Life Examined

This week clinical psychologist and author Dacher Keltner delves into the science and mysteries surrounding awe and shares that awe is not just found in nature or music but most often in the moral beauty of other people. ​This episode with Dacher Keltner was originally broadcast, February 4th, 2023

The plight of Black farmers in America has a dark history. The trauma of stolen lands and exploited labor may explain why there are now relatively few Black and Indigenous people in farming, agriculture, or even within environmental activism.  Leah Penniman is one farmer fighting to change that. Penniman explains that there’s a rising generation of Black and brown farmers reexamining their relationship to the land and reclaiming the farming and agricultural practices once held by their ancestors.   Penniman, who is the co-founder of Soul Fire Farm, says that “Black farmers had already declined from 14% of the nation's farmers in the early 1900s to just about 1% today.”  As a result of racism and discrimination Penniman says, “millions of acres of land were lost out of the Black community, and with that so much intergenerational wealth and knowledge.”  Penniman says her mission with Soul Fire Farms was to help end racism and injustice in the food system and explore and embrace of her own ancestral heritage to the land and agriculture; “nature as a source of spiritual connection permeates African diasporic thinking and very much informs the way we [operate] at Soul Fire, but also [how] the broader rising generation are conceptualizing our relationship to the land.”   “The food system pertains to all of us. All of us eat, so all of us are connected. All of us are complicit, but also all of us have these immense opportunities to contribute to change as consumers in the food system.” For over 20 years the Reverend Lennox Yearwood has also been fighting for racial and environmental justice. Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Rev. Yearwood has always had a strong affinity for music; “all music, particularly hip-hop and jazz. R&B, the Blues… for me, music was really more a pathway to the soul, just a way to escape. Music is so uplifting, it's so encouraging, it's just so beautiful — particularly with instruments and singing.”   Rev. Yearwood is President and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus — a national nonprofit, nonpartisan organization which began in 2004 and leverages hip-hop culture to encourage young people to vote and participate in the democratic process. Rev. Yearwood’s passion for music ties into his environmental activism and his work on human rights issues in the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina.  “Hip-hop’s roots are based in people who have been put in sometimes very difficult situations. They're using their cultural expression to shape their political experience. They’re talking about what they're going through, and they're trying to use music and culture to explain and sometimes bring light to situations.”   “Chuck D said that [hip-hop] ‘became the CNN for those communities.’ And so … listening to that, hearing that music, and hearing the power behind it definitely drew me into wanting to be a part of it.”  More: Chuck D on creating ‘naphic grovels,’ embracing mistakes (Press Play, 2023) Rev. Yearwood is actively involved in seeking environmental justice.  He continually highlights racial disparities and heightens awareness of the social and economic issues that negatively impact Black people.  The Hip Hop Caucus’ short film Underwater Projects sheds light on the coastal urban flooding happening in Norfolk, Virginia — including its effects on a historically Black public housing community.   Eternally hopeful and with a strong sense of faith, Rev. Yearwood is optimistic that things can be done to make life better: “When we come together, we do well. That's my prayer, that's what keeps me excited, motivated, and lets me know that at some point in time… That the power of humanity is just an amazing, beautiful thing.”  Delve deeper into life, philosophy, and what makes us human by joining the Life Examined discussion group on Facebook.

This week clinical psychologist George Bonanno at Columbia University explores resilience and challenges some traditional notions about trauma and says that humans are far better at confronting and coping with adversity than we think.   ​This episode with George Bonanno was originally broadcast September 17th, 2023

Throughout our lives we face situations that require a response. While events unfold around us, how we choose to react — or whether we choose to react at all — is entirely within our control. The concepts of justice and virtue are central to author Ryan Holiday’s latest book, Right Thing, Right Now: Good Values. Good Character. Good Deeds. Holiday explores how the ancient Greek philosophers Marcus Aurelius, Aristotle, and Seneca sought to provide a more pragmatic approach to happiness and virtue… And whether those same principles can impact how we live today. “The Stoics,” Holiday says, “are all about focusing on what's in your control.”

With the U.S. election just days away there’s a palpable sense that with whichever candidate emerges victorious, it could signal the beginning of the end for their opponents.   Whether this election is truly different from those of the past, or simply a byproduct of hyperfocus from the media — voters shouldn’t throw their hands up in despair. Throughout American history, everyday people have driven change in small and incremental steps. And these steps are largely unseen and unheralded.   In her book The Small and the Mighty; Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, author and former high school teacher Sharon McMahon emphasizes that now is not the time for apathy: “We get so caught up in Trump vs. Harris, that it's easy to forget that our real lives are being deeply impacted by the people who literally work on the other side of town. … We do not have to wait for the right leader to win an election.” McMahon says hope is a key element in fighting any anxiety we may have about the election. “Hope is not a feeling that you wait to experience,” McMahon tells us. “Hope is not attached to an individual. It is not attached to the outcome of an election.”   “Hope is a choice that we can make,” she continues, “Hope is an orientation of the spirit. In the words of Bryan Stevenson: ‘It's an orientation of our spirit, and we do not have the luxury of giving up hope.’ Because hope is our only chance at making positive change in the United States and in the world.” The deep political divisions in America have fostered a belief that as a nation we have become increasingly tribal. In fact, if you listen to any pundit, “tribalism” is used in a negative way. In his new book TRIBAL: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together, author Michael Morris explains why the words triablism or tribe are not only misused, but also misunderstood. Tribes used to be referred to as “an enduring community,” Morris says. “During the era of colonial expansion and imperialism, tribalism started taking on a negative connotation involving notions of stasis and primitivism.”  “The distinctive way of social life in our species is living in very large communities that transcend kith and kin, that are that are glued together by shared ideas, by shared beliefs, otherwise known as culture,”  Morris affirms. “And so, large groups held together by cultural glue is the human form of social organization. Otherwise known as tribal living.” Morris highlights that tribes have played a crucial and positive role in human evolution.  Tribes are, “what enable us to collaborate intellectually. And almost everything impressive that humans have built has come from intellectual collaboration.”  Tribes also facilitate the sharing of knowledge as Morris further imparts: “Today, 99% of what you and I know is not something that we figured out directly ourselves. It's the knowledge that we inherited. We can not only do impressive things based on other people's knowledge, but we can collaborate with other members of our culture because we have this shared legacy of knowledge in common with them.”  Delve deeper into life, philosophy, and what makes us human by joining the Life Examined discussion group on Facebook.

This week Oliver Burkeman journalist and author of “Meditations for Mortals” discusses the complexities of trying to be perfect in an imperfect world. Accepting our limitations, he says, is a pathway to liberation and happiness.  ​This episode with Oliver Burkeman was originally broadcast October 27, 2024

Journalist and author Oliver Burkeman discusses the complexities of happiness, well-being, and productivity — emphasizing the futility of seeking a single solution.  Burkeman offers guidance on why we shouldn’t sacrifice the very essence of living in search of perfection and doing it all. Treasuring those simple moments in daily life, which doesn’t mean settling for less, Burkemans says, “is a precondition for a really full life.” Delve deeper into life, philosophy, and what makes us human by joining the Life Examined discussion group on Facebook.

This week Kate Murphy, journalist and author of “You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters,” sheds some light on the value of true friendships, why quality is often more important than quantity and why it is so important to give time and space to the friendships we truly care about. ​This episode with Kate Murphy was originally broadcast June 5th, 2021

As the years go on and as science and research advances, we’re learning more and more about how animals are able to use sound and vibrations to effectively communicate with each other. Elephants, for example, can communicate through seismic vibrations felt through the pads of their feet.  So what do we know about the nature of sound? How has it defined who we are and how we live? What role does it play in the lives of hearing individuals, deaf individuals, and everyone in between?   In his book Experiencing Sound: The Sensation of Being author Lawrence Kramer writes that “sound is an agent of transformation.” Throughout human history, “sound is one of the fundamental phenomena that links us to the sense of inhabiting and sharing a world.” Of all the human senses, contrary to what we might think, sound is “a uniquely empowered form of sensory experience that links us to our lives and our being more intimately than sight does.”   “Sound is always inside us as well as outside us, and heightened experiences of sound really take that vibratory presence and amplify it so that our most intense experiences of sound are really whole body experiences.”  Carolyn Korsmeyer, research professor of philosophy at the University at Buffalo and author of several books including, Making Sense of Taste; Food and Philosophy explains why there’s so much more to taste than flavor. “Taste,” Korsmeyer says, “deserves greater respect and attention.” In addition to providing physical pleasure, eating and drinking bear symbolic and aesthetic value in the human experience.    “One of the prejudices against taste is that it's all in your mouth,” Korsmeyer shares. “It's only about the flavor that is happening in your taste buds right now. But it is usually outer-directed as well. I am not just tasting, I'm tasting a strawberry. I'm not just drinking, I'm drinking a Coca-Cola — or a beer, or a glass of wine, [etc.] So taste, people think of it as being entirely subjective. By that, I think they mean it's just yours, but it really isn't.”  She also talks about the evocative nature of the human touch. Korsmeyer argues that touch, along with being psychologically beneficial, can offer a deeper and perhaps even spiritual connection. “When you are in the presence of something very old, or very special, or [something] that belonged to someone whom you have an attachment to and you touch it, you are, in a sense, feeling that age. That specialness, that person … There's a proximity and an intimacy that touch permits that I think is often overlooked.” Delve deeper into life, philosophy, and what makes us human by joining the Life Examined discussion group on Facebook.  

This week Judson Brewer psychiatrist, neuroscientist at Brown University and author of “Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind” addresses how we can recognize certain behaviors that trigger anxiety disorders. Continually worrying feeds into an anxiety habit loop and the more we worry, the more anxious we become.   

The amazing sights of the vast African savannas are familiar to many of us through the lens of superb documentary films and videos. Though there are many animals we watch with awe, there’s one rather peculiar looking animal that captivates the heart — the elephant.    So much about elephants make them intriguing creatures: The oversized ears, the unique nature of their trunks (which, by the way, have more muscles than an entire human body), and perhaps most of all the fact that they’re a lot like us. Elephants are loving, loyal, intelligent, family oriented, and great at teamwork.  Elephant scientist and author Caitlin O’Connell has spent the last 30 years in Namibia’s Etosha National Park studying elephants. Amongst the many things O’Connell’s observed is the value and effort elephants place on greeting, playing, and communicating with each other. These are behaviors which O’Connell has observed could help us understand ourselves better.  “The most powerful thing that struck me in the beginning,” O’Connell says, “is the importance of greeting. They may have only been separated for a few minutes, because the matriarch is older and slower, and she took a little longer to get to the waterhole than the rest of the group. All of a sudden [once she arrives] they have a huge greeting ceremony for her. Each one will place their trunk in her mouth and they get all excited and flap their ears. Also, for elephants, part of the greeting is urinating and defecating because they get so excited … But just seeing all of these rituals that we can see in our own lives and the importance of them, it's always a reminder to me that, ‘wow, we take some of these things for granted, that they don't.’” O’Connell, a conservation biologist at Harvard Medical School and award-winning author of Wild Rituals: 10 Lessons Animals Can Teach Us About Connection, Community, and Ourselves, has specifically focused on researching the ways elephants communicate with each other — including the intriguing ground-based vibrations of an elephant’s “rumble.”  “For a long time we knew that elephants emit these low frequency rumbles in the range of 20 hertz for a female, 10 hertz for a male,” O’Connell tells us. “They communicate in this way so that [their sounds] travel long distances … Those signals are something that they use to coordinate.” Perhaps the most touching and moving ritual O’Connell describes, is how one elephant will grieve the loss of a family member: “They would touch the bones in a way that it wasn't like a salt lick — like [the way that] you see some animals sucking on bones of other species — [theirs] was more a tactile exploration. They would take the end of their trunk and press it down [for example] on the hip of this individual [elephant].”  “He [the elephant] would take the sand, a little bit moist as it hasn't been that long since this [other] elephant passed away, and he would take the sand and press it against his chest and press it behind his ears in such a delicate way that it was almost as if he was trying to carry him. It was really compelling. I just have never seen that before.”

This week Peter Wohlleben, renowned German forester and author of  “The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate,” talks about the age-old connection between humans and the forest and encourages us to take notice. Wohlleben says that research indicates sitting under a tree or ‘forest bathing’ is beneficial for our health - it can reduce blood pressure and help us to stay calm and relax. 

Why do we get bored? And what exactly happens to us when we experience boredom?  Like joy and anxiety, boredom is a state of mind. Being bored does not mean you’re lazy and it has little to do with external factors like new cars, gadgets, or experiences. James Danckert, professor of psychology and director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Area at the University of Waterloo, has been studying why we get bored. He studies the reasons behind why boredom occurs, alongside the effects that boredom can have on our minds and the larger purpose that it can serve. Danckert says, “people confuse boredom with the couch potato, some sort of  laziness and inaction, but it can't be further from the truth. When we're bored, we're really quite motivated and we want to be doing something… we just can't figure out what.” The definition that Danckert feels perfectly captures what boredom is comes from Leo Tolstoy in Anna Karenina. Tolstoy describes boredom as “the desire for desires.” And regardless of how active or engaged a person is, the feelings of boredom are familiar to most as a “restless, agitated experience.” “The key,” Danckert says, “is to recognize those signs early on, to calm down, and think of some options out of it … You need to let the little things that normally would bore you suddenly thrill you.” And Danckert says that “boredom is often associated with a lack of meaning.” What we feel is that, “what you're doing is not meaningful, or your life doesn't feel quite meaningful to you and that's going to be a key component of being bored.” “To ensure that you don't get bored,” Danckert says, “you don't have to start pursuing a cure for cancer, you don't have to do anything grand, you don't have to choose an activity that somehow is momentous — you just have to choose something that matters to you, and that could be big [or] small.” Kids most often associate boredom with having nothing to do, but Danckert says there is a good deal of work to suggest that “we have over-scheduled our kids and that makes them more anxious than you might imagine.” “Kids need their downtime,” Danckert says. When we overschedule them, we are “taking away their agency.”  Danckert also suggests that parents do too much: “When kids come to us and they say that they're bored, are we doing the right thing in terms of responding to that? Of course, you don't want to give them full control because they're kids, they'll make big mistakes, and you want to have some safety net around them. But over-scheduling is not a solution to boredom.” Danckert also highlights the fact that boredom can be the root of many maladaptive behaviors: “There's lots and lots of instances where aggressive, violent, and abhorrent behaviors are blamed on boredom. But I would suggest that we can't really blame boredom for those kinds of things. I think boredom is a call to action. We have to take ownership of what actions we choose in response to boredom.”  People who are prone to boredom,” Danckert says, “are also a little bit lower in self-control. They don't have great control over their actions and their emotions, and so those people might be more likely to choose those kinds of maladaptive and abhorrent responses.” “Boredom isn't likely to make you a genius sculptor, painter, or guitar player any more than it's likely to turn you into a killer. So what we do with boredom is really up to us.”    Ultimately the feeling of boredom is a call to action, it highlights a need to be agentic. What we decide to do when we feel this way is ultimately up to us, but a tip that Danckert offers is to find the little things that matter: “Celebrate those little things and engage with them with intentionality.” Delve deeper into life, philosophy, and what makes us human by joining the Life Examined discussion group on Facebook.  

This week Jamil Zaki, professor of Psychology at Stanford University and author of “Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness,” talks about our need to rebrand hope as a culture. ‘Hope,’  Zaki says, is the idea that things could turn out better than we might otherwise be led to believe and suggests ways and strategies we can take to combate our own cynical perspectives.  This episode with Jamil Zaki was originally broadcast Sept 15th, 2024  

*This episode originally aired on November 12, 2022.Jonathan Bastian talks with Lauren Ober, producer, podcast host and executive producer of The Loudest Girl In The World shares her personal journey of her later-in-life autism diagnosis. Later, Francesca Happe Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at King's College London about advances and autism diagnosis and how that has impacted the way society sees neuro-divergency? Delve deeper into life, philosophy, and what makes us human by joining the Life Examined discussion group on Facebook.

What does it mean to lead a happy and fulfilling life?   Most of us seek happiness through pleasure, calm, and order — preferring to avoid the discomfort, confrontation, and anxiety that comes from obstacles and challenges. And while less worry and work, along with more time to relax and have fun may sound appealing… Life rarely happens as we plan it and that might just be a good thing.  According to philosopher Lorraine Besser: “There is this notion that we have, that once we get to the end goal we'll experience fulfillment. [We think] that justifies making all these sacrifices to [our] day to day lives in pursuit of this kind of elusive goal.”   Besser, professor of philosophy at Middlebury College and author of  The Art of the Interesting; What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It argues that there’s an overlooked and important element to leading a good life called “psychological richness.” Besser says, “what makes psychologically rich experiences distinct is that they're not always pleasant.”  “The good life,” Besser argues, “is not always going to be this perfect, safe, [and] happy one. But the good life is going to be a life that involves challenges and putting yourself in uncomfortable places.” Besser explains further that this is not a matter of reframing the difficulties and obstacles. “Many of us feel that, when we're experiencing painful feelings, there's only really two routes available,” Besser shares. “Either we've just got to block them out and [not] let them invade our lives, or we've got to somehow turn them around and make them good.”  Instead, Besser tells us, “there is another really important way. We can just sit with them and allow ourselves to feel them. Those difficulties and the uncomfortableness will prompt the kind of cognitive engagement we're looking for, if you allow it to sink in.” A “good life,” involves embracing all emotions. Even if those little surprises are unpleasant and might (on the surface) make us feel less happy, they are all part of life. According to Besser, “they don't have to interfere with our living good lives, so we can embrace them and experience value from them.”  Delve deeper into life, philosophy, and what makes us human by joining the Life Examined discussion group on Facebook.

This week Esther Perel, psychotherapist, bestselling author and the host of the podcast “Where Should We Begin?” talks about a sexual recession. Perel says that compared with previous generations Gen Z is having less sex and becoming increasingly isolated - and the more time spent online is resulting in less time spent on the skills, experience or patience that help make a relationship work. This episode with Esther Perel was originally broadcast September 8th, 2024

If you feel like we’re living in an era marked by increased mistrust, political tension, and cynicism — you’re not alone, research confirms this shift. Research shows that in 1972, half of Americans believed that most people were trustful. By 2018, the percentage had fallen to only a third.  The rise in distrust and cynicism is a central theme in the book Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, by Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. Zaki explains that cynicism is not just human nature, it is directly impacted by our environment. “If you look across both space and time, inequality and cynicism track one another,” Zaki says. “So in more unequal nations, states, and counties people trust each other a lot less. In times that have been more unequal, people have generally trusted each other a lot less than during more egalitarian times.” What we hear in the media on a daily basis also feeds our fears and disillusionment, fostering distrust. “There's something known as ‘mean world syndrome,’” Zaki continues. “The more that people tune into the news, whether it's on their phones, on the radio, on television — the worse they think people are. You might go the realist route and say, ‘well, yeah, because they're informed.’ But it turns out that the more that people tune into the news, the more wrong they are about others.”  Zaki, who also directs the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab, explains that there’s some science pointing to the fact that cynicism can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Human beings are psychologically adaptive, we are molded by our environment,” Zaki says. “And so if you're in an environment where it feels like people can't trust each other, where people have to look out only for themselves, then you will become mistrustful. You will become more selfish.” Tania Israel, professor of counseling psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of Facing the Fracture: How to Navigate the Challenges of Living in a Divided Nation, says the remedy for dealing with people we don’t agree with is not to disengage or set boundaries. Instead, she suggests a three-pronged approach to bring about a less contentious dialogue. First, to reduce our consumption of negativity from our phones and TV. Second, broaden our own capacity for understanding and empathizing. For example, Israel says: “We so seldom say, ‘here's what I'm thinking, these are the limits of my understanding. What am I missing?’ And really inviting something that's outside of what we have been focusing on in terms of information or narrative.”   Finally, Israel advocates for engaging with your community — participating and demonstrating that you are open. “Not to say that we need to change our minds,” Israel points out. “Or not to say that we need to agree with where that other person is coming from, but to always want to know where they're coming from. More is a great stance to be in.”   Delve deeper into life, philosophy, and what makes us human by joining the Life Examined discussion group on Facebook.

This week Robin Stern, psychoanalyst, and author of “The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life,” talks about gaslight effect.  What to watch for in a relationship or perhaps with a manager, coworker or doctor and how to succesfully navigate the feelings of invalidation that accompany that behavior.   This episode with Robin Stern was originally broadcast July 14th 2024  

Few people offer greater insight, sensitivity, and expertise on human relationships and sexuality than Esther Perel. Born and raised in Belgium, Perel’s studies took her from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, to the United States where she built a career in couples and family therapy. Today, she is internationally acclaimed for her profound insights into eroticism and intimacy. She’s an author and the host of the popular podcast “Where Should We Begin?”  The exploration of human sexual desire is as complex as it sounds. Our ideas of intimacy are varied and sex today can be measurable and perfunctory. “[It’s] often seen as an act, something you do,” says Perel. “How often do you do it? How many? How hard, how long? How frequent?”  But desire and the erotic is a quality of aliveness and vitality, distinct from sexuality. “You don't measure eroticism,” Perel continues. “It's a quality of experience, but you know when you feel it.”  Eroticism is: “Sexuality transformed by the human imagination. It's infinite. It's surrounded by ritual, by celebration, and it's often transgressive. It's often lured by the forbidden. A lot of it is actually in our head and between our ears… not necessarily between our legs.” Perel tells us that the key ingredients are “curiosity, playfulness, mystery, imagination” … “the forbidden elicits curiosity, and the curiosity activates the imagination.”  Perel argues that we need to do more than just recognize and celebrate this as a wonderful part of who we are. “[Our] core emotional needs are expressed in the coded language of sexuality. Sex is never just something you do. Sex is a place you go.”  Esther Perel’s latest project, which she calls her “Desire Bundle,” features two online courses: Bringing Desire Back and Playing with Desire. They launch later this September. Esther Perel’s An Evening With Esther Perel: The Future of Relationships, Love & Desire is currently on tour. See her live at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles on September 10th. More info here. Delve deeper into life, philosophy, and what makes us human by joining the Life Examined discussion group on Facebook.