0:00

It's the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm your host,

0:02

your boy, Dan Harris.

0:20

Hello my fellow suffering beings. I've been noticing

0:22

in a lot of my personal conversations recently and maybe

0:24

this is going to sound familiar to you. I've been noticing

0:27

that people seem to have a sense of impending doom,

0:29

a view that things have

0:31

perhaps never been worse in human history.

0:34

And there can be a real certainty to this view and

0:36

immovability and that dogmatism

0:39

I have noticed extends to

0:41

so many issues of the day. As my

0:43

friend Maria Popova has written, we

0:46

are living through a pandemic of certainty.

0:49

My guest today, Krista Tippett, is here

0:51

to gently counteract both

0:54

the pessimism and the dogmatism. To

0:56

be clear, Krista is not Pollyanna. She

0:59

absolutely sees the many challenges we face

1:01

as a species in this era of Polly crisis.

1:04

Instead, she argues, and I happen to agree

1:06

with this, that there is more to the story

1:08

than just the gloom. And further,

1:11

that when you focus on arriving at

1:13

and defending your answers in

1:15

the midst of all of this, you can overlook the

1:18

massive power of open questions.

1:20

Many of you will know Krista for roughly 20

1:23

years. She's been the host of On Being,

1:25

which was a hugely successful public

1:28

radio program that she has now migrated

1:30

over to being a seasonal podcast.

1:33

She's a Peabody award winner, a National

1:35

Humanities medalist and a bestselling

1:38

author of several books, including Becoming Wise,

1:40

Einstein's God and Speaking

1:42

of Faith. And she just dropped

1:44

a new TED Talk, which I had the pleasure of seeing

1:46

live and which you can watch by clicking

1:49

the link in the show notes.

1:51

That talk, which is the basis for

1:53

this interview, centers on three skills

1:55

that you can use to not only survive

1:58

these chaotic times.

1:59

but also thrive.

2:02

She arrived at these skills after 20

2:04

years of writing about, thinking about, talking

2:07

about, and reporting on the human

2:10

condition. She is a gem.

2:12

I have come to really like Krista and

2:14

I think you'll hear that affection in

2:17

this interview.

2:19

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the Royals exclusively and ad free right

3:37

now.

3:40

Chris DiTippett, welcome to the show. Glad to be

3:42

here with you. It's actually pretty intimidating

3:44

to interview an interviewer. You've had that

3:46

experience, I imagine.

3:47

I have. I mean, do you remember when Lynne

3:50

Rossetto Casserer did a food show on public radio

3:52

and she said nobody wanted to invite her to dinner because

3:54

they were intimidated? Right. But the thing is, I

3:56

like conversation, right? So I like

3:58

being on both sides of the conversation. It's great. And

4:01

also at this time, I don't have to be doing the hard work.

4:03

So it is, we were just talking about this before. It's

4:05

harder to interview than to be interviewed.

4:08

Absolutely. What do you think that is?

4:10

Well, you're in charge, right? I mean, you control

4:12

here what happens.

4:14

You're in the lead. Questions are powerful.

4:17

Yeah, I am. But being in

4:20

charge is labor.

4:23

Some people would just prefer the power so they'd

4:25

always want to be asking the questions. And

4:27

there's a hiding you can do there.

4:29

If you're asking, right,

4:32

right.

4:32

I mean, I know a lot of people, very close friends

4:34

of mine who rarely

4:37

will let me interrogate them. They

4:39

will just turn the tables constantly because there's a

4:41

kind of hiding happening there.

4:43

Because it's a powerful

4:46

thing, asking questions. This is why politicians

4:48

learn to not answer the questions they're asked

4:50

because they

4:51

realize that the questions, even if they think they're prepared,

4:53

can take them a place

4:54

they don't want to go. I see. I

4:56

see. Whoever

4:59

you want to take me over here. All

5:01

right, so let me start with something biographical. You have

5:03

written about this before you started off in

5:06

the Foreign Service and sort of diplomatic

5:08

work in Germany during the Cold War.

5:10

How did you go from that to becoming

5:13

one of the premier reporters on the human condition?

5:15

That seems like a leap.

5:16

Well, I found my way through

5:18

a lot of weird side doors in my 20s because

5:21

I was in divided Berlin and I actually

5:23

went there as a New York Times trainer initially.

5:27

That wouldn't have been such a big deal except

5:29

that West Berlin was an island

5:31

behind the Iron Curtain

5:33

and all of the bureaus had moved

5:35

to Bonn. So I

5:37

was the New York Times in divided Berlin,

5:40

presumably if the tanks had rolled in, the

5:43

correspondent from Bonn would have gotten there. But

5:45

I ended up, it just opened every door.

5:48

The thing is about divided Berlin, which gosh,

5:50

is really aging me now when I say I was

5:52

in Cold War Berlin. It makes me

5:55

feel ancient. On the one hand, it

5:57

was the

5:58

geopolitical fault. line of that

6:00

world. And on the other

6:02

hand, it was an incredible

6:05

laboratory of the human condition. You

6:08

take one people, one language,

6:10

one history, one culture, split

6:12

it down the middle into two

6:14

completely opposite economic,

6:17

political, social

6:20

systems, which actually have missiles

6:22

pointed at each other, our missiles. And

6:25

I, because I was a New York Times trainer and

6:28

then later was offered a job with the State

6:30

Department, I always had these great visas. So

6:32

the wall was more permeable to me than it was to

6:35

any German my age. I just

6:37

had great visas, which is hard

6:39

to imagine what it meant to have great visas in that

6:41

place. It's not what I went there

6:43

interested in. I was interested in politics.

6:46

And in the end, I was working with these guys

6:48

and they were all guys who were sitting around moving these

6:50

missiles around on a map of Europe that

6:53

were, you know, these weapons of mass destruction.

6:55

It felt like that was, I mean, they were genuinely

6:58

powerful. But at the same

7:00

time on the ground, I got

7:02

so fascinated by how, you

7:04

know, you had this wall, which was like creating

7:07

parallel universes. And

7:10

still, this dynamic was so

7:13

interesting and dramatic of how human

7:15

beings either create lives of

7:17

dignity and intimacy and beauty or fail

7:20

to do so. And it had nothing to do

7:22

with whether they were on the eastern side of that wall or on

7:24

the western side. It was like, what did they do with

7:26

their lives? And I just got

7:29

so drawn into that. And ultimately,

7:31

I was really

7:33

discouraged and cynical about the guys

7:36

who were moving the missiles around, because

7:38

I thought they were there to save the world. And actually,

7:41

it was big ego scene. And I

7:43

got so captivated by this

7:46

strangeness and beauty of human beings. And

7:49

then I ended up going to infinity school

7:51

just because that was the place where I could

7:53

see those kinds of questions being asked

7:56

over a long sweep of time. And that

7:59

turned out to be a great place to be.

7:59

It'd actually be much more interesting than I thought it would be as well.

8:02

So all those guys who were like playing risk

8:04

and battleship, they must have thought you were-

8:06

With actual nuclear warheads. And that's

8:08

what they were doing. So they must have thought you were crazy going

8:10

to divinity school.

8:13

Yeah, it didn't make any sense because

8:15

I had such a great resume at that point.

8:18

It was very flukish and

8:20

yeah, and there I am kind of late

8:23

20s. I thought I was gonna go back to Washington

8:25

and just keep going, but I was so

8:27

confused. And I ended up going away. I

8:29

said I was going away for a couple of months to write my novel because

8:32

I did have to be doing something purposeful.

8:34

And all of this confusion just surfaced

8:37

in me.

8:38

I mean, one thing that happened, I went

8:40

to this beautiful village on the island

8:42

of Mallorca, where a bunch

8:44

of Western journalists went on vacation. And

8:46

I'd gone there once and it was the most beautiful place I'd ever

8:49

been.

8:50

And one of the things that happened is that

8:52

I just got quiet for the first time in maybe

8:55

my whole life, but certainly my adult life. And

8:59

at some point I realized that I was doing

9:01

something like praying, but I had to call it praying,

9:03

right? And that wasn't what I was there to do, but

9:06

it was really

9:09

essential. And then that helped

9:12

me start to tell myself truths

9:14

about how soul-stealing that had been and how I couldn't

9:16

go back to Washington because I would

9:18

just die inside, right? But

9:21

it was all so unexpected.

9:23

And of course nobody understood why I left and what

9:26

I did.

9:26

Had you been raised with faith?

9:29

Yeah, I was, I was.

9:30

In a way that was obligatory or meaningful?

9:33

It was immersive. I grew up in a small

9:35

town in Oklahoma and I

9:37

was Southern Baptist and my grandfather was Southern Baptist

9:39

preacher and everybody I knew was Southern Baptist.

9:44

And it was really the center of life. It wasn't

9:46

just the center of religion. Church was the center

9:48

of life. But I had

9:50

moved so far away from that when I went away

9:52

to college. And when I went

9:54

to Berlin, it had felt just remote

9:57

and completely irrelevant to

9:59

the things that I wanted. I thought were important and interesting.

10:02

And there was nothing in me

10:04

that just wanted to gravitate back towards that. I

10:07

was like, if I was going to take this aspect

10:09

of myself seriously and the

10:11

way I was starting to analyze all those things I

10:13

was seeing in Berlin, I felt like I had to be able to

10:15

interrogate it intellectually. I

10:18

really wanted to dig my hands into

10:21

these hundreds and thousands of years of

10:24

dialogue about

10:25

what it all means and who God might be and

10:28

what the point of all of this is. So

10:30

I felt like I was absolutely not

10:32

gravitating back towards that, towards the

10:35

religiosity of my childhood. But it did also get

10:37

me back in touch with what

10:39

about that is also just who

10:42

I am. I mean, there were things I could access

10:45

because of that upbringing I've had.

10:47

It wasn't a foreign land to you completely.

10:50

No, now I kind of feel like

10:52

I'm an honorary Buddhist. I have such wonderful

10:55

friends and teachers, right? But I'm

10:57

also really aware that the way I think

10:59

about it is Christianity is my spiritual mother

11:02

tongue and homeland. And I feel

11:04

like as I get older, that presence

11:06

of that homeland and that language becomes,

11:10

it becomes meaningful to me again. And it's

11:12

very different from, my grandfather

11:14

wouldn't necessarily recognize my religious

11:17

life as religious life, but it

11:20

all

11:20

speaks to each other.

11:21

I'm just thinking as any self-centered

11:24

person does about my own experience covering

11:26

faith and spirituality coming out of an agnostic,

11:29

really hardcore atheist upbringing. As

11:31

I often joke, I did have a bar mitzvah, but only for

11:33

money. And both my parents were scientists.

11:36

And I got forced into covering

11:39

faith and spirituality at ABC News

11:42

and found it really interesting, really learned

11:44

how ignorant I was and was eyeopening.

11:46

And yet I never was able to take faith

11:49

that seriously because I got stuck

11:52

on the God question. In particular

11:55

with Christianity, it was like, what

11:57

kind of Christian are you? Do you believe that Jesus?

11:59

was literally the son of God, a product

12:02

of virgin birth, who died

12:04

and rose again. Because if you believe that, that's

12:07

great. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I don't

12:09

see any evidence for that. So I get a little stuck

12:11

on it. Personally, I don't have that capacity for faith.

12:14

So I guess that leads me to the question of like, what

12:16

kind of Christian are you and like how? Yeah,

12:18

so, you know, when I say I

12:20

came back to taking religion seriously,

12:22

or, you know, even to acknowledge,

12:24

I mean, to me, what is a basic definition of spiritual

12:27

life is just interior life, right? Like in

12:29

Berlin, I was in this world

12:31

of everybody having great big external

12:34

lives, very

12:36

performative, which is actually

12:38

how a lot of us were raised. We

12:40

have a lot of formation for our exterior

12:43

lives. And so just

12:45

saying, oh, oh, there's this inner

12:47

world that is also me,

12:50

and maybe even more defining

12:52

than that, that I have neglected.

12:56

But to your question, you know,

12:58

we could have a conversation about God, which

13:00

just in a nutshell is just way too small

13:02

a word for what we're all trying to point at. But

13:06

for me, what I love about theology, the

13:08

reason I wanted to study theology

13:10

was not about who God

13:13

is, but who we are, because the great

13:15

theology is also this investigation

13:19

of what it means to be human. And, you

13:21

know, I discovered Reinhold

13:23

Zieber. Have you ever heard of him? I've

13:26

heard. Okay, I mean, mid 20th century

13:28

public theology, we could use some of that right

13:30

now, frankly. The very first

13:32

line of his book, The

13:35

Nature and Destiny of Man, is

13:38

I think just one of the greatest senses,

13:41

and one of the most wise senses, which it starts,

13:44

man is his own most vexing problem.

13:48

Okay, I mean,

13:50

and nowadays he would probably say, I

13:52

don't know, he wouldn't

13:54

use the word man. But the thing is, like, I

13:57

am my own most vexing problem. That

13:59

is all. also a beginning of spiritual life. And

14:03

some of the things that Niebuhr talked about is also there

14:05

in St. Augustine, is that

14:08

this irony that we sin, and

14:10

sin is also a fraught word, but it's a useful

14:12

word, we fall short. Even

14:16

and precisely in our moments

14:18

of greatest accomplishment. I

14:21

mean, you know this, right? You and I,

14:23

we've had these experiences. These are also moments

14:25

of spiritual breakthrough that can be. And

14:28

then there's also the, I would say the

14:30

great mystery. See, you know,

14:32

Western culture and American culture don't

14:35

wanna talk about failure, the

14:37

reality of failure, frailty, mistakes,

14:41

right? Like we just gloss those over. And

14:44

the incredible gift of our religious traditions

14:46

is to say, no, right there, right

14:49

there. And then when you fail, when

14:52

you meet precarity, when you cannot

14:54

rise to the moment, when you know nothing,

14:57

when you're in pain, even

14:59

there and especially there, those

15:01

are moments where we can grow.

15:04

It is so countercultural and it's just true,

15:07

even though it's weird. And

15:10

theology and the depths of other

15:12

traditions take us there. Politics

15:15

does not.

15:16

Nor does social media. Nor does social media.

15:18

So I think what you're saying is, somebody

15:21

like me comes out of a, not

15:23

a very spiritual background. You're

15:27

missing the forest for the trees

15:29

if you're gonna get too focused on conceptions

15:32

of God. When in fact,

15:35

what's interesting about theology and religion is

15:37

it can tell you how to do life better.

15:39

Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously

15:42

there's a lot in there about God. Just

15:45

as in Tibetan Buddhism

15:48

has not just one heaven and hell, but

15:50

many, right? I mean, all the traditions actually,

15:53

they have these esoteric places and it's

15:55

not that God is esoteric in Christianity, but

15:58

the bulk of it is about. you

16:00

know, if there is transcendence,

16:03

if there is mystery, how do

16:05

we live? What do we do with that?

16:08

I mean, you know, the question of whether

16:10

there is a God or not or what that means is,

16:13

it's right there alongside the question of how

16:15

do you lead a worthy life? How

16:18

to love, right? Other kinds

16:21

of formation we have don't instruct

16:24

us in that. And they don't actually, like, we

16:27

all learn, I would propose,

16:29

we all learn, sometimes

16:31

the hard way or again and again the hard

16:33

way, but the love

16:35

is what it's all about. But

16:39

we nobody's used that in school. And

16:42

in all the secular formation we get in

16:44

all the ways we actually get trained to be successful,

16:48

that basic truth is ignored. I

16:51

have the idea that part of that is because

16:53

love is such a fraught term and another

16:56

inadequate word. Yes, yes. And that

16:58

if we could talk about it in language

17:00

that was clear, I mean, the

17:02

book that I've been writing forever is about this,

17:05

trying to talk about love in a different way.

17:07

When are you gonna finish that book? Not that

17:09

I'm lazy. I have many

17:12

faults. I think it's a memoir. And so you have

17:15

to just let your life play out to a certain extent

17:17

and the learnings take a while to set in.

17:19

And also I'm trying to like be

17:22

self loving in the non cheesiest way

17:24

and not force myself to finish before it's

17:26

ready. Okay,

17:26

I'm glad to know you're writing that.

17:29

You asked before two questions that I'd love

17:31

to hear your thoughts on. How do we

17:33

love and how do we live a

17:35

virtuous life? Yeah,

17:37

worthy life. Yeah. Let's start with

17:39

love. Well, yeah,

17:40

okay, so I 150% agree with

17:42

you. Love is seemingly

17:45

problematic. It's the most watered down word

17:47

we have. And that's where I would

17:50

say, I so appreciate,

17:52

for example, you know, one of the things about

17:54

studying theology going to divinity school is, you

17:57

know, getting inside the Greek, the

17:59

actual. sacred text. And there

18:02

are many words for love in other languages. We're

18:04

so impoverished. We have this one word, right?

18:08

I love your dress, right? And

18:11

also, the other thing we do is we

18:13

totally equate and conflate,

18:15

you know, sexual romantic. Like we talk about love

18:18

and like the compelling form of that, which

18:20

is compelling is sexuality

18:22

and romance and the in love

18:25

and that love that you can also fall out of.

18:28

And that's not what you and I are talking about.

18:30

That's not the love that binds it all

18:32

and makes it all meaningful.

18:35

So in the biblical Greek, there is Eros.

18:38

And then there is Philia. Because, you

18:40

know, when I talk about love and making the work, I'm not

18:42

just talking about that, finding the

18:45

one, right? It's our friendships. It's our

18:47

friendships. It's our love for our children. And

18:50

then there's also Agape, which is the primary

18:53

form of love, which is not a feeling,

18:55

but action. It's things

18:58

you do. It's

18:59

ways of being. Because

19:02

I'm really interested in like public life

19:04

and life together. And

19:05

one of the things I think about a lot

19:07

about is how

19:08

the intelligence that we possess in

19:11

our lives about what love is, it

19:13

bears no resemblance to any of

19:15

the cliches about it, right? And I mean,

19:17

in the relationships, the people we're closest

19:20

to, the people we're intimate with, it's

19:23

often things you do, in spite

19:25

of how you feel at the moment.

19:28

It's very rarely

19:30

about

19:31

feeling perfectly understood

19:33

and perfectly understanding

19:36

the other person. It's not

19:38

about agreeing. It's actually

19:41

about how you navigate difference.

19:43

And yet in public life and

19:46

social media, we just hate

19:48

people. We cannot imagine that we could be in relationship

19:51

with people that we disagree with fundamentally

19:53

and don't understand that they don't understand, and we don't

19:56

feel it. But we make

19:58

that move to be in relationship. all

20:00

the time, despite how we feel. So

20:03

when you ask me what love is, I just want to

20:05

say, I just interrogate it in terms

20:08

of how it functions.

20:11

And sometimes it's a feeling and that's beautiful,

20:14

but that's just not most of the

20:16

time. And the other thing is beautiful

20:19

too, that we stay in

20:20

relationship. Even when it sucks.

20:23

Yeah,

20:24

how to live a worthy life, is that the other question?

20:26

Yes.

20:27

I think that's also

20:29

a matter of constant discernment,

20:32

right? I mean, there's no answer to the question.

20:36

But here I would say this, if you let that question

20:38

be your companion, if it is something that

20:40

you're constantly seriously aspiring

20:43

to,

20:45

then you keep learning things. And

20:48

sometimes you can be successful at integrating

20:50

them into who you are.

20:52

I would imagine that if you keep that question

20:54

as a companion, it could be a great thresher

20:56

separating wheat from chaff in terms of, is

20:59

this how I want to spend my time? You could make

21:02

anything on your calendar a referendum.

21:05

Yes, for example, I think this

21:07

is related. So we're just starting this new

21:09

season of the podcast and I'm doing a

21:11

couple of interviews about AI. I mean, I think I'm gonna do

21:13

this from now on

21:14

every season, but I got a read read Hoffman, about

21:17

the kind of human condition angle in AI.

21:20

So he has this kind of relational

21:23

AI platform

21:24

called PI,

21:25

which stands for personal intelligence. And

21:28

it's really interesting. And

21:31

so I went on PI and I said, I

21:33

host a show called on being and here are core values

21:35

or core values, hospitality, curiosity.

21:38

I can't remember what else I said. And

21:41

I said, what are your core values? And

21:44

PI came back with this really beautiful

21:47

list of core values. And we have big

21:49

listens, but a lot of people putting ears on a conversation

21:52

or editing. And so one of my young

21:54

producers was really kind of offended

21:57

because I think he said one of his core values

21:59

was. something like truth or

22:02

something like that and he said that

22:04

can't be proven. We can't let an AI platform

22:07

say that he's truthful and honest. And I said,

22:09

well, he didn't say he was truthful and honest. He said it was

22:11

a core value and core values are always

22:13

aspirational. So I'm just saying

22:16

that like all the things you may learn if you have

22:18

that question of what it means

22:20

to live a worthy life as a companion, it

22:22

doesn't mean that you succeed at all

22:25

of this. But success

22:27

in terms of leading a worthy life is actually

22:29

not about perfection or success. It's

22:32

about staying oriented. It's

22:34

about intentionality. And it's

22:37

about actually how you navigate

22:39

and really befriend the reality

22:42

that you're going to get a lot of things wrong. And

22:44

then how you work with that.

22:46

What practices do you have in your life that

22:48

help you to remember to

22:51

wake up to this question, to

22:53

remember to ask yourself the question, not

22:55

only of worthy life, but also of like,

22:58

am I loving well?

23:00

I mean, it's

23:01

so different. I just

23:03

I'm thinking about how that would have landed

23:05

with me. I'm 62.

23:07

I feel like if you'd asked me that when I

23:09

was 42 or 52, I might not

23:12

have answered you honestly, but the honest answer would

23:14

have been more tortured. I've been having

23:16

this conversation this week actually with a bunch of people are about

23:18

this age is such a great age, where

23:20

you just kind of just

23:23

inhabit my body. I'm just

23:25

like at home in my cell.

23:28

And I trust my gut.

23:31

And maybe this is from having that question as an opinion

23:34

for a long, long time, three seconds

23:36

in. But at this point, my

23:38

gut is like a course corrector. I have

23:41

to listen to it, right? And I don't always do

23:43

that perfectly. But I don't have to think

23:45

about that stuff in the same way anymore.

23:48

Things become more intuitive. So in

23:50

some way, living with that question

23:52

has put it into your neurons,

23:55

into your muscle memory. Yes, exactly. What would

23:56

have

23:59

have made you defensive at 52 or 42

24:02

that you would have felt like people were asking, are you

24:04

making enough time for prayer and meditation? Or are

24:06

you walking the walk? Tip

24:09

it. Yeah.

24:11

Well, you know, the other thing about those younger ages

24:13

is life is crowded. My

24:16

children are in their 20s and I actually

24:19

love the relationship I have with

24:21

them in their 20s. To me, parenting

24:23

is an adventure that doesn't stop. And

24:27

even at 25, you get to know your kids all over again.

24:29

That way you have to do when they go from being four

24:31

to five or 11 to 12, there are all

24:33

these cathartic moments and they're keeping those cathartic

24:35

moments. So my parenting is a huge

24:38

elemental part of my identity, but it's

24:41

not

24:42

hands-on physical labor. And

24:45

so when you're in the middle of your life and you've

24:47

got that hands-on physical labor and

24:50

more in the building phase

24:52

of career and

24:55

even of the other relationships. So

24:57

I think I truly have more space

25:01

to actually

25:02

be more thoughtful and discerning.

25:05

And that's just a matter of time.

25:07

My uncle, Peter Johnson, when

25:09

he turned 60, somebody asked him

25:12

the question everybody asks when they turn a

25:14

big age or any age, how does it feel to

25:16

be 60? And his answer was off

25:19

the hook.

25:19

Yeah, right. And it's just the greatest

25:22

thing. Yeah. There

25:24

are so many wondrous things about being alive

25:26

now and it's hard for us to see those because

25:28

of all the reasonable terror. But

25:31

one of the most fascinating things in my lifetime

25:34

is the evolution of aging because like this is not

25:36

what 62 was like when I was 10 or 20

25:39

or 30

25:39

or 40. It's

25:41

very mysterious.

25:43

Coming up, Krista Tippett talks about

25:46

tuning into our generative agency

25:48

and that is not a reference to AI. Her

25:50

definition of a wise life as distinct

25:53

from a knowledgeable or accomplished

25:55

one and why she believes it is

25:58

as important to know what you love.

25:59

of evidence to know what you hate.

26:02

Deep

26:09

in the enchanted forest from the whimsical

26:11

world of Disney Frozen, something

26:14

is wrong.

26:15

Arendelle is in danger once again from

26:18

dark forces threatening to disrupt the

26:20

peace and tranquility. And

26:22

it's up to Anna and Elsa to stop

26:25

the villains before it's too late.

26:27

For the last 10 years, Frozen has mesmerized

26:30

millions around the world. Now, Wondery

26:32

presents Disney Frozen Forces

26:35

of Nature podcast, which extends

26:37

the storytelling of the beloved animated series

26:39

as an audio-first original story,

26:42

complete with new characters and a standalone

26:45

adventure set after the events of Frozen 2.

26:48

Reunite with the whole crew, Anna,

26:50

Elsa, Olaf, and Kristoff

26:53

for an action-packed adventure of fun,

26:55

imagination, and mystery.

26:57

Follow along as the gang enlist the help of

27:00

old friends and new as they venture

27:02

deep into the forest and discover the

27:04

mysterious copper machines behind

27:06

the chaos. And count yourself

27:09

amongst the allies as they investigate

27:11

the strange happenings in the enchanted

27:13

forest. The only question is, are

27:15

Anna and Elsa able to save their peaceful

27:18

kingdom? Listen early and

27:20

add free to the entire season of Disney

27:22

Frozen Forces of Nature podcast,

27:25

along with exclusive bonus content on Wondery

27:27

Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery

27:29

app or Wondery Plus kits on Apple

27:32

Podcasts.

27:34

And don't miss out in celebration of Sharon Salzberg's

27:37

new book. We've made her course on loving

27:39

kindness, which we call 10% nicer, free over in the 10%

27:41

happier app until

27:45

October 23. Download the 10% happier

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app today wherever you get your apps and get started

27:50

for free.

27:52

You gave a TED Talk recently. I was there

27:55

for it and took a bunch of notes and

27:57

loved it. And everybody should go watch

27:59

it, but I'm going to. to do the opposite

28:02

of the Cliffs Notes version here, that

28:04

I want to go deeper on it. In the TED

28:06

Talk, you talked about these three lessons, and one

28:08

of them you just touched on, which

28:11

is that it's very easy to look at the world

28:13

and say, we are thoroughly fucked,

28:15

like everything is bad. But

28:17

one of the pieces of advice you

28:20

give in this talk is to tune into

28:22

the generative story. What does that

28:24

mean?

28:25

I do want to just say that I'm a

28:27

little bit

28:28

miffed that AI is taking

28:31

this word generative. Generative

28:33

AI, I really don't want to give it away.

28:36

But what I mean is,

28:37

it's the opposite of destructive,

28:39

right? It's what is life-giving and creative

28:42

and worthy of aspiring

28:43

to. And a lot of the

28:46

story that gets told of

28:48

our time

28:49

is what is catastrophic. And

28:52

yet there's a whole story, which

28:54

also has in it, that there

28:56

are human beings everywhere

28:58

all around us, more than are

29:01

setting out to make the world the worst place in

29:03

the morning, who are doing their best,

29:05

right? Who are being forces for healing

29:09

and kindness and social creativity,

29:11

and feeling very alone

29:13

in that. And that is a fiction, right?

29:16

They're not alone. And again,

29:18

it's not about being perfect, but those of us who are trying

29:21

to lean into our best humanity in the face

29:23

of all this catastrophe are

29:25

the majority. This is a true story.

29:29

But across the years I've interviewed, like

29:31

you, a lot of people who work in brain science, and

29:33

I actually think there's

29:36

quite a simple explanation to this. And

29:38

it is about the human condition, which is that we

29:41

are exquisitely hardwired to

29:43

be looking for danger. Our bodies are trying

29:45

to keep us safe. And

29:47

in that way, journalism is a profession

29:50

that is absolutely dictated by the amygdala.

29:53

And the news,

29:56

the way the news gets defined, is

29:58

what's the most catastrophic thing.

29:59

that just happened around the corner.

30:02

And those things are anomalies. But

30:04

the problem is that in a 24-7 news environment, where

30:09

we're just inundated by the terrible

30:11

things that went wrong, the worst case

30:13

exemplar of what a human being is, we

30:16

internalize that as the norm.

30:19

We internalize that as the bottom line.

30:22

And that is actually dangerous. We

30:25

have to know the generative possibilities

30:28

and the generative agency that we have to

30:31

meet this time that we've been born

30:33

into,

30:34

which is extraordinary and perilous

30:37

and

30:38

in its way magnificent.

30:41

I'm just thinking about how the best weeks

30:43

of the year for me are the end of August

30:45

when my wife and child and I go to

30:48

this beach town that we really love and a lot

30:50

of our friends are out there. And so this year

30:52

I spent two weeks, we had all these people staying

30:54

with us and then all these people staying nearby and

30:57

I love being in that kind of community

31:00

and seeing old friends. And these are old, old

31:02

friends, people I've known for 20 years or more.

31:04

And I was really struck this year,

31:07

because usually our socializing

31:09

with these people, it's like part of the New York City

31:11

dinner industrial complex, it's two hours

31:13

and you're done. But this was living with them

31:16

in a house and having late night conversations, which

31:18

was glorious, glorious. I

31:20

was really struck spending a lot of time with

31:22

these folks in this way, how

31:24

radicalized my friends have become,

31:27

how gloomy they are about,

31:29

they're in a good mood day to day and we're all loving seeing

31:31

each other and did a lot of affection there.

31:34

But when you start talking about the state of the world, people

31:36

are like, America's done, capitalism

31:39

has totally failed, we now know that, we

31:42

are screwed in every metric going

31:44

forward. And these are incredibly

31:46

smart people, incredibly accomplished people. And I

31:49

don't know how or whether to argue with

31:51

them about any of this.

31:53

Yeah, and I mean, I would probably

31:55

agree with all that. But it's not so horrible.

31:59

But it's a...

31:59

both and. And, you

32:02

know, across the years, I've interviewed

32:04

a good number of people like John

32:08

Lewis or Desmond Tutu, right, who have

32:10

been on the receiving end of the worst

32:13

that humanity has to give and

32:16

of broken, corrupt structures.

32:20

And, you know, the people who find

32:22

ways to shift the world on its axis see

32:24

that very clearly. It's not about

32:27

being optimistic and idealistic. It's

32:29

standing before reality and

32:32

saying yes and. And

32:34

that yes and has

32:37

an articulation of what is

32:39

my agency, if not

32:41

to change all of that, to

32:44

shape my presence before

32:46

it.

32:47

You know, I wrote that book called Becoming Wise and

32:49

I never

32:50

gave a definition for wisdom. And then after the book

32:52

came out, people said, what? So what is wisdom? And never,

32:54

I didn't have a definition. So

32:57

I had to think about it. So my definition of wisdom

33:00

is that it's distinct from

33:03

like a wise life is something distinct from a

33:05

knowledgeable life or an accomplished life, even though

33:07

a person who's wise can be knowledgeable

33:09

and accomplished. But the thing about knowledge and accomplishment

33:12

is you can kind of point at them and quantify it them

33:14

because that's what it is. Whereas

33:17

I think the measure of a wise life.

33:19

So if

33:20

you think just you think now

33:22

of the wise people you've known in your life, the measure

33:24

of that is the imprint they made on other

33:26

lives around them.

33:28

Just like you to see ripples and ripples

33:30

and ripples. So the work of orienting

33:32

yourself, both seeing

33:35

reality head on and then deciding

33:38

how you will be present to that

33:40

is also work that is communal because

33:43

it does ripple

33:44

out to others.

33:46

The civil rights elder Vincent Harding,

33:48

who I interviewed a couple of times, talked

33:50

about their alive human signposts

33:52

in the darkest places. They're

33:55

alive human signposts. I love that image.

33:57

Like we can even in all this future,

33:59

friends are seeing.

33:59

are true

34:00

and I also have my bad days.

34:03

And

34:04

there's more of a calling for live human signposts

34:07

than ever before.

34:09

Well, let me see if I can muster some sort

34:11

of articulation of where I think

34:13

I'm at with this. And not because I'm going

34:16

to make an argument, but more like I want to see if we can figure

34:18

it out together. I think what I think is

34:20

I have no idea whether the American

34:22

experiment has failed and whether the case

34:24

against capitalism is dispositive.

34:27

And, you know, I'm not a climate scientist, so I don't

34:29

know how bad it's going to be. I'm also not

34:31

an astronomer, so I just don't know. What

34:34

I think I know is that

34:37

for all the bugs in the design

34:40

of the human operating

34:42

system, there's one massive

34:44

feature, which is that it

34:47

feels good

34:48

to be good to other people.

34:51

And if we have a chance for salvation,

34:53

it's in that. Does

34:55

that land for you?

34:56

Yeah, and it makes me think of

34:59

Dorothy Day, who was just this Catholic,

35:02

she will probably be a saint one day, which I think would

35:04

make her laugh. But she just was one

35:06

of these people who committed her life to goodness

35:08

and all kinds of forms of goodness and love made

35:11

practical. And

35:13

the origin story for that was

35:15

she was nine years old in San Francisco when a 1906 earthquake

35:18

hit. And she was in Oakland and just

35:20

watching people come over in boats

35:23

like just the world had ended.

35:25

And watching how all

35:27

the adults around her knew how to rise

35:29

to this occasion, take in strangers,

35:32

just be full on care.

35:35

And this question she asked,

35:37

which I would say is the question she lived, was, why

35:39

can't we live this way all the time? Which

35:42

the child would ask with this clarity. And

35:45

so to this thing you just said, it does

35:47

feel good to be good. And then there's this other mystery

35:50

of us, which I think is really relevant now,

35:52

where it is true

35:54

that

35:55

the forms that I and

35:57

also you were born seeing

35:59

as

35:59

the way the world works,

36:01

the way it functions,

36:04

they've outlived their usefulness, right?

36:06

I mean, capitalism, if it did work,

36:09

it's not

36:09

working anymore.

36:10

It's not serving human purpose. And,

36:14

you know, so

36:15

what is true about this time,

36:18

it doesn't mean that you have to lead to a dystopian

36:21

point of view, but it's true

36:24

that I think we live in this in-between

36:26

time in history, and I

36:28

think it's often true in the early centuries

36:31

that, you know, we're like in the teenage years

36:33

of a century where like it's very clear

36:35

what is broken. The forms that came out of the

36:37

20th century, they aren't

36:39

working anymore, and they're not suited to how we

36:41

live now. And that's true of really

36:44

element, that's true of school, right?

36:46

It's true of our political

36:48

system. It's true of our economic system.

36:50

It's true of medicine. I mean, you can just go on

36:53

and on. So

36:56

what a time to be alive, and

36:58

that is terrifying, and there's a lot

37:00

of wreckage from it. And we're

37:04

also this generation that is called to remake

37:06

things, remake elemental things.

37:09

And I guess one of the reasons

37:11

I have, and I wanna say like I think the

37:13

ecological crisis is in its own category.

37:16

I actually think that's what makes our in-between time

37:18

different from anybody else's in-between time,

37:20

because it's truly existential at a species

37:23

level. And I don't know what to do with that either. I

37:25

mean, I think we have to grieve apart from anything else.

37:28

But it's also true of us. Like

37:30

it feels good to be good and such

37:33

a long-winded response. And

37:35

there's this weird thing

37:37

about us that when we really

37:40

get pushed to the edge, like

37:42

when we're really going to lose everything or

37:44

we've hit bottom, that we have

37:46

this capacity to just

37:49

excel,

37:50

right?

37:51

Like to be heroic,

37:53

to make quantum leaps forward

37:57

and to get out of our heads. And

37:59

so I think like... That's one of my great hopes.

38:02

And like in terms of the ecological stuff, it may

38:04

be too late. But

38:08

I feel like when I talk to a lot

38:10

of younger people, a lot of young social creatives,

38:13

even people involved in climate, and

38:15

one of the things that just moves me and

38:17

fills me with hope,

38:20

which is not a word I use lightly, is

38:22

that they are so clear that

38:25

whatever is gonna happen and

38:28

however committed they are to seeing

38:31

what's broken and fixing what's wrong, that

38:35

part of their fuel for that, first

38:38

of all, that they have no illusion that anything

38:40

is gonna get better, and maybe even

38:42

in their lifetime, that this is the work of their

38:45

whole lifetime. And that their fuel

38:47

has to be that as much as they

38:49

know what they hate, as much as they see what's broken, they

38:51

have to know what they love, and

38:54

that they have to know how to take joy, and

38:58

that they can't get burned

39:00

out because the work is long

39:03

and so important. And so they're building

39:05

in at the beginning of their lives things

39:08

that I have learned to do until I was in my

39:10

40s and 50s, like

39:13

they are gonna get replenishment along the way. So

39:16

that feels kind of like a species

39:18

evolution

39:18

to me. Well, this kind of ties back

39:21

to

39:21

you and I were in the same room in the fall

39:24

of 2022 with the Dalai

39:26

Lama. And I think we walked

39:28

away with different interpretations maybe,

39:30

but we'll find out. I mean, the

39:33

Dalai Lama was confronted by

39:35

these young activists who were saying, dude,

39:37

you're talking about love and compassion

39:40

and we're dealing with the Taliban or we're

39:42

dealing with massive

39:44

entrenched economic interests that are pushing

39:46

the climate over a cliff. Love

39:49

is not the answer. And what I

39:51

heard him say, although it took him a while

39:53

to get it out, was similar

39:56

to what you're saying, which is,

39:58

all that is true, there's, I've been.

39:59

dealing with the Chinese for generations

40:02

and they're pretty tough

40:04

to deal with. And so I get that there's a

40:06

lot of ugly stuff in the world, but yes, and

40:09

there's also a lot of love in the world. And

40:12

on top of that, as you

40:14

work to address the big problems

40:17

that you want to address, what do you want

40:19

your fuel to be? Anger, hatred,

40:22

and fear? Or love, care?

40:25

Love unbroadly understood back to agape,

40:27

like an unconditional love for the world. That

40:30

really landed for me. It did really

40:32

land with you in the moment. No, well, it took

40:34

a minute.

40:36

His English is getting worse.

40:38

When I wish he would have answered in Tibetan and

40:40

Jinpo

40:41

would have translated for us.

40:43

So an idea like, we are all

40:45

one, which he said a lot. It's like

40:48

the Beatles, right? All you need is

40:50

love. It's actually true.

40:51

Yes, it's just how you understand it,

40:53

right? Because if I hear all you

40:56

need is love, it's like, but dude, John,

40:58

I got to go to the dentist too. But

41:00

I think a proper understanding of love,

41:02

he doesn't use the term love,

41:04

he uses compassion. In my concept

41:06

of love, compassion is a piece of love,

41:09

just one manifestation of it. But John

41:11

Lennon would say going to the dentist

41:14

is love, it's self-love. You're taking care

41:16

of yourself. You got to do it. I

41:17

mean, it's true that the idea that we are

41:19

all one is not just a wise

41:22

comforting saying. It's proven by science,

41:25

right? I mean, we have

41:27

more microbial cells than human cells

41:29

in our bodies. We are made of stardust,

41:31

which also sounds like a cliche and it turns out

41:33

to be true. And

41:36

we're all part of each other. So it's

41:39

true that we're individuals, you and I, and on

41:41

another level, it's actually not. And

41:44

I think when he said that in English

41:47

to these young people,

41:48

it felt too simplistic. And

41:51

I guess what we're saying is it is and it isn't at

41:53

the same time, just

41:54

like we are individuals, we're non-individuals.

41:56

He was at the time, 87. He

41:59

is English. is degraded and

42:01

he's repetitive. And I think

42:03

he wasn't giving the nuanced answer that

42:06

later became clear once you talk

42:08

to people who are close to him.

42:09

Well, here's the other thing I think. I would

42:12

say that his bedrock

42:14

embodied conviction and

42:17

knowledge that

42:18

we are all one

42:20

is a wisdom that he has earned

42:22

across an extraordinary life

42:24

and eight decades. And

42:27

I think that that righteous

42:30

impatience

42:32

of those young

42:34

activists who we were with is also

42:36

a form of wisdom. And

42:39

that we collectively need both

42:42

of those energies and they will sometimes

42:44

talk past each other

42:46

and

42:47

not know to value each other. And it's

42:49

just another both and.

42:51

Coming up, Krista talks about learning to love

42:54

big open questions instead of rushing

42:56

to answers, why the things we get

42:58

paid to do may not define whether we're

43:00

living a worthy life and getting

43:02

our intentions straight and then trying not

43:05

to tie them too tightly to our

43:07

goals. There

43:17

were three recommendations in the

43:19

talk. I think we've covered

43:22

the first one, which is yes and. There

43:24

are shitty things going on in the world and

43:26

there are beautiful things going on in the world. How

43:28

do you wanna live once you take all of that in? Is

43:31

that a decent summary? Yeah, I like it. So

43:34

we talked before about what's a worthy life,

43:36

how do I love, is there more to say

43:38

about this process of finding

43:41

your question and living with it?

43:43

I guess I'd just say, isn't this fun?

43:45

If this is a conversation, that's an adventure. And

43:49

I love being on this side of it. So what

43:52

I'd say is that if we know

43:54

that we inhabit a time

43:57

where we literally have more uncertainty

43:59

than uncertainty.

44:00

Things that were certain even 10

44:02

years ago or looked certain are

44:05

no longer. And so

44:07

the living the questions idea comes from

44:09

Rilke who I first got to know

44:12

when I was living in divided Berlin. I mean

44:14

his writing I feel like he's my friend. And

44:16

Rilke in the early 20th century said

44:20

to a young poet,

44:22

actually nobody ever tells this, this poet

44:24

Franz Kappus who he wrote these letters to

44:27

was actually a young military

44:29

officer who wanted to be a poet. So

44:31

he was actually a person in the thick of life who actually

44:34

did not become a professional poet. So it's a little

44:36

bit, I like it, but it wasn't actually

44:39

just a poet sitting around writing poetry. It was

44:41

a young person asking the questions. But

44:44

he was all confusion which we are at that

44:46

age. And then I think again, I think like our generation

44:48

in time is all confusion. And he

44:50

said, you know, when this is the situation you're

44:52

in, you need to not rush

44:55

to the answers which you couldn't live

44:57

now. You can't live the answers.

45:00

They're not there to live right now. So

45:03

you have to live your questions. You have to

45:06

love your questions themselves. And

45:09

to me, you know, I think you

45:12

could look at every single one of our crises

45:14

that we've named, you know, we can call it a crisis

45:16

of capitalism. We can say that we are standing

45:18

for the question of what is an economy for,

45:21

how does it function, what is democracy

45:23

in a time of our

45:26

technology and the scale of

45:28

our societies, right? These are all

45:30

big questions. They're open questions.

45:33

And we're going to have to walk

45:35

into new ways of working with the

45:38

parts of our life together that they have represented.

45:41

So in a situation like this

45:43

to rush to an answer, which we really

45:45

want to do understandably, and we're like really

45:48

trained to look for fixes and a plan

45:50

and action. But

45:52

to rush to an answer in these cases

45:54

is to deny the gravity of the questions,

45:57

to deny the gravity of what is before us

45:59

to work with.

45:59

And so then we're called to

46:02

love and dwell with the questions themselves

46:04

and let them teach us and let them, you

46:07

know, walk with some patience that

46:09

is not easy and not natural.

46:13

And with some curiosity, because

46:15

truly, truly we can't see the big answers

46:17

and fixes now. And

46:20

you know, collectively, especially in America,

46:22

we're so action oriented and we

46:25

rush to actions just to fulfill

46:28

the anxiety that we feel about

46:30

not knowing what to do and about living in

46:32

uncertainty. And

46:34

we waste time and we come up

46:36

with stupid solutions that

46:39

we then waste time undoing

46:42

and we need to not waste our time in that

46:44

we know. It's not a prescription

46:46

to not do anything, but it's like to hold

46:48

the questions alongside, you know, whatever

46:51

is appearing about what can be done. We

46:53

so long for answers understandably,

46:55

but also we're pretty pathological about

46:57

the way we use words in this culture. And

46:59

you know, we just love to argue, right? We

47:01

just love using our words for a fight and

47:04

we love using our words to put other people down. And

47:07

so we use words like weapons. I

47:09

think we need to decide not to live in that way.

47:11

Some of the things you've just talked about, I

47:13

would think of as like macro questions, you know,

47:15

what's an economy? Those are like society

47:18

level questions. On an individual

47:21

level, how do I find

47:23

the questions that matter to

47:25

me that could be, I think use the term earlier,

47:27

like a guidepost. Yeah.

47:28

And that's part of how we get paralyzed

47:32

is by feeling like if we can't affect

47:34

those big macro questions, I

47:36

mean, I'm just reframing what the macro

47:38

challenges are as a question, but

47:41

the truth is also that you and I tomorrow

47:44

cannot change the shape of the economy. I

47:46

mean, there may be somebody out there who could do that. So

47:48

I think the challenge is actually to

47:50

ask the question really close to home. Did you

47:53

ever hear of your racial Naomi Roman? You know her, I

47:55

would say she's kind of a Jewish mystic doctor,

47:57

physician. She tells the story

47:59

of

47:59

The Jewish story behind Tikkun

48:02

Olam, Repair the World, you

48:04

probably at least learned that at Bar Mitzvah. I

48:06

did. Okay. And the

48:09

story, you know, is the birthday

48:11

of the world, it was the original light, and the light was

48:13

shattered, and that it landed as pieces

48:16

inside everything and everyone, and

48:18

that the work of repairing the world is

48:20

to look for the light, you know, from where you

48:22

sit and gather

48:25

it up and point at it, and in so doing, when

48:27

you do that, you help repair the world. And, you know,

48:29

she said to me, or maybe

48:31

I said to her, you know, if you hear a story like that,

48:33

it can sound like very lovely, but not

48:36

really practical. And she said, well,

48:38

it's actually a

48:40

very practical story because it's saying

48:43

that you look for the light

48:46

in the world that you can see and touch.

48:48

And one of the terrible afflictions,

48:51

I think, of living now with social

48:53

media,

48:54

or social media and the news as it comes

48:56

to us in this form, is that it just distracts

48:59

us with all these things that are terrible

49:01

and far away that we can't possibly touch.

49:04

I mean, this is what's coming out

49:06

in your friends, right? And so then we

49:08

just have this existential despair, but

49:10

an antidote to that is to actually

49:14

refocus close to home

49:16

with real people and fractures

49:19

that are within your grasp to

49:21

comprehend and perhaps touch.

49:24

So where we see that there are shady things

49:26

happening and also there are beautiful things happening,

49:28

what do we do? Yeah, I think this is kind

49:30

of what I took from the Dalai Lama too, which is, okay,

49:34

you, Christa, are not going to solve all these problems.

49:36

You have a certain amount of agency

49:39

and that tikkun olam view

49:41

is actually quite practical, which is you've

49:43

got your little world, can you see

49:46

the light and the opportunities to do good

49:48

in your little world, all the while understanding that

49:50

you're fallible and you're going to fuck up all the time too,

49:53

and build your life around that with

49:56

maybe the useful question in the backdrop of what's

49:58

a worthy life and how do I love. And then,

50:01

by the way, you are doing your little

50:03

part to fix the macro problems while

50:05

ensuring that your life is better, because that is

50:07

how you are wired to thrive by being

50:10

useful.

50:10

And that's the influence you're having. That's

50:12

what you're revealing to people around you, too. So

50:15

it's your life. But you know, but also

50:17

there's the truth that in that room, you know, the

50:19

young woman, Shabana, who actually

50:21

has had probably Taliban

50:24

guns pointed at her head and who actually

50:27

is getting girls educated,

50:29

right? So there's somebody

50:31

who's stepping into her agency

50:35

with a way to affect something, you know,

50:38

this what for you or me

50:40

would be this far away catastrophe

50:42

in our world. And yeah, and then there's

50:44

just that tension there.

50:46

I didn't hear

50:47

from the Dalai Lama or anybody in Buddhism

50:49

that you don't

50:51

take firm, effective, bold

50:54

action or that you don't draw boundaries

50:56

in your life, whether you're dealing with a

50:58

Taliban or obnoxious brother-in-law,

51:01

you're in touch with the why. What's

51:03

your motivation? Is your motivation vengeance

51:06

or is your motivation wanting

51:09

to help? Yeah, I find that very useful.

51:11

So, you know, Brian Stevenson will always

51:13

say when people say like, what do I do? I guess he's

51:16

also picking up these macro

51:18

toxins that are in

51:20

our lives, in our society.

51:22

And he always says, you know, get proximate, get proximate,

51:24

get proximate. So what does that mean? Well, it

51:26

means this. It's what can you see in touch?

51:28

We're dealing with big structural wounds

51:31

and injustices.

51:32

And some people can touch

51:35

that at a higher level, but get to know the

51:37

human dynamics close to you that become

51:39

comprehensible to you. What

51:41

can you do so that this is not an abstraction?

51:45

I love that because it gives you agency and it will actually

51:48

matter. And one other thing from the Dalai Lama,

51:50

he didn't say it in the room, but he has said

51:52

it, which is to think about it in terms

51:54

of multiple lifetimes. And you don't have to believe in

51:57

reincarnation for that, but you can just believe that

51:59

there are going to be multiple generations after

52:02

you. And your work may not be completed

52:04

by the time you draw your last breath.

52:06

I find that a release actually. Yes.

52:08

Okay, third piece of that. Oh,

52:11

the third one? Yes. Which is

52:13

calling and wholeness. And wholeness.

52:15

What does that mean? Yeah, well, I just partly

52:18

wanted to surface this language of calling

52:20

not as an alternative,

52:23

but as a companion to the notion

52:25

of challenge and crisis. And

52:28

it is a religious word. It

52:30

has particular resonance in Christianity,

52:33

but it has an interesting history too. Do you want

52:35

me to show you this? Yeah. Interesting.

52:37

So in the Christian West, vocation,

52:39

the word vocation comes from the word vokar, which

52:42

is calling.

52:43

And the only people

52:45

who were considered to have vocations were monks

52:47

and nuns and priests. So it

52:49

was basically like professional spiritual

52:51

people, experts had vocations.

52:55

And then Martin Luther, one

52:57

of his battle cries was out

53:00

of the monastery and into the world, which

53:02

is kind of beautiful that we can all have callings.

53:05

Then when the spirit of Protestantism merged

53:07

with capitalism, I think,

53:10

you know, by the 20th century, when I was born, it's like

53:12

your vocation was your job title,

53:15

right?

53:16

I mean, if any of us modern people

53:18

in the West think of vocation, we just

53:20

think, what is your job? What is your work? And

53:23

that again is a diminishment of us.

53:26

And I feel again, if we live in this time

53:28

of existential challenges

53:30

for our species and

53:32

for our nation and for our communities

53:35

and maybe for our families, you know, yes,

53:37

it's a challenge, yes, it's a crisis. And what

53:39

are we being called to? What does it call

53:41

us to? And then vocation

53:44

in that sense, which I think has

53:46

always been true, it may not be the

53:48

thing that you do for a living that equips you

53:50

best to be present to these

53:52

callings, it may be a kind of friend

53:54

you are, the kind of parent you are, but you in

53:56

some ways you are a teacher, that you are a kind,

53:59

generous person. And I think

54:01

vocation really should be and is

54:03

multitude in us I mean if you think about you know,

54:05

like I follow you actually I'm not on Twitter

54:07

very much anymore But I just love

54:10

your pictures of your son You're

54:13

so in love with him and I

54:15

mean if I ask you I feel like your vocation

54:17

and I know there was a time in my life when this is really

54:19

cure vocation as a parent is absolutely

54:22

as big as your vocation as a professional

54:26

Podcast or journalist all those things you are

54:28

and I just think it's helpful

54:30

for us to even with our self understanding and

54:33

also to honor the fact that these

54:36

are as elemental and defining

54:38

and not just of It's

54:40

not just your private life It's

54:42

like who you are in the world the fact that you

54:44

are a father that you love your son like this

54:47

This is shaping you the way you're

54:50

present to everything So

54:52

so that's kind of just raising up, you

54:55

know us living more

54:58

spaciously and richly

55:00

into the

55:02

sense of what we have to bring to the

55:04

world and It may

55:06

not be the things we get paid to do and it's

55:08

often true That the things we're not getting

55:10

paid to do are the places where

55:12

if I said are you living a worthy life? You'd say yes

55:14

cuz there's this going on right? So that's also

55:17

just like getting in touch with reality in a way

55:19

And then the other word I'm a surface

55:21

and that is fullness which So

55:24

a little bit impatient now with the

55:26

language of well-being and

55:28

wellness. I mean we need it. It's been

55:30

a bit of an antidote

55:32

But it's not quite big enough.

55:35

I think what we really want

55:37

and I think we are equipped

55:39

for

55:41

many of us

55:42

in this world is what I just

55:45

described would be wholeness of vocation

55:47

but Is to actually

55:49

apply this incredible intelligence we

55:51

have and all these resources we have to what is

55:54

a whole human being and and What

55:56

would a whole institution look

55:58

like which I don't know what the answer

56:00

to that is, but I find that question so

56:02

intriguing. And I think,

56:05

gosh, we've got a lot of false starts,

56:08

right? There's a lot of things we're not getting right,

56:10

but I think that when, you know, the

56:12

sum of the impetus behind workplace

56:15

initiatives and even, I mean, we

56:17

have a five-year

56:19

thing that's been going on in our organization, there's

56:21

a totally transformative and I said we can't

56:23

call it DEI. I mean, five years ago I

56:25

said that because those words are too small, but

56:28

it is that impulse, right? And I think

56:30

that when we're attempting

56:33

wholeness and we don't know how to

56:35

do it, we don't have the methodology,

56:38

but I think that's what we're longing for. And

56:40

that means institutions that

56:43

factor in the fullness of the humanity of

56:45

everybody who's part of them, right? What would it be

56:47

to beat a whole society? And

56:50

so I guess maybe both of these words, calling

56:52

and wholeness are aspirational words, but

56:55

that is a power that they have, that Americans

56:57

don't take very seriously, that they themselves

56:59

can create a larger

57:02

space for us to step into.

57:03

And

57:04

then what's so

57:07

just riveting for me, and this is again, gets

57:09

back to the generative narrative, is even as

57:11

there's so much fracture,

57:13

so much catastrophe, we

57:16

are understanding our bodies,

57:19

the natural world, the

57:22

workings of reality in these miraculous

57:24

ways.

57:26

And they show us how vitality

57:28

functions. And it has all these qualities

57:31

that the 20th century didn't acknowledge

57:33

like reciprocity and cooperation,

57:38

emergence rather than strategic

57:40

planning. A reality base

57:42

around the fact that the way life

57:44

works individually and collectively is

57:47

that we plan and things go wrong. It

57:50

never, nothing ever goes as planned. And

57:52

sometimes that's terrible. And often

57:55

it's when things break that

57:57

we learn something we didn't even know we needed to know

57:59

or pursue. So

58:02

wholeness is like that. It's not like perfection.

58:04

It's actually like orienting towards

58:06

reality and orienting towards

58:08

flourishing, which I feel like is

58:11

a word that our traditions, if you

58:13

want to say, what do all these teachings

58:16

add up to? It is a life of flourishing,

58:19

right? It's a life of inner abundance, whatever

58:21

the conditions are. So

58:24

that's what that was about.

58:26

Can I just go back to aspiration for a second? Yeah.

58:28

You can help maybe adjudicate, not

58:31

a debate, but just an interesting discussion I was

58:33

having with one of these friends at the beach. Okay. Who

58:36

is an incredibly impressive woman

58:39

who I've known for 20 years, who I

58:42

will not name because she hasn't given me permission, but she's

58:44

a very,

58:45

very impressive person. And

58:48

she wants, and these are her words, to be

58:50

an exemplary human. And

58:52

she's constantly kicking her own ass because

58:55

she's aware of the delta between what she

58:57

thinks is exemplary and what she

59:00

believes she's actually doing. Right.

59:02

And I tried

59:04

to talk to her a little bit about what

59:06

in Buddhism is called the Bodhisattva

59:09

vow or the notion of bodhicitta,

59:12

which is something to the effect of suffering

59:15

is endless and I vow to end this. I

59:18

am going to dedicate my life to liberating

59:21

all beings everywhere. It's a deliberately

59:23

impossible preposterous

59:26

goal. Right. But in the making

59:28

of that vow, you can relax

59:31

into its impossibility.

59:33

And she was saying, well, but I

59:35

see so much opportunity for complacency

59:38

in there that you won't actually

59:40

do anything. You've made the vow that you know

59:42

is impossible. So then you eat Cheetos

59:45

on the couch and watch The Real Housewives of Salt

59:47

Lake City as a consequence.

59:49

That's so interesting. I'm thinking of Sharon

59:51

Salzburg saying, you know, even if all

59:53

you're trying to do is

59:55

keep focusing on your breath, you will

59:57

have lost your focus by breath three and

59:59

how she'll

59:59

say, don't worry about it. See,

1:00:02

that's where I think there's a collusion between

1:00:05

this really kind of

1:00:07

spiritual aspiration and her capitalist

1:00:10

Western education and training,

1:00:12

which is telling her that it's about

1:00:14

hitting a mark and that not

1:00:16

hitting the mark is failure. I think

1:00:19

there can be no complacency

1:00:21

in

1:00:22

how we are orienting ourselves.

1:00:26

So like, what is your intentionality?

1:00:28

And

1:00:28

what are you orienting towards and what are you orienting

1:00:31

away from? And that's inner

1:00:33

work as well as outer work.

1:00:35

But

1:00:37

reality doesn't... We don't

1:00:39

hit the marks a lot of the time. That's the way it works.

1:00:42

And again, what we learn again

1:00:44

and again in life,

1:00:46

and we could learn this in our collective

1:00:48

life if we orient it towards it, is that

1:00:50

every time we don't hit the mark, there's learning

1:00:52

possible and that we can relax into that.

1:00:55

And it's trans-eather, so you forgot the breath.

1:00:58

You didn't get it. You lost it. It's

1:01:01

still there for you to take the next breath. But

1:01:03

you haven't lost your... I don't want

1:01:06

to say will, because I also think that we reduced

1:01:08

such a willpower and there's a little bit of that in this, right?

1:01:10

If I just could have done it right.

1:01:15

I think everything you're saying is correct.

1:01:17

And there's a word that is used

1:01:19

in Buddhism that I think is useful too.

1:01:22

One is ardor. I

1:01:24

love that word. Instead of effort. Yes. Arder.

1:01:26

Yes.

1:01:28

And the other is remembering.

1:01:31

And so it's like you can have this aspiration.

1:01:34

And I get her concern that you can have

1:01:36

the aspiration. You can even tattoo it on your

1:01:38

wrist. But if you don't remember

1:01:41

and you lose your ardor, then

1:01:44

it's empty.

1:01:45

And the civil rights elders put

1:01:48

this hyphen and remembering, remembering.

1:01:50

And I love that. And actually, I think that's

1:01:52

a useful image here too, because it's

1:01:56

remembering. It's also just that we constantly

1:01:59

have to kind of get

1:01:59

back in our bodies, right?

1:02:01

It's like we re-situate, re-reorient.

1:02:06

There's something that was useful for me when I was

1:02:08

getting religious again

1:02:10

in my 20s was Thomas Merton

1:02:13

and some of the things he wrote about intention.

1:02:15

And here's another like really

1:02:18

beautiful, deep spiritual concept

1:02:20

and which I feel is very resonant in Buddhism as

1:02:22

well. It's like non-attachment also to

1:02:25

results. And he would talk

1:02:27

about pure intention. And I can't remember which

1:02:29

one was right, whether it's right intention, there's pure

1:02:31

intention. The thing is what

1:02:33

we're called to and where

1:02:36

there is also mystery to behold is to

1:02:38

get our intention straight. Why?

1:02:40

Why do I want to be

1:02:43

this way? Why do I want this

1:02:45

to be my presence?

1:02:46

And the minute we attach it to goals,

1:02:50

it's not that we don't, we just have

1:02:52

to hold that so lightly, right? Like we're

1:02:54

doing the best we can in any given moment

1:02:56

and okay, what do I do with this intention? How do I

1:02:58

set into action now? But

1:03:01

we never control the results

1:03:04

of our actions. And that's

1:03:07

one of the wild mysteries of being alive and

1:03:09

the way things work. And just

1:03:11

physics is telling us about that as much as anything

1:03:13

else. And so

1:03:16

every time we think we

1:03:18

haven't achieved that goal, we

1:03:20

have to actually be able to rest in that we

1:03:22

had our intention, it

1:03:24

was pure, it was real.

1:03:26

And

1:03:27

then we have to let that go. It's a weird

1:03:29

tension to live in. I definitely live

1:03:31

in this tension, but it takes a lot of practice.

1:03:35

And I'm a totally ambitious person in

1:03:37

some ways, right? Like I'm driven. And

1:03:39

I think getting to this point of being able

1:03:41

to live in this creative tension is definitely,

1:03:44

you know, it's worth it to pursue a spiritual

1:03:46

path for a long time.

1:03:48

Yeah, it's absolutely not about giving up that

1:03:50

ambition and that drive. But

1:03:53

what a relief

1:03:55

to let go of the illusion of control. Because

1:03:58

even if I hit that

1:03:59

mark that I set,

1:04:02

I don't know that that sets

1:04:03

the right ripples in the force

1:04:05

field that is the universe. So

1:04:08

I have to like do my best to

1:04:10

get my attention straight, to walk forward,

1:04:13

and then let it go.

1:04:15

And then get

1:04:16

my attention straight again, keep walking forward.

1:04:20

This has been really fun. I

1:04:21

have like a million things on my list

1:04:23

of questions that we didn't even get to. So I'll have to

1:04:26

inveigle you into coming back at some point. It's

1:04:28

been really exciting. Is there

1:04:30

something that you wanted to talk about or

1:04:33

something that came up in your mind that I didn't give you a chance

1:04:35

to

1:04:35

talk about? No, I just came in really curious

1:04:37

about where you wanted to go. I trust

1:04:40

the conversation and this was just such a great

1:04:42

adventure. Thank you.

1:04:43

Thank you.

1:04:45

Your project on being

1:04:47

has gone through some changes. Used to be

1:04:49

on public radio now it's podcast only. Can

1:04:51

you just talk a little bit about that and give people a chance

1:04:54

to hear like what you're working on that you're excited about

1:04:56

where we can hear it, etc. Yeah. So

1:04:58

we left weekly public radio.

1:05:00

I did 52 weeks here for 20 years

1:05:02

and that was enough. And so now we're

1:05:05

doing podcast seasons, but I've realized a lot

1:05:07

of people don't know that we that we're

1:05:09

still around. So we're just doing our second podcast

1:05:11

selling season really fun. We have

1:05:14

a newsletter called the pause. You

1:05:17

know, everything is on the website on being that org. We

1:05:19

also have a poetry podcast called poetry on bound,

1:05:21

which is beautiful. And we're also,

1:05:23

you know, it wasn't taking the

1:05:25

show off the weekly radio wasn't

1:05:27

about doing less, but it was about doing less

1:05:30

weekly public radio. I did 52 weeks here for 20 years

1:05:33

and that was enough. And so now

1:05:35

we're doing podcast seasons, but I've realized a

1:05:37

lot of people don't know that we, that

1:05:39

we're still around. So we're just doing our second

1:05:41

podcast selling season really fun.

1:05:45

We have a newsletter called the pause. You

1:05:47

know, everything is on the website on being that org. We also

1:05:49

have a poetry podcast called poetry on bound, which

1:05:52

is beautiful. And we're also, you know,

1:05:54

it wasn't taking the show off the

1:05:57

weekly radio wasn't about doing less, but

1:05:59

it was about doing less weekly.

1:05:59

other. So we're

1:06:02

doing convenings and

1:06:04

we have this beautiful 20-year archive with

1:06:07

people who aren't with us anymore with just you know a

1:06:09

lot of wise voices and

1:06:11

so we're kind of mining that we're creating what we're calling

1:06:13

a lab for the art of living. Actually later this week

1:06:15

I'm going to be with some people who are starting to design

1:06:17

that to create some tools and resources

1:06:20

I would say because one of the things we found across

1:06:22

the years people really take in our

1:06:24

content and live with it and so we're

1:06:26

trying to figure out how we can deepen that and offer

1:06:29

up more along those lines.

1:06:30

Do you think it'll be an app? No

1:06:32

I don't think it'll be an app. I don't know what it's gonna

1:06:34

be. I don't know what it's gonna be.

1:06:36

Stay tuned. You're living with the

1:06:39

question. Yeah. Well that's great and

1:06:44

I hope people who haven't already done so go check out

1:06:46

everything you're doing. Yeah.

1:06:47

Thank you.

1:06:48

My pleasure. Yeah.

1:06:51

Thanks again to Krista Tippett. Go check

1:06:53

out her TED Talk and go check out her

1:06:55

podcast. She's incredible. One last

1:06:57

little note here before I let you go. Deep Cuts

1:07:00

is a new feature where you the listener get to

1:07:02

choose your favorite TPH

1:07:04

episode from the archives. It's simple. Just give us

1:07:06

a call and leave us a voicemail that

1:07:09

includes the episode you want to hear

1:07:11

and why. The number is 1508-656-0540. We'll

1:07:15

put it in the show notes so you don't have to write it down.

1:07:18

Finally thank you so much to everybody who

1:07:21

works incredibly hard on this show. Ten

1:07:23

percent happier is produced by Gabrielle Zuckerman, Justine

1:07:25

Davie, Lauren Smith and Tara Anderson.