Speaker 1: Hey everyone, Just a quick shout out to all of
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Speaker 1: feed dot net slash join. We're very lucky to be
Speaker 1: here at all, and crucially, it's more special because it's
Speaker 1: not forever welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Sasha Sagan.
Speaker 1: She's a writer who has also worked as a television producer, filmmaker, editor,
Speaker 1: and speaker. Sasha's writing has appeared in New York magazine, Oh,
Speaker 1: The Oprah Magazine, Literary Hub, and others. Today's Sasha and
Speaker 1: Eric discuss her book for Small Creatures such as We,
Speaker 1: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to
Speaker 1: be here. I'm excited to talk with you about your
Speaker 1: book called for small creatures such as We, Rituals for
Speaker 1: finding Meaning in our Unlikely World. And we will get
Speaker 1: to that in a moment, but we'll start like we
Speaker 1: always do, with the parable. There is a grandmother who's
Speaker 1: talking with her grandson and she says, in life, there
Speaker 1: are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second.
Speaker 1: He looks up at his grandmother and says, well, grandmother,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And she says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do well for us. Let me
Speaker 1: say I love it. I think it's such a beautiful
Speaker 1: way of communicating something so much larger than just a
Speaker 1: few sentences that it takes to tell that story. The
Speaker 1: first thing that comes to my mind is the questions
Speaker 1: of like wonder and curiosity and awe and how we
Speaker 1: get that, how we tap into that. It's so easy
Speaker 1: to be blase about the natural world, about our place
Speaker 1: in the universe, about reproduction, about all these things that
Speaker 1: we get to know when we're you know, young, and
Speaker 1: we become very ordinary in our lives. And I think
Speaker 1: there's something about feeding the awe, feeding the wonder, and
Speaker 1: even the things that are very very simple, like we
Speaker 1: eat food that grows in the ground. It grows because
Speaker 1: it gets light and water and nutrients from the soil,
Speaker 1: and it grows and we eat it and we live.
Speaker 1: If we can tap into the part of ourselves that
Speaker 1: can feel some sense of awe about just that, if
Speaker 1: we feed that part of ourselves. I think that grows,
Speaker 1: and the more curious we are, even about very ordinary things,
Speaker 1: and the more we can pursue that outlook, I think
Speaker 1: that's the wolf that I want to feed. I love
Speaker 1: that curiosity is such a big piece for me. So
Speaker 1: one of the things I love about your book you
Speaker 1: say very early on that in your Household, being Alive
Speaker 1: was presented to me as a profoundly beautiful and staggeringly unlikely,
Speaker 1: a sacred miracle of random chance. And I love that
Speaker 1: idea because a lot of what you're trying to do
Speaker 1: in this book is bring back a sense of sacredness
Speaker 1: to a scientific worldview. And you know, you say elsewhere,
Speaker 1: which I absolutely love, you say, why does the provability
Speaker 1: of something rob us of the thrill of it? And
Speaker 1: so talk to me about how we can keep a
Speaker 1: sense of all and mystery and if you'll use the
Speaker 1: word sacredness, sacredness around things that we can explain. Why
Speaker 1: does being able to explain something tend to take away
Speaker 1: the importance we give it. It's such a good question,
Speaker 1: and it's such a strange thing. I think we have
Speaker 1: this idea, you know, I always say we malign facts
Speaker 1: as cold and hard, and we have this idea that
Speaker 1: if you just look at the data, it's unromantic and
Speaker 1: it doesn't give you the spine chilling thrill that a
Speaker 1: mystery gives you. But I think the way that we've
Speaker 1: been able to understand the natural world by following scientific
Speaker 1: evidence is so much more astonishing than a lot of
Speaker 1: the mysteries that we concocted for ourselves or the things
Speaker 1: that we were most comfortable leaving unknown. When we come
Speaker 1: face to face with the reality of our place in
Speaker 1: the universe, what we're made of, how we got here,
Speaker 1: all these deep old questions, it's startlingly beautiful. And I
Speaker 1: think one of the things my parents did when I
Speaker 1: was a kid was they would sort of describe things, saying,
Speaker 1: imagine if you were from another planet and you notice
Speaker 1: that humans were doing this, or imagine that you had
Speaker 1: never seen this before, or the moon appeared one day
Speaker 1: and it hadn't been there this whole time, And to
Speaker 1: sort of take a step back and see very ordinary
Speaker 1: things or things that we understand deeply, or even things
Speaker 1: that we've just discovered in the last generation, and take
Speaker 1: the tools we use to describe fairy tales and miss
Speaker 1: and ancient stories that haunt us. The best example I
Speaker 1: can think of is if we told children there's a
Speaker 1: secret code in your blood that connects you to your ancestors,
Speaker 1: and whether you believe in it or not, it's there
Speaker 1: and it holds information that maybe you don't even know,
Speaker 1: but we have figured out how to do it, and
Speaker 1: we can find out all these things about ourselves that
Speaker 1: we never knew before with this amazing decoding system that
Speaker 1: we've just discovered, but was here all along, instead of
Speaker 1: just having like the worksheet that you do in middle
Speaker 1: school with the alleles and the RNA and that you know,
Speaker 1: all the stuff that doesn't get presented like this grand, sweeping,
Speaker 1: beautiful thing, you know. I think that there's so much there.
Speaker 1: We all feel this craving for the sacredness, as you said,
Speaker 1: for a connection to the immense grandeur that we're all
Speaker 1: part of. And I think whether you're secular like me,
Speaker 1: or you're religious, or you're somewhere in between, or there's
Speaker 1: elements of religion that you really connect to and there's
Speaker 1: elements that you find alienating. Wherever you are on that spectrum,
Speaker 1: I think that that desire to feel, that feeling that
Speaker 1: even the earliest humans must have felt looking up at
Speaker 1: the night sky at the Milky Way. To connect to that,
Speaker 1: I think there's ways to do that that rely just
Speaker 1: on the information that is supported by science. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I mean what we learned from science is usually, at
Speaker 1: least for me, way more mind bending and miraculous and
Speaker 1: like what than the myths we have, you know, the
Speaker 1: myths are like well, yeah, okay, so you know it's
Speaker 1: one thing to think, well, the universe was created five
Speaker 1: or six thousand years ago by creating two people, and
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, I can't understand that. I understand how
Speaker 1: we birth babies. Okay, maybe, but then you go hold
Speaker 1: on a second fourteen billion and it all came out
Speaker 1: of nothing like and for me, those are sacred experiences.
Speaker 1: When I'm actually able to touch the awe of it all.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. And I think that one of
Speaker 1: the things that we really struggle with as a species
Speaker 1: is the tolerance for ambiguity. And sometimes when we have
Speaker 1: a really large question but we don't have the answer
Speaker 1: for it, or even a really small question, you know,
Speaker 1: in our daily lives, but we don't have the answer
Speaker 1: for it, the urge to just put an answer in,
Speaker 1: to not sit with the discomfort of not knowing is
Speaker 1: so strong that we're willing to settle for answers um
Speaker 1: just to not have that anxiety of having this empty
Speaker 1: space when we're we have a profound question that is
Speaker 1: really at our core. And so I think the more
Speaker 1: we can get comfortable with saying, well, this is the
Speaker 1: information we have now, we may get more information that
Speaker 1: disproves this, or we may get more information that supports it,
Speaker 1: but we're going to follow the evidence and it's going
Speaker 1: to lead us somewhere we could never expect. But at
Speaker 1: least we'll know that it's not a product or it's
Speaker 1: less likely to be a product of our wishes and
Speaker 1: hopes and fears. Yeah, And I think that's an interesting
Speaker 1: thing to hold. How to hold that idea, because it's
Speaker 1: really easy to be like, well, this is true because
Speaker 1: science said it's true, but science said all sorts of
Speaker 1: things were true in the past that we know now like, well, no,
Speaker 1: that was completely wrong. I partially like really want to
Speaker 1: be like wow, that's amazing, and then there's another part like, well,
Speaker 1: what maybe that's not it at all, And like you say,
Speaker 1: holding that ambiguity is interesting, and it's one of the
Speaker 1: areas that I found like a deeper spiritual life, particularly
Speaker 1: in a mystic dimension, helps with that because the mystics
Speaker 1: ultimately go like, well, you can't really know any of this,
Speaker 1: Like at a certain level you pass beyond intellectual understanding.
Speaker 1: And having some experiences like that sort of lead have
Speaker 1: led me more naturally to holding scientific truths a little
Speaker 1: bit more lightly. Like you said, I think you said
Speaker 1: it very well. That's what we believe now. May not
Speaker 1: be a true we don't know for sure, but that's
Speaker 1: the best guess we have. I think the thing that's
Speaker 1: so powerful about science it's not just like a list
Speaker 1: of bullet points to be compared with you know, another
Speaker 1: list of bullet points you know, from any other tradition,
Speaker 1: But it's a tool to try to figure out what's
Speaker 1: going on. It's very hard for us to not project
Speaker 1: what we want to be true or what we hope
Speaker 1: to be true. And so if we can sort of
Speaker 1: just over and over again test our views and see
Speaker 1: what stands up to scrutiny and let the stuff that
Speaker 1: doesn't fall away and be okay with that, I think
Speaker 1: that's a pathway to a deeper understanding, coupled with are
Speaker 1: getting comfortable with the idea that what we know is
Speaker 1: still such a tiny fragment of what there is to know.
Speaker 1: You state that eloquently throughout the book, sort of this
Speaker 1: idea of this is a puzzle that we're never really
Speaker 1: going to solve, like thinking like, oh, if I just
Speaker 1: gather more knowledge, I will be able to put all
Speaker 1: the pieces together. But it seems to be the more
Speaker 1: we know, the more we go what on earth is
Speaker 1: going on around here? Right, And the more questions we have.
Speaker 1: And I think that that the idea that that's great
Speaker 1: and having questions is good, you know, following that curiosity
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily a problem, I think is something that can
Speaker 1: be so joyful and it's something that you see um
Speaker 1: with small children very often that they're just so excited
Speaker 1: to have questions and may well just keep going and
Speaker 1: you know, the why why why phase can be exhausting,
Speaker 1: but it's also such a thrill because there's so much
Speaker 1: information for them to absorb, and you know, following those
Speaker 1: threads down all the paths that there are is something
Speaker 1: that I think adults, you know, maybe can take a
Speaker 1: little page from that Toddler book. Yeah, one of the
Speaker 1: things that happens. I think as you move from a
Speaker 1: religious worldview to a secular worldview, I don't want to
Speaker 1: put science opposite religion, so I'll just stay with secular
Speaker 1: for now. In most religious worldviews, or at least in
Speaker 1: a lot of them, particularly Christianity, there's a sense that
Speaker 1: you are this special, unique creature that God loves and
Speaker 1: God knows you, and you're this thing, and then you
Speaker 1: come over here to the secular worldview of Okay, I
Speaker 1: am one speck of dust in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 1: I am a I'm a I am a speck of
Speaker 1: dust in a flash of lightning, you know, like boom,
Speaker 1: that's it. So what that can feel like often is
Speaker 1: oh my god, what happened to meaning? It's the existential crisis.
Speaker 1: It's the meaninglessness. I'd love to talk about how you
Speaker 1: and your parents before you, because they obviously informed that
Speaker 1: held that issue, and how they found meaning in what
Speaker 1: if you're not careful, looks like a just a meaningless existence.
Speaker 1: I think you really had it on the head with
Speaker 1: the existential crisis. And I think even if you're not
Speaker 1: leaving a religious upbringing, um, even if you're brought up secular,
Speaker 1: as I was, the existential crisis, I think it's almost
Speaker 1: a rite of passage. I think that's real, and I
Speaker 1: think it's important, and I think you have to go
Speaker 1: through that very painful looking glass that says you know,
Speaker 1: life is not forever. We are all mortal, and we
Speaker 1: are here in the grand scheme of things for the
Speaker 1: blink of an eye. And even though I was not
Speaker 1: ever told anything otherwise, I still, as a teenager and
Speaker 1: I read about in the book, had to really come
Speaker 1: face to face with that idea viscerally. I mean, it's difficult,
Speaker 1: it's painful, it's really hard. But on the other side
Speaker 1: of it, what I think is there the other side
Speaker 1: of the coin is well, I'm right here, right now,
Speaker 1: it's happening, and they're the countless circumstances that could have
Speaker 1: gone just a millimeter in the other direction and I
Speaker 1: would be someone else, or I wouldn't be here, or
Speaker 1: some medical problem a thousand years ago, some ancestor didn't
Speaker 1: make it to adulthood, and you're not here. All the
Speaker 1: people who it took and before them, all the non
Speaker 1: human primates and all down to the single celled organisms
Speaker 1: who it took for you to be here right now.
Speaker 1: The litening to this podcast, it's astonishing, it's amazing, it's
Speaker 1: worthy of celebration, it's beautiful. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: my parents really raised me with this idea from the
Speaker 1: earliest time that I was aware of mortality, that we're
Speaker 1: very lucky to be here at all. And crucially, it's
Speaker 1: more special because it's not forever. If we lived forever,
Speaker 1: there would be no hurry to do anything. There would
Speaker 1: be very little thrill and beauty and excitement. And you know,
Speaker 1: it takes both sides of the coin. Without death, there
Speaker 1: is no life. And I think that you know that's
Speaker 1: true of all things, you know, cold and hot, long days,
Speaker 1: short days, darkness and light, all those things. You know,
Speaker 1: we have to have the other side, not in a
Speaker 1: spiritual way, necessarily in a very literal way. You know,
Speaker 1: the summer is hard to appreciate if there's no winter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're saying that made me think of two artistic renderings
Speaker 1: of that. One is a Matt Hague book I think
Speaker 1: called How to Stop Time, and it's about vampires, but
Speaker 1: essentially they're just bored out of their mind. And Jason
Speaker 1: Isabel wrote an amazing song called If We were Vampires,
Speaker 1: which is this beautiful love song to his wife, basically saying,
Speaker 1: if we were vampires, this wouldn't be so special because
Speaker 1: we just go on and on forever. It's the fact
Speaker 1: that I know that one of us is going to
Speaker 1: lose the other. It's a beautiful and heartbreaking song that
Speaker 1: gave me chill as you're describing it. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's something that sometimes certain religious traditions that suggest
Speaker 1: that you know there is something after this and you
Speaker 1: will be reunited. Well, and that this is just the
Speaker 1: dress rehearsal for something else. Well, if that's not true,
Speaker 1: that really robs us of something right now here. And
Speaker 1: now that this isn't the dress rehearsal. This is the show,
Speaker 1: and it's up to us to make the best of
Speaker 1: it and do what we can to do right and
Speaker 1: to enjoy and to have some happy nous. You say
Speaker 1: that the biggest drawback for you of being secular is
Speaker 1: the lack of a shared culture. Say more about that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I really like you know, parties, um and
Speaker 1: celebrations and holidays and rituals, and I lost my dad
Speaker 1: when I was fourteen, and not having a infrastructure for
Speaker 1: mourning was difficult. So for background were Jewish. We don't believe,
Speaker 1: we don't adopt any of the theistic elements, but culturally,
Speaker 1: you know, expression wise, cuisine wise, holiday wise, you know,
Speaker 1: we are Jewish, and we found ways to connect to
Speaker 1: our ancestors without necessarily taking on their theological points of view.
Speaker 1: So we had Hanukah and pass Over, but we did
Speaker 1: them in a secular way and I loved that. And
Speaker 1: you know, for a while, I thought, oh, well, Judaism
Speaker 1: isn't you know, it's so weird how it's like a
Speaker 1: culture and a you know, sort of ethnic for and
Speaker 1: a religion and these overlapping then diagrams. But as I
Speaker 1: got older, I realized that this is very common. I mean,
Speaker 1: Christmas is celebrated in a secular way, all that stuff,
Speaker 1: And I mean I have had several people reach out
Speaker 1: to me recently um saying that they consider themselves culturally Mormon.
Speaker 1: They don't believe in the theology anymore, but they were
Speaker 1: brought up Mormon and they still connect to elements of that.
Speaker 1: And I think every person, even if you're very devout,
Speaker 1: we're all navigating, well, what are we going to emphasize
Speaker 1: in our own lives that was passed down to us,
Speaker 1: and what are we going to slightly repurpose and what
Speaker 1: are we gonna let fall away? And we've been doing
Speaker 1: this for generations. No matter how traditional you think you are,
Speaker 1: you're doing something differently than they were doing a couple
Speaker 1: of hundred years ago. So I think a celebration and
Speaker 1: a party and a rite of passage and a coming
Speaker 1: of age ceremony and a wedding are so much more
Speaker 1: powerful when they're not just going through the motions, when
Speaker 1: they really reflect the philosophy of the booth involved. And
Speaker 1: so that's how I really got interested um in what
Speaker 1: eventually led to my book is this idea of well,
Speaker 1: how can we still mark time? Because so much of
Speaker 1: ritual is about processing change, births, marriages, deaths, year changing.
Speaker 1: It's the days are short, the days are long, it's cold,
Speaker 1: it's hot. Time is passing? How is this happening? I
Speaker 1: can't feel the earth moving, and yet here we are
Speaker 1: time is passing. And so I think, you know, really
Speaker 1: craving that, but craving it in a way that reflects
Speaker 1: what I really believe is become. You know a lot
Speaker 1: of what I think about and a lot of what's
Speaker 1: interesting to me. Yeah, I agree, and I think ritual
Speaker 1: can be so important. You've got a young daughter. I've
Speaker 1: got a son who is twenty two years old, And
Speaker 1: as I look back, one of the regrets I think
Speaker 1: I might have was not finding ritual there that was
Speaker 1: consistent with him. Luckily, I think he got it from
Speaker 1: his mom's side of the family, and I think they
Speaker 1: do a better job of that. I think when I
Speaker 1: was younger, holidays were just like, oh, like I just
Speaker 1: you know, and so now I kind of went to
Speaker 1: the other extreme. But in looking at it, you know,
Speaker 1: I I agree with you, and I think ritual can
Speaker 1: be such a useful and powerful thing. You say that
Speaker 1: I do not believe that my lack of faith makes
Speaker 1: me immune to the desire to be part of the
Speaker 1: rhythm of life on this planet. And I think that's
Speaker 1: that's so well said in that idea of marking time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's so funny because it's these events that so
Speaker 1: many of our holidays and rituals around the world are
Speaker 1: built top, are real, scientific, biological, and astronomical events. I
Speaker 1: mean many, many holidays around the world are tied, especially
Speaker 1: to the winter solstice and the spring equinox, the phases
Speaker 1: of the moon is very central to keeping calendar and
Speaker 1: Judaism and Islam and many other cultures. And this idea
Speaker 1: of these changes like birth, coming of age, death, these
Speaker 1: are biological events. It's very easy to see a sweet
Speaker 1: sixteen or a King Senora, or about Mitzvah as this
Speaker 1: purely cultural thing, but it is about a biological change,
Speaker 1: someone going from being a child to getting to the
Speaker 1: point where they get to be in the club of adults,
Speaker 1: and that the group gets to go on one more generation.
Speaker 1: You talked about somebody who saw right or ritual as
Speaker 1: a three step path from a state of separation to
Speaker 1: a state of togetherness. Talk a little bit more about that,
Speaker 1: because I think that's really interesting, both the idea that
Speaker 1: there's actual steps that are important in a ritual and
Speaker 1: that it takes us from separation to togetherness. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: its important point. Yeah. Van Hannah Poo coined the phrase
Speaker 1: right of passage, and he was a European philosopher, anthropologist, sociologist,
Speaker 1: I guess, and he had this idea of the ritual
Speaker 1: as a threshold. And you have this preliminal phase and
Speaker 1: postliminal phase. So before and after and then the event
Speaker 1: and it rings so true. I mean, the easiest example
Speaker 1: is like a wedding. You start out, you are unmarried
Speaker 1: to people, you go into the venue or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and you have this ritual, this event that everyone there
Speaker 1: agrees is this portal really from singleness to marriage. And
Speaker 1: there are so many rituals, even very small day a rituals.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you do the thing you do
Speaker 1: first thing in the morning and say, okay, my day
Speaker 1: is starting, and it's like you're going from sleep world
Speaker 1: and you whatever, you make your coffee or you do
Speaker 1: your jumping jacks or whatever it is you do like
Speaker 1: to start today that counts to um, Yeah, any of
Speaker 1: the above. You know, you're like green juice, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And then it's the day, you know, and there's very
Speaker 1: large events you know that happened the world over. I
Speaker 1: mean New Year's right time is passing all the time.
Speaker 1: We've arbitrarily, you know, different cultures have different ideas of
Speaker 1: what year it is, but we've agreed on this calendar
Speaker 1: that we use, you know, by and large, and it's
Speaker 1: you know, based on the Christian religious calendar. Fine, um.
Speaker 1: And but we have this idea that it December twenty
Speaker 1: one at midnight whatever time Z when you're in now
Speaker 1: it's a new year. I mean, it's totally artificial, but
Speaker 1: we have this threshold that we passed through and we
Speaker 1: play the music and we kiss each other on the
Speaker 1: ups and then it's a new year. And I think
Speaker 1: there's so much in very large and very small events
Speaker 1: that we do that follows that pattern. Yeah, it is interesting.
Speaker 1: I just had one of the one of the big
Speaker 1: birthdays that you would have. I just turned fifty. Happy birthday,
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, And you would never have thought that.
Speaker 1: I know from looking at me, I appreciate that. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna say you're fantastic. I'll preempt you on that.
Speaker 1: But you know, people will say, like, how does it
Speaker 1: feel to be fifty? And I'm like, well, honestly, not
Speaker 1: very different than yesterday. But I also get it's a
Speaker 1: chance to reflect, it's a chance to mark time, it's
Speaker 1: a chance to contemplate, you know. I mean, I guess,
Speaker 1: on one hand, yes, we can trace it back to
Speaker 1: the day I was born, but it's not like I
Speaker 1: became fifty that day. And so a lot of ritual
Speaker 1: is that way. And again as I said, I think
Speaker 1: for years I tossed away a lot of ritual or
Speaker 1: celebration because I went, well, this is just artificial and
Speaker 1: made up. And I think, as i'm you know, now
Speaker 1: that i'm old, old, you've seen it so much younger,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to see more of the wisdom in marking
Speaker 1: time because you're right, it just goes. And I think
Speaker 1: there's something about when you're brought up with very strict
Speaker 1: set of rituals, which I wasn't, but you know a
Speaker 1: lot of people who were, and you shake off the philosophy.
Speaker 1: Let's say that those rituals are built around, it's really
Speaker 1: easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater and
Speaker 1: say I don't want anything to do with any of that.
Speaker 1: And I think that you know, there is this sense,
Speaker 1: we have, this feeling that traditions are intrinsically valuable if
Speaker 1: they're old, but if they're new, it's a little contrived.
Speaker 1: And I think as we are as a culture, I
Speaker 1: hope shaking off some of the very old things that
Speaker 1: are part of our identity and our idea of what
Speaker 1: is right and wrong, and we come face to face
Speaker 1: and really reckon with what we actually believe. We can
Speaker 1: sort of take some of the value off of things
Speaker 1: that are old and say and actually look at them
Speaker 1: and say, well, what do we want this to be like?
Speaker 1: Because change is inevitable, and the question is what kind
Speaker 1: of change do you want? And if it's slow change
Speaker 1: or the change that takes place when you look at
Speaker 1: something carefully and say I don't need this, I don't
Speaker 1: want this, this is what's right. Instead, this is what's better.
Speaker 1: And I think that we can do that for a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff where we think, oh, well, the
Speaker 1: way that people have been doing it for hundreds of
Speaker 1: years is the only way. I think we got to
Speaker 1: let some of that stuff go and create what is
Speaker 1: meaningful to us and reflects our values. Yeah, I'd like
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about that now, about creating ritual,
Speaker 1: the one that I'll call to your attention, and then
Speaker 1: I'll ask you for any others that come to mind
Speaker 1: that you've created. But but you created a really great ritual,
Speaker 1: the Ladies Dining Club. Did I give it the right title? Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Ladies Dining Society, which is like that's necessarily fancier,
Speaker 1: much better than club. But so you created this thing
Speaker 1: that is really such a great idea, it's something that
Speaker 1: I have thought of doing for years, And tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that and how your understanding
Speaker 1: ritual affected that. Yeah, so again, I think because you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you just can't appreciate something until you have the antithesis.
Speaker 1: I'm very lucky. I have a lot of really amazing,
Speaker 1: really smart, really hilarious close girlfriends, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if I fully appreciated this is when I lived in
Speaker 1: New York, and I don't think if I really appreciated
Speaker 1: them as much as I should have until my now
Speaker 1: husband then boyfriend and I went to live abroad for
Speaker 1: a couple of years and I missed them so much.
Speaker 1: And when I came back and I was seeing everybody
Speaker 1: one on one and and trying to catch up, I
Speaker 1: was like, this is not efficient. And also I have
Speaker 1: all these amazing women who should know each other in
Speaker 1: my life. How can I make this happen? So I
Speaker 1: like it was. I felt like, kind of, so are
Speaker 1: you doing it? I'll be totally frank. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know one of those things where you're like this awkward?
Speaker 1: Is this so embarrassing? But I started a monthly dinner
Speaker 1: party at a restaurant that I just organized and for
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think four or five years from
Speaker 1: when I returned home to New York. Before we left
Speaker 1: New York. Um, we did it with only three exceptions,
Speaker 1: once a month, and you know, sometimes only a few
Speaker 1: people showed up. Sometimes it was packed. Sometimes it was
Speaker 1: like you know, weather was bad, everyone was busy, and
Speaker 1: it was like me and three friends, which was still
Speaker 1: great and still fun. But so many friendships and actually
Speaker 1: professional relationships too, sprung out of this, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people left New York because as you get into
Speaker 1: your mid till late thirties, UM, it becomes you know,
Speaker 1: people settled down other places and it's you know a
Speaker 1: lot of people left for jobs and relationships and to
Speaker 1: have a backyard and all those good things. But these
Speaker 1: relationships and these friendships have continued and it was so
Speaker 1: much fun and it was so special, and other people
Speaker 1: then when they moved away, started little chapters where they
Speaker 1: were and it took on a life of its own.
Speaker 1: And now I don't do it anymore, and I'm a
Speaker 1: mom and I live in Boston and everything is different,
Speaker 1: but it lives on in this other way and I'm
Speaker 1: really proud of that, and it was something that I
Speaker 1: derived so much joy from and it was such a
Speaker 1: source of support too. I mean, you know, if I
Speaker 1: was religious, I might have a monthly women's event or
Speaker 1: club of some kind. But um, you know, when you're secular,
Speaker 1: you have to do the legwork of organizing that stuff yourself.
Speaker 1: But it's so worth it, and you did it monthly.
Speaker 1: You know, not all rituals should be monthly, but talk
Speaker 1: about their benefit to that. You know, It's true. I
Speaker 1: think each ritual, depending on what it is, you know,
Speaker 1: you have to sort of work out the timing for yourself.
Speaker 1: But monthly felt right because it's you know, it's not
Speaker 1: as much of a time commitment, and you know, us
Speaker 1: twelve times a year doesn't sound that bad, and you know,
Speaker 1: people are busy and have jobs, and it's expensive to
Speaker 1: go out to dinner in New York and all those reasons.
Speaker 1: But as the rhythm started, there was this other layer
Speaker 1: that felt really poetic, which is, you know, there's something
Speaker 1: very female about once a month. And I had always
Speaker 1: believed that the female cycle was once a month because
Speaker 1: we were somehow linked up to the moon and it
Speaker 1: had to do with the face of the moon. And
Speaker 1: I totally believe that, and I told people, and then
Speaker 1: when I went down to research it to write about
Speaker 1: this in my book, I discovered that there is no
Speaker 1: evidence to support you know, they're two roughly twenty eight
Speaker 1: day cycles, but um, they appear to be unconnected. Which
Speaker 1: isn't to say we might not someday discover a connection,
Speaker 1: but as of now I have to reserve belief without
Speaker 1: evidence about that one. Yeah, it's such a great ritual.
Speaker 1: It sounds so fun, this thing about like having done
Speaker 1: that for you know, several years. And I think sometimes
Speaker 1: it's like we think, well, it's just once a month,
Speaker 1: what's that really gonna be? But that really can build
Speaker 1: something special. But boy, people are busy. It is so
Speaker 1: hard to get any sort of commitment. You know, it
Speaker 1: has to be a great thing that happens, because things
Speaker 1: that aren't great just don't. They don't make it totally.
Speaker 1: And so much of creating a new ritual is trial
Speaker 1: and error, and you know there's some nudging involved. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think also you got to read the room
Speaker 1: and if it's not if it's not working for the
Speaker 1: other participants, you may have to let it go and
Speaker 1: try something different. But it doesn't have to be a
Speaker 1: dinner party. I mean, you know, people have these rituals
Speaker 1: that they don't think of as rituals. I mean, if
Speaker 1: it's just like Thursday night happy hour with your coworkers
Speaker 1: or your friends, y'all go to the same yoga class
Speaker 1: once a week, poker night, movie night. There's a million
Speaker 1: things people do on a regular or semi regular basis
Speaker 1: that someone organizes and you know, is fulfilling in some
Speaker 1: way to the group. Um, that sort of does fall
Speaker 1: into this category of for ritual. Yep. There's another ritual
Speaker 1: that a lot of religions have which is on a
Speaker 1: different time schedule, which is weekly Sabbath. The Jewish holiday
Speaker 1: is probably, at least to me, the best known in
Speaker 1: the best example of you know, it's a day that's
Speaker 1: really set aside for deeper contemplation. Yeah. Absolutely, And I
Speaker 1: mean church services on Sunday, um, you know, weekly prayers
Speaker 1: all over the world and on you know schedules that
Speaker 1: are close to weekly also that you know in Eastern religions.
Speaker 1: There are so many versions of this, and I do
Speaker 1: think there's something may be said for taking a step
Speaker 1: back once a week and also finding a formal way
Speaker 1: to break up work and you know play for lack
Speaker 1: of a better word, there's something about that that's really valuable.
Speaker 1: There's been some really interesting movements around digital sabbaths. Yes,
Speaker 1: are you familiar with some of those a little bit,
Speaker 1: But just the idea, I mean, you know, for Orthodox
Speaker 1: choose part of Shabba or Chavis? Is this idea that
Speaker 1: you don't I mean, obviously a lot of this predates
Speaker 1: cell phones and needless to say, but that you don't
Speaker 1: use electricity, you don't handle money, you don't cook, and
Speaker 1: especially like mechanical you know, you don't turn on the stove.
Speaker 1: These things that sort of are early machinery that we
Speaker 1: might have had in our homes. And I think there's
Speaker 1: something now in a secular way. I mean, of course,
Speaker 1: if you're Orthodox, you also don't use your laptop. But
Speaker 1: I think for secular people and non joice there is
Speaker 1: a look towards having a day off from social media
Speaker 1: and from texting and from all these things that are
Speaker 1: very easy to just do every day forever and ever
Speaker 1: until you die if you don't think to take a
Speaker 1: break from it. One of the things that you talk
Speaker 1: about that is in ritual, but it's in so much
Speaker 1: of other things. In our lives. Language and math and
Speaker 1: music is patterns, you know, and that we as humans
Speaker 1: love finding and creating and repeating them. And I'd like
Speaker 1: to talk about that in its positive sense because we're
Speaker 1: incredibly good at it, and also it has its negative elements.
Speaker 1: Great topic I'm fascinated with. So yeah, Paven recognition is
Speaker 1: so powerful. It's I think it's the key to what
Speaker 1: everything we've been able to do as a species. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm making totally arbitrary sounds out of my mouth right now,
Speaker 1: but you know what I'm saying, because we have agreed
Speaker 1: on the pattern of language and we have learned it
Speaker 1: from infancy, and if you speak English, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to communicate. Even though there's no intrinsic meaning
Speaker 1: to the sounds, it's just a pattern that we recognize.
Speaker 1: And this is you know, architecture, everything mechanical, everything we
Speaker 1: do that's really astonishing, in my opinion, requires this pattern recognition.
Speaker 1: And it's a biological advantage. It's a huge advantage. I mean, right,
Speaker 1: if you can learn which berries make people sick and
Speaker 1: which berries are good to eat, lots of pattern If
Speaker 1: you can learn this is the time of year when
Speaker 1: this animal comes this way. I mean, that is a huge, huge,
Speaker 1: ancient survival advantage. But we're so good at finding patterns
Speaker 1: that were like I think we're addicted to it, and
Speaker 1: we find patterns where they aren't any. And I think
Speaker 1: that so much of pseudoscience and so much of a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that we you know, again, because we
Speaker 1: have such a hard time tolerating ambiguity, and we see
Speaker 1: these patterns, you know, whether it's like the man in
Speaker 1: the moon, you know, human face in the moon, or
Speaker 1: it's every time I do this, this happens, you know,
Speaker 1: all the little superstitions we have that is about our
Speaker 1: adiction to patterns and our desire to see them even
Speaker 1: where when there aren't any. And I think that one
Speaker 1: of the things that's so important and so powerful and
Speaker 1: useful about science is the ability to look at the
Speaker 1: evidence and take a step back and just not just
Speaker 1: count the hits and not the misses or the other
Speaker 1: way around, and actually see, is there something here that
Speaker 1: we can rely on and recreate and independently see or
Speaker 1: is it just our fears and our wishes coming up
Speaker 1: in this part of our brain that is so so powerful? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that you said counting the hits, are counting
Speaker 1: the misses, because that tends to be the thing that
Speaker 1: we we see there. And then, you know, the even
Speaker 1: darker side of patterns is the sense that we put
Speaker 1: people into patterns. Right. You know, you talk about astrology
Speaker 1: in the book a little bit, and you know it
Speaker 1: can be a fairly harmless sort of sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And it's another version of thinking, if I know this
Speaker 1: one little thing about you, I know a lot about you,
Speaker 1: or I know everything about you, which leads to really
Speaker 1: awful things like racism. Right, yeah, that line is connected.
Speaker 1: And I'm always fascinated by this because I'm I like
Speaker 1: personality tests like the angiogram and the other ones, and
Speaker 1: and so there's part of me that's drawn to that,
Speaker 1: and there's part of me also that's completely repelled by it,
Speaker 1: because I don't want to put myself in any kind
Speaker 1: of box, because I know that we start to conform
Speaker 1: to what we believe. I totally agree. And I think
Speaker 1: this again connects to tolerating ambiguity. You meet someone, you
Speaker 1: see someone, you hear about someone, and you know one
Speaker 1: thing about them, and very often the color of their
Speaker 1: skin or where they're from, or something about their gender, sexuality,
Speaker 1: and because we are so uncomfortable often with the idea
Speaker 1: of that's one tiny thing or maybe even something significant
Speaker 1: about this person, but there are a whole complic hated
Speaker 1: human being with all these characteristics and thoughts and feelings
Speaker 1: and ideas and perspectives. But we're impatient or we're just
Speaker 1: unwilling to leave that open and say, Okay, this individual person,
Speaker 1: I don't really know anything about them, and we just
Speaker 1: have this urge to categorize and see patterns where they're
Speaker 1: earning because we're so uncomfortable with all the things that
Speaker 1: we don't know, like who is this person who I
Speaker 1: don't know very well or I just met or I
Speaker 1: saw on television? And I think that the more we
Speaker 1: leave ourselves open to curiosity, and the more we are
Speaker 1: comfortable with the idea that we know virtually nothing, not
Speaker 1: just about the great philosophical questions, but about other human
Speaker 1: beings who we've just met or or didn't meet, I
Speaker 1: think the more we can again get in touch with
Speaker 1: what's real rather than our fears. Yea, the whole diving
Speaker 1: deeper into racial issues and really looking at it. At
Speaker 1: least I'll speak for myself if I'm honest with myself.
Speaker 1: I see things that I'm doing there that I'm like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I have beliefs that I believe everybody should
Speaker 1: be treated equal, and I you know, I do my
Speaker 1: best to bring those things into the world. But if
Speaker 1: I look at the way that my brain defaults too,
Speaker 1: Oh I see a person like this or a person
Speaker 1: like that, it's not only color of skin, it's it's
Speaker 1: cultural attributes. It's all these different things that I will
Speaker 1: then think, oh, I kind of know a lot about
Speaker 1: that person based on those things, and that's just not true. Well,
Speaker 1: I think the goal is not to have no preconceptions.
Speaker 1: It's to examine them ruthlessly and to see what they are,
Speaker 1: and to take them all out and look at them
Speaker 1: and ask some really hard, deep questions to ourselves. Of course,
Speaker 1: we're all a product of the culture that we grew
Speaker 1: up in, and we have these unconscious things that we
Speaker 1: have to now, do you know, I mean now, ideally,
Speaker 1: especially now in this moment um, we have to do
Speaker 1: the work, so to speak, to examine them. And it's
Speaker 1: not it's right. It's like no one is born perfectly enlightened.
Speaker 1: Just to extend the metaphor it's not that scientists have
Speaker 1: no hopes and wishes of what they're going to find
Speaker 1: in their experiments. It's that they have to look at
Speaker 1: what's really there and come to face to face with it,
Speaker 1: and not to make themselves feel better. Yeah, I'm always
Speaker 1: interested within science, and I know this would be judge
Speaker 1: in a group of people, scientists as a whole collective group,
Speaker 1: like all scientists, they all follow this. You know, there's
Speaker 1: some old saying I never get it right, but that like,
Speaker 1: you know, science doesn't change its mind. It's just the
Speaker 1: old scientists die like that. It's not quite as beautiful
Speaker 1: and enlightened as we think it is. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: for me because so much of the work that I do,
Speaker 1: people that I talked to are in the social sciences,
Speaker 1: and you know, we know in there there's there's mass
Speaker 1: problems with reproducing the studies, you know, And so it
Speaker 1: gets back into what we were saying kind of much
Speaker 1: earlier in the conversation, like holding what we know lightly
Speaker 1: because you know, even with science we're we're seeing that's
Speaker 1: almost impossible not to have prejudice. It's almost impossible not
Speaker 1: to want a result out of a study, particularly when
Speaker 1: all the incentives line up in a certain direction, and
Speaker 1: so I always think it's useful to sort of look
Speaker 1: at that in ourselves and in others. Yea, And I
Speaker 1: mean scientists, like old people are you know, flawed human beings.
Speaker 1: And you know, everybody has their own fears and ulterior
Speaker 1: motives and subconscious wishes and all those things. But the
Speaker 1: question is is there a system in place that takes
Speaker 1: that into account. I guess that's the thing. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that my parents really instilled in
Speaker 1: me that's so powerful and so wonderful that science, is
Speaker 1: that you are celebrated if you prove those who came
Speaker 1: before you wrong. That is a great thing to do.
Speaker 1: And I think there's something about that, like that idea
Speaker 1: if we had that in a larger cultural way, where realizing, oh,
Speaker 1: the people who I don't know, let's say, founded this
Speaker 1: country were truly screwed up and did horrible things, and
Speaker 1: we can now take that and make this country better
Speaker 1: and fix some of the problems that are hundreds of
Speaker 1: years old by coming to terms with the reality that
Speaker 1: these were not saints, that these were people who did
Speaker 1: some terrible, terrible things, and now we can recalibrate and
Speaker 1: rebuild the system to be better than the one that
Speaker 1: was passed down to us, rather than this idea that
Speaker 1: I think falls much more in line with a religious outlook,
Speaker 1: which is we have to have this unquestioning respect for
Speaker 1: these patriarchal figures who we were brought up to revere
Speaker 1: from childhood, right well, And I think what that gets
Speaker 1: to also is exactly what we're talking about, which is
Speaker 1: tolerating the ambiguity, because yes, there were awful things that
Speaker 1: were done, and there were also amazing and wonderful things
Speaker 1: and beautiful ideas that were generated. Both those things are there,
Speaker 1: and it's it's being able to keep what's beautiful and
Speaker 1: criticize what's not, and and that that takes a certain
Speaker 1: amount of ambiguity that just does seem to be missing.
Speaker 1: You know. I often think now the biggest problem I
Speaker 1: see in so much of what's happening is that there
Speaker 1: isn't room for nuance. Yeah, discussion from both sides of
Speaker 1: the aisle, right, there's and things are nuanced. Like if
Speaker 1: we want to talk about like coronavirus, like what's the
Speaker 1: right path forward? Boy? Is it nuanced? Right? Like? Because yeah,
Speaker 1: we have got to find a way to you know,
Speaker 1: as our president would say, live with it. It's going
Speaker 1: to stay here right. Yes, that's true, but we also
Speaker 1: can't just be wildly running around letting infection rates get
Speaker 1: out of control. It's a very nuanced discussion, but no
Speaker 1: nuance is happening none. I used the phrase in the
Speaker 1: book The War on Nuance, and I say, I must
Speaker 1: I must have missed that phrase somewhere, because I would
Speaker 1: have immediately that would have been near the top of
Speaker 1: my list. I mean, it's for words and a very
Speaker 1: you know, it's totally understandabled. But I see that every day,
Speaker 1: and I think it's something that you know, again, like
Speaker 1: this idea we are some part of us is just
Speaker 1: more uncomfortable with this very rudimentary idea of good and
Speaker 1: bad versus this complicated idea that being an adult on
Speaker 1: this planet in this year requires. And I think that
Speaker 1: you know, finding a way to to describe things with
Speaker 1: accuracy first, and the level of detail that is required
Speaker 1: is just you know, it takes a really talented person
Speaker 1: to do that in a at a time when you
Speaker 1: know the sound bite and all that this you know,
Speaker 1: hundred and forty character tweet, it really takes somebody who
Speaker 1: has an immense amount of clarity and understanding and um
Speaker 1: ability to communicate um, these really complex ideas. And and
Speaker 1: I think so often people think that the public is
Speaker 1: not as smart as they are and treats them, you know,
Speaker 1: treats us. I'm a member of the public myself, UM,
Speaker 1: treats us like we are unable to grasp complicated things.
Speaker 1: And I just don't think that's the case. I couldn't
Speaker 1: agree more. I don't know the path back, I guess,
Speaker 1: except to try and have a nuanced discussion where possible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: lead by example, I guess. Yep, yep. You quote it
Speaker 1: in the book. One of your dad's most often repeated
Speaker 1: phrases is if you wish to make an apple pie
Speaker 1: from scratch, you must first create the universe. And I'd
Speaker 1: like to talk about that in the sense of interconnectedness,
Speaker 1: because that's another idea that has a very much a
Speaker 1: spiritual element. And and you know, like I'm I'm primarily
Speaker 1: you know, if I have a leaning, it's primarily Buddhist.
Speaker 1: I practice Zen pretty rigorously, and interconnectedness is really at
Speaker 1: the heart of it. And it can be this mysterious idea,
Speaker 1: but it's also not mysterious at all. It's absolutely tangible
Speaker 1: and real. And I think your dad's phrase captures that
Speaker 1: so well. So give me your favorite way of thinking
Speaker 1: about interconnectedness or describing interconnectedness. That's such a great question.
Speaker 1: I mean, the web of life on this planet UM
Speaker 1: and the way that it evolved and the way that
Speaker 1: we can see UM those connections in our d n
Speaker 1: A to one another and members of our species and
Speaker 1: beyond UM to all the life on Earth and you know,
Speaker 1: plants and bacteria and and all of this, all the
Speaker 1: symbiosis that is required. And we see that now as
Speaker 1: with you know, climate change and deforestation and how many
Speaker 1: species go extinct on a daily basis. That it's not isolated.
Speaker 1: These things are not just happening in far away places.
Speaker 1: Those consequences are going to catch up with us. Are
Speaker 1: catching up with us right now, and it's because we're
Speaker 1: all part of this one blue dot, pale blue dot together.
Speaker 1: And the more we UM see ourselves from that vantage
Speaker 1: point as though we were coming coming to this planet
Speaker 1: from Afar, and the more difficult it is to build
Speaker 1: these walls literal and figurative between us and the other
Speaker 1: creatures on Earth, the other people on Earth and say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's happening far away. That person is different than me,
Speaker 1: that doesn't have anything to do with me. And the
Speaker 1: more I think we lean into the idea that we're
Speaker 1: all in this together. We are on this tiny little
Speaker 1: boat in this immense vast ocean um and all we
Speaker 1: have are one another, I think the better off will be.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. Well, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming on. You and I are going to talk in
Speaker 1: the post show conversation. I just want to ask you
Speaker 1: a couple of questions about what it's like to be
Speaker 1: the daughter of someone as famous as your father. So
Speaker 1: you and I will discuss what it's like to be
Speaker 1: Carl Sagan's daughter a little bit in the post show conversation.
Speaker 1: Listeners you can get access to and many episode for
Speaker 1: me each week, as well as ad free episodes and
Speaker 1: the joy of supporting the show by going to one
Speaker 1: you feed dot net slash join. So again, Sasha, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on. I've really enjoyed this
Speaker 1: my pleasure. Thank you. Eric. If what you just heard
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