, that was the

Andrea Hiott: first one. Wow. Yeah.

Skye Cleary: Yep. It was.

Andrea Hiott: There's, yeah, there's so much in there. And so I think it's so rich with all [00:17:00] these, the existential themes, of course, like authenticity, freedom, and so on.

But also I imagine this is a time when you were also dealing with the relationship, maybe the one that was difficult.

Skye Cleary: Yeah, definitely. I mean, it wasn't just that one that was difficult. There were others. Yeah. Um, other relationships at the time where I was sort of questioning what, what I wanted out of a relationship.

Oh, how are, how I thought a relationship should be

Andrea Hiott: so I can imagine, and I, I'm, I know this from reading, reading and listening to your audio books and reading your books and that, uh, that also kind of

touched something that you can, um, unwind this in the right way, but I kind of imagine it was like you were looking for a way to rethink those stories of love, probably, maybe not consciously, but, uh, and I, I see, you know, Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre and their relationship as like, Whoa, when you, if you haven't heard of it before and then you hear of it, it's like, whoa, okay, this is a different way, another path.

Was it like that for you [00:18:00] or?

Skye Cleary: It definitely was. So yeah, you, you definitely assumed correctly. And, um, about that time, there was a book that came out called Tete a Tete by Hazel Rowley, which was Um, and I'm going to talk specifically about the one such as relationship and which was that they just briefly they had a, I guess they met at the store bond when they're in college, and they agreed to an open relationship, or they agreed to like an exclusive relationship for a couple of years but then, you know, didn't want to, you know, Deny each other the freedom of falling in love with other people.

And it wasn't just about sex because they thought if we're just giving people freedom to have sex, that's kind of a, a cheap and kind of very superficial understanding of freedom. But so, um, and that was really shocking to me because I was very much brought up with, you know, the narrative of, monogamy and, um, Marriage and, um, yeah, because Beauvoir and Sartre never married, and so this was a real surprise to me and eye opening [00:19:00] in many ways.

I mean, I didn't think that I, I wanted an open relationship, like that didn't create with me, but I, what I loved, what I appreciated was the fact that they were both challenging the expectations of. how their relationship should be. And of course, this was in like the 1930s, um, 1940s, which was, it's still fairly radical now, but back then, it was, yeah, it's more acceptable now and in society, but there's still, it's still not the dominant thing. So I, I just, I, I did love how they, they were pushing back on expectations and creating a relationship like on their own terms, um, and creating what was, you What worked for them, what was right for them.

And they were also really thoughtful and intentional about how they were gonna be with each other. And they said, yeah, let's be, be transparent with one another. And this is, and how they sort of formulated the kind of dynamics of their relationship. And I'm like, that's really refreshing. Even, even if I want a [00:20:00] monogamous relationship.

Like I loved that they were, creating it. what was authentically meaningful for them at the time. And that's one of the things I found really inspirational.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. And it also just opens, it's like, when I encounter things like that, it's then you realize, oh, there are other paths that other people are doing.

And just the very realization of that opens up a space of agency because. Yeah. It doesn't mean you want to follow that exact path, but then all these other spaces open up between the path you thought was the only path and that one, and it's like, oh, we could explore all of these kind of things, so, and you brought up freedom and responsibility, I want to look at that a little bit, but, so did this help you?

I mean, so at this moment, I think of it It's like a kind of fulcrum, right, in your life because you're studying business and then here comes Beauvoir and I don't know, it's sort of, I guess that's what sets you towards philosophy and probably also the PhD, which your, one of your partners didn't want you to do and all this.

So it's a moment of transition in a lot of ways in terms of your [00:21:00] relations with your work, your career. Lovers, or whatever, I don't know, but maybe you can help me see if that, is that correct?

Skye Cleary: Yeah, it, it is correct. Yeah, it was, yeah, it's whole, and it was really the, you know, these, these concepts, this language, this understanding, I mean, I, they didn't have all the answers.

I know they didn't have all the answers, but Grace gave me a, kind of a framework and a language to start thinking about, um, like, um, helping me understand that my questions like healthy questions and it was okay to be asking these and here and gosh that's a good way

Andrea Hiott: to put it that can be so beneficial just to have that

Skye Cleary: yeah exactly and yeah questioning that that sort of romantic arc of of what's expected of us um and yeah definitely set me on kind of a different trajectory and helped me clarify my own values of what I wanted like I I wanted someone who was [00:22:00] Supportive and accepting of me and my ambitions in life, for example, to do a PhD and not someone who was going to view it as an obstacle to them and their kind of goals for the relationship.

And, um, or at least someone who was happy to talk about it and discuss and think about was in, in, in an equal sense, you know, so recognizing that both like both my projects and, you know, my partner's projects, um, were, were equally valid and. Was open to a conversation about how we, uh, would create a life together that incorporated these things that we were both independently passionate about, and, you know, cause I think relationships are compromises in many ways, like, you know, you live with someone, you've got to put up with their wet towels on the floor.

And I mean, I'm being facetious, but you know, just these superficial things are compromising. Um, but. You know, and then there may be paths that [00:23:00] you adjust for the other people, like, for example, I'm Australian. And so my husband wanted to move to New York, back to New York for his work. And I'm like, okay, well, how could I still fulfill, you know, what I'm passionate about?

in New York. And it turns out it was even more kind of, there were more doors and possibilities for me here. So that actually kind of really worked well for us. And, but, you know, we talked through that. Um, so yeah. Okay. So I jumped. I jumped. No, that's

Andrea Hiott: actually very illustrative of that same. thing of what we were talking about is if you're, I like that you just brought in the openness.

It's not just that there's a right kind of relationship or a wrong, but some of it is opening that space and being open to it. Like if you hadn't been open to it with your husband, for example, you wouldn't have known that all those other paths existed that might actually be what you want. So Yeah, there's something that relates, I think, a little bit to freedom, but how did you get out of that relationship and get into philosophy?

It seems hard for me to understand. You're studying [00:24:00] business and then, I mean, you do have quite the endurance. We've seen that in a lot of ways, um, in what you've done, but how did you do that?

Skye Cleary: Um, I mean, getting out of relationships is often not easy, but it was, I think it was clear for both of us that it wasn't working.

And, um, so it was, you know, a matter of. setting boundaries saying, you know, I, no, I don't want this as part of my life. I don't, this is, this is what I want. It's not what you want. And, um, clearly you want something, you want something and what you want is totally valid, but I can't be supportive. I can't be who I want to be with you.

Um, or I feel that's being with you would be a closing down of my self in some ways, my possibilities. Um, So you

Andrea Hiott: brought the philosophy into it. Is that how you started? Sort of talking, talking it through. Yeah. Yeah. Did you quit your master's and start philosophy at the same time too? I mean. No, I finished, I finished my MBA.

Oh yeah, so you also have [00:25:00] the MBA. Okay.

Skye Cleary: Um, yeah, so that was, so yeah, that was, that was my master's was my MBA. Um, and so that's how I kind of was introduced to, to philosophy. And then, but it was like, it wasn't like, Oh, quick switch to this takes time. And so I finished my MBA and I was a management consultant for a couple of years, but during that time, I also, um, was kind of doing philosophy as the side hustle

Andrea Hiott: philosophy as a side hustle.

Awesome. What does that look like? How did you do that?

Skye Cleary: Well, I mean, you know, I was studying it on the, on the staff time and I was doing research projects. Um, and then I. After that, I sort of applied for the PhD and I was still working management consulting doing, I started the PhD part time, but then, you know, after I think a year or so, I, I was awarded a scholarship for the PhD.

So I quit management consulting and shifted to, to, to that full [00:26:00] time. And, um, yeah. And during that time, yeah, I was, um, sort of building the relationship with the person who is now my husband. So

Andrea Hiott: we'd gotten out of, we, I mean, I'm speaking in the, but you had gotten out of the relationship. That was constrictive and somehow philosophically found a way out of that one and you met the man that's now your husband with you in New York.

Husband, right?

Skye Cleary: Yeah, so he's Australian too. I met him in Australia. Okay, okay. Together. So,

Andrea Hiott: what did, do you feel a sense of freedom and agency different in that, now that you, you know, you're married? We're doing your PhD because it sounded like you had at least, you could do it with some money and funding, and you're reading, I guess, Beauvoir and The Existentialist because your PhD project became Existentialism and Romantic, I mean, it turned into a book called Existentialism and Romantic Love, so I'm assuming you were really diving into all this.

It sounds to me like a really beautiful, exciting time. Was it, or?

Skye Cleary: Yeah, it was, yeah, beautiful and exciting, frustrating as well. [00:27:00] Frustrating, yeah. Uh, yeah, I mean, I actually never even considered doing a PhD until one of my, um, MBA professors, um, Professor Splane said, oh, you should do a PhD. And I'm like, wait, what?

That never even factored into my life up until that point.

Andrea Hiott: You had some good teachers who kind of pointed you good ways, or important ways.

Skye Cleary: Yeah. Um, cause I had these questions and I remember one of the first questions I was, I was obsessed with, which was related to these, um, is these men in my life was, you know, can you choose to love or to what extent is love a choice?

And I was like, no, it's, it sort of feels like maybe you can't choose to love, but in, but I was feeling, you know, in that sort of I, I felt like I could choose to stop loving. Um, I'm like, if, if, if I can choose to stop loving, why can't I choose to start loving? So that was one of the questions that was consuming me.

And beautiful,

Andrea Hiott: very philosophical.

Skye Cleary: [00:28:00] Yeah. Yeah, that was sort of, yeah, one of the key underlying questions. And of course, the existentialists were, um, very much all about, uh, choice. And, um, you know, how, how we can control our life, you know, where there are certainly those facts, the facticity of our existence, but where are the windows for transcendence?

Where are the windows where, where we can choose? So we can't choose our, our genes. We can't choose to be thrown into the world. We can't, we can't choose to be here. We can't choose, you know, the, the type of, you know, features we're born with. Um, we can't choose the structure of society or the place we're born into, but where are those Transcribed by https: otter.

ai Windows that we can seize our freedom and kind of, you know, forge our own paths in authentically meaningful ways. Um, and so with love, it's like, you know, maybe we can't choose, you know, who we're attracted to. Maybe we can't control those, those pheromones or whatever, whatever the chemicals or who knows, [00:29:00] but.

No, where is that window of freedom and the freedom is in our behavior. It's how we respond to those feelings because we're, um, you know, we're higher order animals and we seem to be able to override our animal impulses, um, and choose whether to engage with people or walk away from people. Um, And so, you know, that behavior is sort of a loving behavior.

We can choose to be loving towards someone, to be kind, to be, um, uh, supportive, accommodating, to, uh, be affectionate. So that's the behavior. That's the part that we can choose and we can stop. Not, we can choose not to do that with people who we need to have out of our lives.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, that's a choice. I mean, I hadn't thought about the word choice.

It's, although it's infused in all of this, and of course, in all the writing, but that's directly related to agency, isn't it? And freedom and power. So I guess that's what I'm trying to get at [00:30:00] and not, not expressing very well, but as I was reading and listening and to your work, there's this Um, way in which, so agency matters a lot and, but agency, and agency is related to choice.

But a lot of this has to do with what I was trying to bring up in the, with the expectation stuff. So we kind of come in with this path that's been tread for us in a way. And of course we're going to create a new one, but we have our parents and we have media and all this telling us kind of which paths are the right paths.

And then there's that moment where you do develop some um, way of questioning that and reflection. And that's where the agency starts at least. I think, for me, and it also gets into all these existentialist ideas of what all this means, and I guess it is really about that choice. So do you feel like there's something about the reflective process that is crucial for Opening up that space of agency and choice.

And yeah, that seems very connected to freedom too. I know that's messy, but I'm trying to figure [00:31:00] it out. I don't know if what that raises for you.

Skye Cleary: Yeah. I, I think what you just said, uh, resonates a lot, you know, taking, you know, time out to philosophize and to actually have the space Um, and to ask these questions and to think about them because, you know, our lives are all so busy, we end up on autopilot, we end up just, you know, going through, um, you know, getting up, going to work, you know, eating, going to exercise, sleep.

You know, we just, it's so easy to get into these sort of habitual patterns of existence and just go on these paths, but it's, it's, you know, a little bit like, not a little bit like, a lot like, I think, the Sisyphus, where we're constantly pushing a rock up the hill, we're condemned to push the rock up the hill.

We're condemned to be here in this life and to, to, you know, do all these things for survival. But, you know, and as Camus says, the, that moment of reflection. It's reflection when, um, Camus, when the rock rolls back down the hill and Camus, um, Sisyphus walks [00:32:00] back down the hill to get the rock, it's that moment of reflection, that time out from the busyness and the drudgery of every day that is the, that's like the gold of his life.

And that's why Camus says we must imagine Sisyphus. Happy, partly because we have that, or he has that, um, space, space of, of reflection. Um, but yeah, we do sort of tend to go with the flow or, um, another term actually Beauvoir uses in one of her novels is like, we tend to get on, it's almost like we're on railroad tracks, you know, there are these tracks that are channeling us, jobs, um, you know, relationships, kids, that sort of thing.

And, you know, we're sort of set on this path and, um, All these different paths, but, and, you know, to, to deviate from these paths, to choose something quite different, whether it's a new career or something that can be really hard to shift those tracks. But, you know, getting off those tracks, getting off autopilot and making that space to.

First of all, as you say, [00:33:00] think about what we, what we really want to question to, to, and I was going to say introspect, but it's not just questioning ourselves. It's actually, you know, communicating with others, um, can give us sort of these really deep insights into our being that we don't always see ourselves.

Like for example, with me and my husband, with him moving back to New York, wanting to come back to New York, I was like, Oh, that never even popped up on my realm of possibilities. But okay, let's think about that. What would I do then? And so this whole new sort of world kind of opened up for me in, in, in a good way.

And so I'm like, sure, let's do it. Let's leap in, let's have this adventure and see where that goes

Andrea Hiott: that's really important that, because that brings up this idea of intersubjectivity that is also crucial in Beauvoir and especially as you, as you presented that we're not, it's not just, yeah, this gets at something else I wanted to talk to you a little bit about because With existentialism, in Nietzsche, for example, you, in, in existentialism and romantic love, we don't have time to go into all of it, but there's Nietzsche, there's [00:34:00] Kierkegaard, there's, is Beauvoir in the end, there's five different people, Steiner, yeah, and you talk about different ways of, of, of thinking about love, but I would say just kind of, people often think of existentialism almost as like a solitary pursuit, um, like the myth of Sisyphus, but We're alone, we're, it's dark, it's, and then you already kind of juxtapose love with that, which is fascinating.

Um, but also the inner subjectivity becomes really important in this, that it's not, and of course it speaks to Beauvoir and a lot of the things, but it's not actually solitary. It's never solitary. You're in conversation and part of the authenticity or the real freedom is recognizing that. That's kind of where the agency is too do you think of existentialism as dark and kind of, um,

Skye Cleary: solitary

Andrea Hiott: or

Skye Cleary: yeah, it's, I mean, as you say, it's, it's kind of got that reputation and I mean, this is one of the things I love about Beauvoir because she isn't, she's very far from that, um, um, idea of existentialism and, um, [00:35:00] she kind of presents.

I don't, I don't want to say optimistic existentialism, but it's, there's definitely a lot more optimism in her work than, say, for example, in, in, um, Sartre's work, who's, you know, Sartre is much more about, you know, especially in Being and Nothingness, it's all about, yes, radical freedom, um, and, Beauvoir's like, well, yeah, sure, we, we can, you know, think about Um, being free, but it's not like we really have radical freedom in, in any, um, meaningful sense because she's like, there's lots of limitations on our freedom.

Um, for example, living in society and, and she's like, you know, being thrown into a world where other people are there, other people are trying to create meaning. We're all in webs of relationships. That's like

Andrea Hiott: reciprocal relation. That's what you talk about a lot. Yeah.

Skye Cleary: Yeah, reciprocal relation. And so this, and this is kind of the foundation of her ethics, which is another reason why I love [00:36:00] Beauvoir, um, because really, um, worked on, um, this ethics of ambiguity and thinking about, you know, what do we owe other people?

And, you know, it's, I mean, the thing is that, um, Other people are there. We, we already live in, in relationship with them. And if we value freedom for ourselves, then we must value it for other people. Otherwise it's, um, it's, uh, exploitative or oppressive or, um, you know, hypocritical at least. So, um, yeah. And yeah, she says, I think

Andrea Hiott: you quote once that, you know, if we, we can't be free till everyone is free or something like this.

Um, yeah.

Skye Cleary: Exactly. We can't be genuinely free because our freedom depends on, on the freedom of other people or our freedom becomes meaningful when other people are free, when other people have, have the same, um, possibilities, um, for us, it doesn't embrace those possibilities, but when, I mean, she talks about it, you know, we have an open sky in which to project ourselves.

Andrea Hiott: And that [00:37:00] relates to that expectation and that there's these kind of parameters being set, right? And they're not being set by you. You're not And so there's another way in which the freedom of others is your freedom in that sense, too, in the same way we were talking about with coming into the world and having these expectations, and then you kind of wake up to it.

That's all within a particular set of parameters that doesn't, isn't your agency, right?

Skye Cleary: Hmm. Yeah. And there's another, um, metaphor she uses, which I think the Stoics also talk about, which is, um, or talked about originally, which is like, you know, society, human humanity is like, um, uh, a stone arch and all of us are stones in this arch and the stronger the arch, like the stronger we are as stones, the more protected we are.

And, you know, the more, you know, these kind of, um, propel off. You know, in their own ways, you know, the week, the week of the arch. And, uh, so I love that. And, you know, another actually, um, kind of concept of Buh Wahs, [00:38:00] which we haven't mentioned yet, which is I think relevant, um, to many of the things we're talking about is this idea of being for ourselves versus being for others.

Andrea Hiott: And being with you. That's a very nice way you say it too. Being with not, yeah.

Skye Cleary: Yeah. And being with is sort of the kind of what we're working towards as a harmony, but quite often, um, Uh, you know, we think about authenticity as being for ourselves. It's what we want. It's just, you know, us as us as individuals, whereas Beauvoir's like, well, no, because we live in society, there is a dimension about being, which is for others.

And if we lean too far into being for others, like doing what everybody else wants us to do, you know, that's not a fulfilling, um, mode of being. And she used, um, as she talked about, um, how women have um, for men or for their children and are giving up so much of themselves to serve other people. And she thought that was really problematic because you tend to be [00:39:00] pulled so far away from yourself.

Um, but being completely for yourself isn't healthy either, because you become isolated, it's a very self centered kind of selfish mode of being. So we've got to find a balance between these, if we want to live in society and you know, most of us do, um, We need to find this kind of a balance or find a way to, you know, it's always going to be attention because they're always going to be things people want from for us and from us.

And, you know, where there will be times when we will need to pull back to, you know, assert ourselves and be agents of our own lives, but You know, we, because we're in these webs of relationships, we need to try and figure out that. And as you say, this being with others, you know, how to be with others in a way that sort of manages these two competing kind of, uh, polar opposites.

Andrea Hiott: And I think that also speaks to the power of choice and agency because it's not that so. Those roles, right? Those expectations are [00:40:00] only, what, negative or something if you haven't chosen them. If it's what you want and what you choose, that's completely different than just sort of being railroaded into that or sidelo I don't know what the, what the word is she uses, but where you're just on those paths and you feel like there are no other paths, like, you ha nobody gave you the Beauvoir book or whatever, and so you're just, You're following the route because you didn't know there's another route, you know, that the agency hasn't expanded you haven't gotten that way Which I was trying to kind of point out of what you might have done or what a lot of us do where we do Sort of throw ourselves into the opposite perspective because that does open up that space.

Even if you don't want to take that path totally, um, when you learn about Bois Voir and Sartre, it opens up all the space. So I guess what I'm trying to say is the choice matters. Like, it's not that all these categories and paths are wrong, but if you haven't been able to choose it, then the authenticity or the, the freedom, the responsibility, all those things are very different, right?

Skye Cleary: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I mean, I would say ignorance or not being [00:41:00] aware of what the options are can be very limiting if you're not, if you're not being educated, if you don't have access to the internet or Wi Fi, if you don't have access to libraries, if you're sort of kept away from understanding possibilities.

of the world. That's, that's hugely limiting.

I mean, even for me, like, so for example, going back to the Beauvoir and Sartre example for me, it was like recognizing, Oh, there are all these other options out there for how we can do relationships. But it's, and then it brought it back to me. Okay, well, what do I want for my relationship? And fine, I ended up going a fairly traditional path in the end, but I thought a lot about it.

Yeah.

Andrea Hiott: And you tried the other side for a while too. I mean, I was thinking about that. Yeah. Like you. Again, I'm probably projecting a little bit, but you know, you did take that route for a while, more than others were probably giving you pressure to do, to take the space and not get married and not follow the route and think about it and, and so on.

So you know what that's like, too. [00:42:00] You know what it's like to be on that side where everyone's looking at you that way. So that's interesting, too. And then I could imagine, oh, well, why wouldn't I also want to try this other, um, uh, route? path if it makes sense with this partner that I'm with now. So I guess I'm trying to open that up too.

It's not that the choice, because we often think, oh, you either get married and have kids and that's one route or you don't and you're kind of selling out. I hate that term, but it's, it's important if you've, it's gonna go one way and then you go the other, but this is not a helpful way to think of it either, is it?

Skye Cleary: Yeah, that's, that's true. And, you know, I respect people for getting married. I respect people who don't decide to get married, but, you know, at the time it was, and, you know, we also need to acknowledge the, the structure of society that we're in, which the reality is there are lots of incentives for people to get married.

It's not just people. Acceptance. It's like, um, taxes. It's like, Oh, moving to New York would have been so much harder. If we, if we weren't married, like moving here together. Um, and, but on a sort of, I guess a more [00:43:00] philosophical and less practical level for me. It was,

. Let's, let's have a baby. Let, um, Yeah. Wow.

Andrea Hiott: That's beautiful. I love that saying yes. But you know, yeah, that's a different.

Phenomenology, or lived experience, or sensuality, of being in that position where you want to say yes, versus, because I've been in both, versus feeling like you really should say yes, because, like, you're getting older, and everybody says you should do this, and the person is there, and it looks good on paper, or whatever, you know.

Skye Cleary: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think one of the other things that we that was meaningful to us when we were sort of making this decision is that the recognition that just because we have a marriage certificate doesn't It doesn't put things in cement it, um, what, and so one of the things we joke about is we say, oh, how's it, how's marriage going for you?

Oh, so far, so good. Like it's just, you know, and it's, we joke about it, but it's also this [00:44:00] contingency of knowing that the other might not always be there and, you know, making sure that we're not taking each other for granted and making sure that, you know, we're sort of. Yeah. Continuing to choose to be in this relationship and continuing to choose to say yes to one another.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, and that kind of joking or doing that with each other is a little bit of a way of throwing yourself out of it and looking at it, which I think is important instead of just because in these relationships, especially with kids, you can just get it so much, you know, and you just have to have these habits and you have to have these routines and, but you also still probably it's good for us to have that thrown being Prospects have a shift.

However, we can we can do it together and this gets to what I love about Well, okay. So your book existential existentialism. It's still hard for me to say and romantic love You explore a lot of five different kind of ways of thinking about romantic love and they're all very interesting and if we had time i'd go into all of them, but I feel like maybe And this is because you then write a book [00:45:00] about romantic love Beauvoir, that Beauvoir was the one, the idea of love that maybe stuck with you the most.

All of them you get something out of but um, there's this idea of mutual recognition, right? Of other person's freedom. I thought of the Rilke quote of protecting the other person's solitude. I mean, I think resonates with all we're talking about here and maybe what you're showing us that you have with your husband a bit of there's a kind of mutual freedom there's this conversation that you were talking about there's this discussing which is is all part of it is that kind of a fair definition of what Beauvoir ends up coming to in terms of love and maybe what you resonated with?

in small part about it or.

Skye Cleary: Yeah, I, her concept of authentic love was really something that, that captured me and was probably my favorite part of, you know, that. So existential and romantic, existentialism and romantic love kind of came out of, grew out of my PhD. And then, um, I realized that [00:46:00] Bouvard was my favorite.

Okay, good. Yeah.

Andrea Hiott: Well, you did write a book about her, so it's pretty obvious, but she's my favorite too. Although I love Nietzsche, he really breaks my heart, but. and Kierkegaard. They both break my heart so much. Beauvoir gives me some, I don't know, uplift.

Skye Cleary: Yeah, I agree. Sartre has his moments, but his, uh, you know, anyway, so yeah, but this idea, as you say, of authentic love being, um, the mutual recognition of, of two freedoms, um, And yeah, this sort of reciprocal recognition is what she talks about.

Yeah. Which is all about, yes. Respecting each other as individuals, supporting each other in your individual goals. It doesn't mean going along blindly with whatever the other ones, but it means being open to it, being supportive and respectful and, having your own. Projects that you do.

And by projects, I mean, um, things that you project yourself towards in the world, um, having those sort of [00:47:00] individual projects, but also having, I mean, common projects, because if you don't like where's the relationship, what, what are you going to do together? But it's creating yourselves in the world together.

And, um, whether it's, I mean, Beauvoir talks about it might be building a home together or having kids together. It can, I mean, it can be anything really you do together, but the underlying values are that it's, it's a generous type of relationship and, you know, I love for her discussion about generosity where she says, you know, the best type of relationship is where you're giving your all.

But it feels like it costs you nothing because you're, you know, you have this love and the other person's being generous. And so this is, yeah, I'm talking idealistically about love, I think it's a real

Andrea Hiott: experience too,

Skye Cleary: yeah, and it's a real, and I think it's a, you know, a beautiful goal to have, and it means, you know, coming together in your strengths, not in your weaknesses and dependencies and, um, you know, pursuing your own authentic goals, [00:48:00] but also, also together.

As you know, that resonates with that Rilke, what you said, protecting each other's solitude, you know, it's respecting each other's need to be alone when they need to be alone or need to do their own thing. You know, my partner and I have our own hobbies and things we do. like sports and, and, and things, and, and that's okay.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, that speaks to another idea you raised about Beauvoir, which is that it lets us, uh, like, um, I want to say create new paths, but like reach beyond ourselves or, or reach beyond our perspective. I would even say, you know, the self is always a dynamic and changing, but it reaches, we can reach beyond our own perspective.

So if you're in a relationship, like it sounds like you are, where you both are still growing and learning and doing your own stuff, then You're reaching beyond your own perspective in ways that aren't only confined to that relationship, but that brings something to the relationship if you have this kind of relationship where you do have this dialogue conversing and discussing things together.

Skye Cleary: Yeah, and that can be difficult as [00:49:00] well, if the other person's, um, you know, off doing their thing and there's a lot of time being spent on that and I want to do things or especially, I mean, kids especially bring in challenges because Cause it's, um, you know, more often the, the woman in the relationship who's left as the primary caregiver.

And, um, you know, I talk about this in the book where there was a problem, um, after my, my son was born and my husband going up and doing his own thing, sports and

Andrea Hiott: working all the

Skye Cleary: time. Which just left a huge burden on me, and that was, a huge challenge that, that we had to work through. And I'm, but

Andrea Hiott: you had at least talked about it

Skye Cleary: we did. And you know, and this is also comes back to earlier in the discussion about expectations. You know, I had in my mind expectations about what it meant to be a good mother and a good wife. Mm-Hmm. . Like, yeah, I can do this. I, let me handle it all. And I just want to be the cool mom. And yeah, like, this is what I'm supposed to do naturally.

Right. Like, and it was so hard because I was so sleep deprived for so long and it just. [00:50:00] So much out of me and so, you know, and, and at some point I sort of brought it up to my, my partner. I'm like, I, we can't keep going like this. I can't, I can't keep doing this. I, we need something needs to change. And so to his great credit, he sat down.

He's like, okay, let's, let's figure out what we do here. And, um, that's, and we were able to move forward, but I'm still a little bitter about it, to be honest, like, as you can probably tell it's painful.

Andrea Hiott: Just bodily what you, you, I was going to bring up endurance to talk with you about because you have put yourself in a lot of situations where it requires a lot of endurance, but we all have our limits and boundaries and , part of this, what we're trying to talk about, about love, I think is being able to be in a space where you can admit those, , and get some, I mean, that inner subjectivity, that reciprocal relation comes into, we need it, we are it.

I can imagine it would be really hard in that situation but I see you as someone who is very successful. Pretty much what you put your mind to, you do. I mean, you've succeeded in a lot of [00:51:00] fields, , and you've got a lot of endurance. But then that situation of being a mom it puts everyone against their absolute boundary and you really need reciprocal relation, I guess. I don't even know what I'm really talking about, but does that resonate at all? What I'm. Yeah,

Skye Cleary: it definitely does. And yeah, I mean, having a child is definitely the most challenging project of my life.

But it's, yeah, it's also, you know, it took a lot and it took a lot of time for me to figure out how to. Ask for what, well, first of all, to know what I needed and then figure out how to, how to, you know, open up that conversation, in a way that's, uh, you know, sort of, you know, cause it felt like a failure in some ways to say, Hey, this isn't working out for me so well, but that's another

Andrea Hiott: thing we were taught, right? The mom is like supposed to be able to do everything, handle everything. And even if you don't believe those expectations and stories anymore, they wear it, they, they wear on you and

Skye Cleary: yeah, that's just your, your, [00:52:00] okay, perhaps not meeting those expectations that everyone has made, but it's the expectations that are problematic.

Andrea Hiott: And no one's really meeting them. I mean, not all the time. Exactly.

Skye Cleary: Yeah. So, um, yeah. And just to reiterate, yeah, that's what I appreciated about Bouvoir and Sartre. Like, and that's what Bouvoir opened up for me, like a way to, you know, think that it's okay to challenge expectations or at least question them. And, if you go back to the expectation, that's, that's fine.

At least you've thought it through.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, exactly. And just to kind of start to like wind it down or I was wondering about romantic love and love and if, if after all this you see those

As I was reading the work, sometimes it seemed like a lot of that stuff we talked about early on in the conversation was more romance or trying to fit into the expectations. And then the love was a little bit more of what Beauvoir gets at. She didn't live it perfectly either. No one can, but [00:53:00] where it's not about all these things like, trying to live up to the expectation, it is about the vulnerability or, or something like that. Do you distinguish at all between these kinds of things, is there only one love?

Skye Cleary: Well, I definitely think there's more than one kind of love and I quite like the ancient Greeks who had like so many different words for love, whether it's eros, philia, storge, um, and ludus and mania, um, I kind of think as you're speaking, I was like thinking, oh, you know, well, there's this sort of very, obsessive kind of passionate, um, love, that's, you know, Um, you know, okay, one kind and then, um, so I think they're all kind of love, which is this attachment to, , another person. Maybe some people talk about feelings or emotions towards another person. and this is why I'm going to come back to this authentic love again. For Beauvoir authentic love is the mutual recognition of two freedoms. And so that's not just romantic love. [00:54:00] Like, yes, it can be applied to romantic love, but it can be applied to a child, you know, recognizing that a child is, you know, growing and they're not, they're dependent in many ways, but.

The role of a parent is then to nurture them into becoming a free agent of their own lives and supporting them on their trajectory. And, respecting that for them. And so that I like it because it can be applied to all different kinds of relationships, but I guess, yeah, I mean, I do consider it.

Theater, a romantic love to be a kind of love. It's, but it has its own features. Like it's, it's passionate, which would differentiate it from say, um, love of, you know, a parent, you know, it's, it's personal, which kind of differentiates it from more like an an agape type love, which is, love of humanity or love of God or that sort of thing.

Um, and, you know, includes the hope that it will last. Forever, and, [00:55:00] you know, because when we go into relationships, you know, if it's love, a loving relationship kind of embodies that, that hope of, not just being together in the moment, which might differentiate it from say, lust and, you know, a one night stand or, or a business transaction, you know, so, um, And, it's a hope to be together in the future.

I think it's sort of an existential way of, way of putting it. So yeah, I see, I see romance as, as its own kind of love, um, uh, but yes, certainly many other kinds of love out there too.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. And I guess I brought it up cause it, you talk about it a bit and in your book too, but sometimes with social media and notions of what romance are can be a kind of big business and , it just can feel confusing.

But, um, I like that answer. It sounds like there's a kind of nestedness or scaling to all these different ways of, getting into what we think about as mutual, um, [00:56:00] recognition of one another, which could be with your partner, but could it also, also with your child, of course, but have you ever thought, could it also be with the people around you, the society, the, the wider ecology?

Skye Cleary: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I guess with love, we were talking, I, yeah, the, the types of love I was talking about and that Beauvoir talks about is in terms of, you know, humans. Um, but yeah, I think it could definitely, and I know people have applied it to, you know, the wider realm.

If we respect freedom for ourselves, then we should respect it for the world around us. Um, the, you know, other species, you know, forests and things like that, that sort of, respect. And of course, we're not going to get respect and recognition necessarily back from some of those. I have a rescue bunnies at home and they're very skittish and I love them.

But, the reciprocity is definitely not like out of whack there. But they're very, very sweet. So, uh, yeah, I think it can be applied in a more general way, but it [00:57:00] wouldn't be a. Like say with ecology, it's, it's, um, I, it's not my specialty. And I guess I'd have questions about whether that could be like how we would think about that as, as a relationship.

Although certainly the ecology gives us, um, oxygen or clean air and certain things like that. So yeah, we could definitely take it there, but it's, that's not my realm.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, I guess it's just this mutual relation and this kind of reaching beyond ourselves if we started thinking of, you know, how self is defined a little bit differently in terms of all these other challenges.

I just, it, I don't expect you to have to answer that. I mean, but it just, it's, it's interesting to think about Beauvoir and this recognition of freedom and going beyond and reciprocity or reciprocal relation in those scales too. Uh, it might that that could be helpful, I guess, um,

Skye Cleary: One other thing that I was just thinking of is, um, You know, it's thinking about our transcendence and quite often we think about, you know, if I'm [00:58:00] doing this thing, then it's, Then I have to stop someone else from doing it.

And there's this sort of zero sum. Some game or, you know, thinking about the piece of the pie. If I get a piece of the pie, then, , someone else doesn't get it. Whereas Beauvoir was much more expansive about, um, seeing the, the resources and things we have, and she seemed to believe, and I like this view that yes, there's resources and we have all this thing, but ideally what we want to be able to do is, , transcend ourselves, let other people transcend. And, you know, we have this open sky, this, this world, and it's just respecting. one another and um, yeah, I guess it just, um, if, if I get a job opportunity and get a job that's not a problem unless there's, discrimination involved. Or if someone else gets the job, it's not like they're necessarily oppressing me. Right.

Andrea Hiott: That's that either or thing we were talking about too, that, which I think what, from reading Beauvoir through your lens and talking about the scaling, that's why I [00:59:00] asked about these different kinds of love.

It's trying to open that up, right? If it's relational and it's reciprocal relation and it's reaching beyond ourselves and it's opening the space, there's a different approach, right? And that's closer to, I think, what she's talking about with authenticity and freedom.

Skye Cleary: Yeah, I think so and just, you know, it reminds me of that example, you know, My husband pursuing his goals coming to New York that didn't annihilate my possibilities actually opened up a whole new realm of possibilities. And so I think that kind of idea is also behind how Beauvoir hoped the world would be, although, you know, we, she also didn't really consider we live in a world with that.

Um, and we have a lot of limited resources where we need, um, when nurturing the earth is, is important and respecting, uh, and we have shared oceans and, and things like that. Shared air. That wasn't something she, she went into.

Andrea Hiott: No, but I think the reading that you give of her. Kind of helps us open this because even also we don't have time to go into it, but there was a lot of [01:00:00] difficulty with this relationship that we started with, with, Sartre and Beauvoir.

They were trying, they were making a new path. They were trying with this conversational approach that we've been talking about, reciprocal. And, and to say that there was also a lot of pain involved, that it didn't go the right way. That doesn't. Mean that it wasn't worth opening those paths, and it doesn't mean we can't make better paths I think that's what I'm trying to get to and like that kind of approach of love in the way that you presented in The work and the and frankly the way I'm looking at your own Life and the way that you've Taking new paths, open new paths to other people, connected paths, with your writing, then for me there's just something about that process of thinking about love as that kind of relation rather than that we have to decide between two choices.

I don't know, that seems in your work or at least that I got out of your work, so I just wanted to express it.

Skye Cleary: Yeah. I, I think that's beautiful. Thanks, Andrea.

Andrea Hiott: And it's kind of what you've [01:01:00] done, right? By doing all these amazing things that you've done, a runner, taekwondo, stock trader, philosopher,

so thank you for opening that path those paths. Thank you so much. Is there anything that we didn't touch on or that you want to say or before I, before we go?

Skye Cleary: No, I think that was a really lovely conversation. Thank you so much.

Andrea Hiott: Thanks for doing it. And thanks for the books. I really enjoyed them and, I look forward to whatever is next, but, thanks for coming on today and for the time and energy.

Skye Cleary: Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And it was so lovely to speak with you. Like you're really, you're so good at this.

Andrea Hiott: Oh, thanks. Well, be well. Good luck there with your beginning of your day. Thanks. You too. All right. Bye. Bye.