This week, we had the opportunity to interview an original mind, Jason Silva. Emmy-nominated, TV personality, storyteller, filmmaker, philosopher, sought-after keynote speaker and futurist. Host of NatGeo shows Brain Games and Origins. Also creator of Shots of Awe which received over 100 million views across his social media platforms, where he explores themes such as futurism, technology, awe, innovation, relationships, and mental health. Jason is a character that gets inside your head and shows you what is going on with an intricate series of interactive experiments designed to mess with your mind in a positive way. A real example of success, wisdom and creativity in the world of content creation. A real pride for Latino community.
Let’s talk about you. Your origins, your beginnings
I’m from Caracas, Venezuela. Since I was a child, I’ve always had a great love for cinema and philosophy. Hollywood marked my upbringing, and I always wanted to be part of it. My mother bought me a video camera with which I constantly made videos and movies along with my brother and my family. I considered myself an amateur filmmaker. When I graduated, I went to study philosophy and film at the University of Miami.
While studying I never knew how I was going to apply this career in a practical way. It is more than clear that filmmaking is not an easy industry. I just knew that I loved it and that I had to focus on what I love. That if I followed my purpose, the doors would open. Upon graduating, I learned that Al Gore was founding a cable TV channel that was meant to empower a generation of content creators, like a YouTube but on cable. In 2005, this channel opened up a space for me to make audiovisual content, and I made my first philosophical short film called “Texture of Selfhood”. The channel loved it. The producer of the channel thought I had an original voice and gave me the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and host a channel called Current TV. I could mix the sensibility of a filmmaker, the intellectual interests of a philosopher and the communicative tools of an anchor. This opportunity expanded my media identity and it was amazing, I was living the Hollywood American dream. After 5 years with Current TV, I took a sabbatical year where I met the producers of “Brain Games”. I signed with them in 2012. The show ended up being a resounding success and opened doors to many opportunities as a speaker and content creator. At the same time, I was generating content through my YouTube channel “Shot of Awe”, where I was able to create a space in which I was able to focus on my philosophical and existential interests. The viralization of these two shows allowed me to attack the media world. As a result, I started to give speeches around the world sharing my philosophical and technological interests and perspectives. It was a very big moment for me, it was surreal, I felt that I was born for this because cinema and philosophy is what I am. The love of wisdom is what it is.
What are you working on now? What is your focus of interest?
After “Brain Games” I felt that speaking engagements could be enough for my career development, plus it gives me more freedom to do what I want to do. I do content with brands like Google, Qualcomm, Western Digital and Intel. They are a hybrid between content and advertising, what they call branded content.
I’m also always creating my “Shots of Awe” videos, about what I’m passionate about with topics like mental health, which I think is a problem that is affecting us as a society. I try to wake people up about these issues.
I am currently working with a company called ‘Space Mobile’ that is creating a satellital infrastructure to provide high speed internet around the world. They hired me as a brand ambassador. I’m also developing a program called the “Science of”, and a digital course about the positive psychological effects of awe called “Becoming Awestruck”, where people can develop different techniques to get more awe in their lives.
You are Hispanic American. Tell us a little bit about the influence of being Venezuelan
My Venezuelan identity is a big part of who I am and what I do. My parents raised me in a bi-cultural way. My mom’s family is American-born in Venezuela, so I always received a bilingual education. This allowed me to see the plasticity of identity, that is to say the disguise of cultural identity… By this I don’t mean that it is unauthentic, but that it is one of many that man can have. Plasticity helped me to understand myself better with people who are different from me. You realize that what they have is another idiosyncrasy and ideas different from yours, but if you manage to understand yourself with them, it gives you another fluidity of adaptation where you can find the common ground among the different. The combinations between the different people. That made me feel Venezuelan and American at the same time. I don’t stop being less Hispanic because of this but I am much more plural. I think this is the reality of many immigrants when they arrive in the US.
What is cultural identity for you, and what do you think is the role of cultural identity in the success of the immigrant abroad?
Being a Venezuelan who was saturated with other cultures allowed me to have the privilege of perspective. It made me maintain a fascination for other cultures without feeling threatened by them. The outside perspective allows me to appreciate much more everything that is and is not Venezuelan without taking things for granted. A higher level of cultural appreciation.
Let’s talk about COVID19. It has been a transformative phenomenon for our generation. What general impact did you see?
COVID19 was an EXISTENTIAL SHOCK, in terms of the mortality of the human condition. Normally the only people who think about death are people who are close to it, either because of age or because of a crisis. The pandemic, apart from being a health crisis, is also an existential crisis. It brought to people the concept of mortality as something frequent through all media. Death became an everyday occurrence. Apart from that the restrictions of mobility and freedoms that make us live like the population have psychological effects similar to those of war, since everyone is dangerous at this time. I think we will need psychological guidance after this. Although people react to trauma in different ways, just as one soldier after the war becomes a General, the other has to be put in psychiatric institutions. But we have not yet seen the full psychological effects of this phenomenon.
What do you think is the role of technology in this new transformed society? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of this technocratic era?
I feel that many people are very concerned about vaccination and the control system that comes with it. Personally I don’t think that is something to worry about, vaccination has always existed in our society for many, many diseases. Vaccination is the solution.
Another point is that society has transformed the labor sector. The future of work is increasingly remote. People can now work anywhere. Many countries are creating digital visas for nomads. Advances in artificial intelligence and the age of intelligent machines have changed the concept of industrial work as we know it today. In the future, man’s jobs will be the jobs that machines cannot do, “creativity and imagination”.
The negative aspect I see of this technological transformation is the suffering before birth. Many people who have worked in some industry and now feel obsolete, but change is always constant.
Any literary or audiovisual recommendations…? Any book, movie, music?
I would love to recommend people to watch my videos … Besides that there is a book by Miguel de Unamuno, “ The Tragic Sense of Life“, and Ernest Becker, “The Denial of Death” about knowing that you are mortal. These books give you an appreciation for life.
I recommend existential movies that I love, “Inception”, a movie about the power of dreams. “Trans” and “Sunshine” by director Danny Boyle, and “Vanilla Sky” by Cameron Crow.
A final message you would like to leave for our audience
Stay curious and approach your fear with curiosity. Curiosity has the power to disarm what we fear most just by asking. The calmness that comes from the love of wisdom…