Story & Lesson Highlights with Ben Silberstein

Ben Silberstein shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Ben, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
Integrity is the most important of the three to me, because integrity is the quality of these three that is the least rewarded by society and the world at large. A dollar sign can be placed on intelligence and energy, but not integrity. Integrity is valued only by others with principles.

Between intelligence, energy, and integrity, I think energy is the quality most incentivized to have. Energy is crucial to beginning any project or endeavor, and it is probably the area where I find myself lacking most. Inspiration is often easier discovered for me than the actual burst of applied concentration “for launch.” And then, once a project has begun, it requires energy through persistent effort in order to see it through. Energy is extremely important, obviously, and the systems, institutions, and marketplaces of the world all place value on energy. One can learn to put an emphasis on energy because it has so much economic value.

I think intelligence is still important, but is less valued by the world. Especially in our current iteration of crowdsourced entertainment and distraction, it is by no means a requirement to be intelligent. Plenty of very successful people are absolutely not intelligent and will never need to be intelligent. That said, intelligence is still rewarded at times, mostly through either innovation or through cunning. In my experience, the most intelligent people are not usually the ones who have the most power or influence – often, the most intelligent people are reluctant to have power or control, and are frequently the ones who execute the visions of less intelligent people. But it is not a bad thing to be intelligent in today’s world and it can even be a good thing. The gears of the larger machine will usually welcome intelligence.

Integrity, however, has no importance to the world or to the machine. People who try to “do the right thing” are actively punished for it. Integrity is usually what interrupts money from flowing. Integrity is usually what attempts to hold people accountable. Integrity is unseen and unfelt by the masses because it is not only alien, but explicitly at odds with wealth hoarding, ambition, and relentless self-advancement. The person who calls out immoral behavior of leadership is going to be buried underneath an infinite supply of others who will happily indulge said immoral behavior. And sometimes it’s because people genuinely don’t care what happens to other people, and sometimes it’s because people are just trying to pay bills and they don’t have a choice. This exact mechanism, people being trapped by the need to remain crushed by the system they participate in, is why integrity matters so little to humanity at large.

And because there is no inherent economic value placed upon integrity, its value is instead abstract and intrinsic. This is why it matters so much to me. I will never place the value of a dollar above my principles. In a world where people gladly open the door and let the foxes into the henhouse in order to enrich themselves or gain power and influence. I would simply never do that. I would cut my nose off to spite my face, and I’ve done it over and over again in my life. I have refused to “play the game.” And even though I know it can easily be construed as being stupid and foolish (and I wouldn’t disagree, honestly), I would insist that the foundation underneath everything for me is my integrity. The world has deteriorated into the state it’s in because, in large part, integrity is on the endangered species list. And eventually (and in part because of this), humans will also end up on the endangered species list.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Ben and I would describe myself as an artist. I really enjoy a variety of creative pursuits, including drawing, painting, making collages, digital art, graphic design, writing, photography, videography, music production, and most recently, I have tried my hand at underwear modeling. I tend to rotate between these interests somewhat indiscriminately. I spend days to months at a time focusing on any given discipline and I am extremely fortunate to have the flexibility to pursue different creative ventures. Some of them are more strongly business-oriented, like graphic design, and others are purely for passion and fulfillment, like music production. My online presence was strongest pre-pandemic, and I was pretty active on Instagram (@Bribe.nestle.sin). I don’t use the account anymore due to personal issues with the platform, but it serves as a catalog for much of my older work. I’m still creating, just much more privately these days.

In terms of other exposure and growth, I have spent the past year or so collaborating with the men’s underwear company, BKIEO, where I have cultivated a significant catalog of modeling photographs. It is very different for me and a strange new challenge, honestly. I have always been the guy behind the camera, taking the photos, and otherwise, have generally maintained a sort of anonymity and privacy as an artist over the years. It is a very different experience (one I would describe as vulnerable) to be on the other side of the lens and learning to be comfortable not wearing a lot of clothing. As someone who historically has had body dysmorphia and image-related insecurities, it has been quite a journey to go from zero to underwear modeling. It has been unbelievably valuable to explore that exhibitionist space and try to use my physical body as the creative vessel. I would say that even though I’ve been far outside of my comfort zone, the modeling experience has been overwhelmingly positive and exhilarating for me, and I’m hopeful that I will get more opportunities and chances going forward.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
I can only speak for myself, but I think fundamentally, good and healthy relationships are based on trust, respect, empathy, communication, and loyalty. It takes lots of time, too. Unfortunately, it is significantly easier to destroy than it is to create, and this is abundantly true in relationships. What can take years and years to build can be undone in a single situation.

There are so many ways for bonds to be broken (but reductively, a breach of trust breaks bonds; selfishness breaks bonds; immaturity breaks bonds; a misalignment of priorities can break bonds; circumstances can break bonds; etc), and I think once they are broken, they are very difficult to restore. So much trust is involved in forming bonds in the first place. Once the bond is broken and trust has been violated, it requires an inordinate amount of resilience within trust to return to the table to negotiate. It requires maturity and self-reflection by both parties, and it requires patience and honest communication to heal. It always takes two to tango, and if one party is unprepared to apologize, take accountability, admit fault, or consider the other’s perspective, there will be no restoration of the bond.

To me, the relationships that matter the most have inflexible principles but flexible bonds. The core ideas that are important and essential to healthy relationships are non-negotiable, but people change and grow through life, and the best relationships adapt to keep pace with the changes. Very few relationships will meaningfully stand the test of time. I haven’t found that many bonds could be restored once they were broken, despite even my best attempts. It is one of the haunting truths of life, I’ve found.

What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Something I feel like I’ve been learning and accepting slowly is that suffering is a crucial part of life. First, suffering is unavoidable, as much as I’d love for the opposite to be true. I’m not a Buddhist, but I agree very much with the first noble truth that ‘life is suffering.’ Regardless of what anyone does in life, pain and suffering will find them. It is guaranteed. Everyone loses their loved ones, experiences disappointment, and is ultimately at the mercy of chance.

I spent much of my life fearful of suffering and doing my best to avoid anything that would hurt me. What I didn’t understand was that not only is it impossible to avoid, but also without pain and suffering, there is no growth. Without pain and suffering, there is no context for when things are going well. Without pain and suffering, there isn’t an inherent feeling of redemption or perseverance afterwards. It is precisely needing to go through periods of despair that yields the strongest feelings of triumph and self-love.

I went from trying to avoid pain and suffering at all costs to considering that it was actually unhealthy to avoid them to realizing that I literally *needed* to suffer in order to grow and live the most fulfilling life possible. Instead of being fearful of life, I have been trying to lean into it. In the process, I’ve grown into a person I’m really proud to be. And after decades of not valuing myself, I now very much do. I wish it were possible to access the best parts of life without turbulence or difficulty, and it would be fun if everyone could always only know success. But success is not guaranteed in life. Pain and suffering is. Therefore, they are the best teachers of authentic lessons, 100%.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
No, and it never has been, but I have been trying harder to reconcile my public and real selves as time has gone on. Because I have Autism, my feelings on any given topic are often disproportionately intense compared to those around me. It has always been this way. I learned at a young age that if and when I acted on my feelings in a genuine way, it almost never resulted in positive outcomes.

More often than not, it would result in negative attention and judgment, and I came to understand that being quiet and suppressing my feelings was the socially acceptable course of action. I have largely maintained this strategy over 30+ years, but in the process, I felt intense frustration because I knew I was sacrificing my authenticity for the sake of social assimilation and integration.

I think the worst part for me is that it’s less about the importance I place on the sanctity of social structures and groups. It’s more about the reality that the misunderstandings and conflicts that result from my strong feelings are not worth the cost to me. So even though I perpetually feel like I’m compromising my identity to keep things flowing smoothly, I have concluded that it is the better path than the one where I’m constantly needing to explain myself.

The people that know me best get the true version of me, lumps and all, and I feel safe to be myself. However, as much as I might try to reconcile the differences between my public and real selves, I’m skeptical that I’ll ever actually bridge that gap.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. When do you feel most at peace?
I typically feel most at peace when achieving the flow state, but I don’t necessarily have the ability to get there on demand. I find that any level of awareness within the flow state will shatter the feeling of peace. The entire point is to essentially be unaware, and as someone who tends to be hyper-aware, it is both very difficult but extremely intoxicating to get out of my own head.

I find that I can achieve the flow state by either being in a quiet, calm space where I wont be interrupted and doing some drawing, writing, or music making. I also find that I achieve the flow state by being out in the world in crowded, busy spaces, and taking street photography. There is something about the total and complete immersion of the experience that helps me find peace, paradoxically.

So if and when I am looking to find true peace and harmony, I will either go into my office, put in headphones and start drawing, trying my best to forget the world around me, or I will venture into the heart of the city with my camera. I suppose the best way I find peace is either by sitting next to the tranquil pond and meditating, or by kayaking through white water rapids. Either way, I seem to be able to forget who I am and what I’m doing, and thereby find peace.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bribe.nestle.sin/