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Speaker 1: of incredible episodes in our archive. We've had so many
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Speaker 1: it definitely is worth another lesson. We hope you'll enjoy
Speaker 1: this episode with Krista Tippett The Reality of Life is
Speaker 1: that you get to a lot of the places you
Speaker 1: wanted to be or you were meant to be, but
Speaker 1: you would never have known it through things that went wrong.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: 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 spa. 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. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Our guest this week is Krista Tippett,
Speaker 1: host of On Being, the Peabody Award winning public radio
Speaker 1: show and podcast. On Being opens up the animating questions
Speaker 1: at the center of human life. What does it mean
Speaker 1: to be human? And how do we want to live?
Speaker 1: Christa is also the author of Speaking of faith, Why
Speaker 1: religion matters, and Einstein's God, conversations about science and the
Speaker 1: human spirit. Here's the interview. Hi Krista, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to be with you. Yeah, thanks so much.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm really excited to have you on your Your
Speaker 1: show on being is one of my favorites and certainly
Speaker 1: one of the things that I looked to as we
Speaker 1: started this show, something that I was hoping to aspire towards.
Speaker 1: So thanks for the great example. Thank you. At So,
Speaker 1: our podcast is based on the parable of the two Wolves,
Speaker 1: where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and
Speaker 1: he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 1: us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and
Speaker 1: he thinks, and he says, Grandfather, well, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do. Well. Well, first of all, I I
Speaker 1: love that parable and I'm I'm trying to remember when
Speaker 1: I first heard it. I'm I think a few people
Speaker 1: have shared it with me. And actually, when I saw
Speaker 1: your podcast starting, I thought, Wow, what a great title,
Speaker 1: because it's a wonderful image. And I guess if I
Speaker 1: think about it in terms of the work I do,
Speaker 1: UM in public radio, and UM as a journalist and
Speaker 1: with a background in journalism, UM, I'm aware that the
Speaker 1: way we in the West defined news in the late
Speaker 1: twentieth century, UM, which was essentially, you know, the extraordinary
Speaker 1: thing that happened today, and then generally turned out to
Speaker 1: be the extraordinary, extraordinarily terrible thing that happened today. UM,
Speaker 1: because we we've lived in this culture where we are
Speaker 1: bombarded by ever you know, this ever increasing um, you know,
Speaker 1: mass of information and news and bad news and the
Speaker 1: same bad news repeated over and over a in UM,
Speaker 1: we don't we don't internalize it as extraordinary. We start
Speaker 1: to internalize as what goes wrong as the norm. And
Speaker 1: you know, and that the effect of the way we
Speaker 1: do news and information is actually to demoralize us and
Speaker 1: to paralyze us. And UM, you know, you want you
Speaker 1: want to feel compassion, you want to care and and
Speaker 1: and people do feel such anguish uh and and so
Speaker 1: and such a desire to be involved in their communities
Speaker 1: and in in in making um, you know, a more
Speaker 1: humane world. But but what comes at us through journalism,
Speaker 1: often in genders, exactly the wrong kind of effect. You
Speaker 1: just shut down and you say, you know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to take care of my family. I'm going to do
Speaker 1: the best I can. I cannot help and that's wrong, uh,
Speaker 1: and it's bad for us. And so one of the
Speaker 1: ways I think about my work and my show is
Speaker 1: that I try to look for I want to say,
Speaker 1: not just good stories, but a fuller story, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole story of what it means to be human
Speaker 1: in the twenty one century. UM has so much that
Speaker 1: is us drilling and yes, frightening, UM, but but so
Speaker 1: many ways that we can and must meet the challenges
Speaker 1: and the questions of our age. And so I try
Speaker 1: to draw out voices who bring that to the floor.
Speaker 1: And you know, not making things simpler, um, but making
Speaker 1: things listenable and finding human ways in to wrap our
Speaker 1: minds around dis incredible world we live in. So I
Speaker 1: guess I'm feeding the good wolf. And that's yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: One of the things that you're your show is particularly
Speaker 1: known for is trying to or at least my perspective,
Speaker 1: is trying to add a civilized voice to the discussions
Speaker 1: between science and religion, and you refer to those um,
Speaker 1: those two things. Is not necessarily giving contradictory answers two questions,
Speaker 1: but asking different questions. Can you elaborate maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit more on that. Yes, And I mean, this is
Speaker 1: another one of the this is a form that we're
Speaker 1: so used to, but that's really gotten us into trouble
Speaker 1: is that we always set up, we set up everything
Speaker 1: to be a debate, and we set up competing answers
Speaker 1: um to du get out and we draw out the
Speaker 1: most strident voices you know, on either side of those
Speaker 1: competing answers. UM. But in fact, when you apply that
Speaker 1: method and that kind of way of thinking too the
Speaker 1: role of science in human society and the role of
Speaker 1: religion in human society, it's a complete distortion of the
Speaker 1: way these disciplines have worked across time and the way
Speaker 1: they actually coexist and and and our in relationship in
Speaker 1: our lives in so many ways that we think about
Speaker 1: and that we never think about. Um and and Yes,
Speaker 1: one of the points that is so important to me is, UM,
Speaker 1: it's actually not true most of the time that the
Speaker 1: way it works is not that you would present one
Speaker 1: question and that science would give one answer and religion
Speaker 1: would give another. I mean, I suppose the only question
Speaker 1: like that, you know, if you wanted to be simplistic
Speaker 1: about it, would be if you ask the question is
Speaker 1: there a God? But even so many of the scientists
Speaker 1: I know would say that it would be unempirical to
Speaker 1: state categorically that there is no God. And really that's
Speaker 1: not that's not such an interesting question. UM. There's so
Speaker 1: many amazing things that both science and religion are looking at.
Speaker 1: And yes, when that happens, what they're doing is is
Speaker 1: looking at something like, UM, you know what it means
Speaker 1: to be human? UM, where we come from, where we're going,
Speaker 1: these great existential questions, these great existential kind of UH challenges,
Speaker 1: and and science and religion probe these things completely different ways.
Speaker 1: And UM, so much of the time I actually find
Speaker 1: their different. They're different questioning, their different lines of questioning,
Speaker 1: and their different answers. To be complementary, UM at least
Speaker 1: to be to be UH in relationship with each other
Speaker 1: or in conversation with each other. And I think again
Speaker 1: that all of us experience that in our lives, and
Speaker 1: it seems important to me that we realign the way
Speaker 1: we talk about this in public with with our with
Speaker 1: our real intuition and experience. Yeah, our our public discourse
Speaker 1: is not good around that topic really, or most topics
Speaker 1: at this point. So yeah, that's right. Yeah, you've mentioned
Speaker 1: listening as a spiritual technology, So tell us more about
Speaker 1: what you mean by that and the role that listening
Speaker 1: has played in your life and your own spiritual growth. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, when I say that listening is spiritual technology,
Speaker 1: I mean that it is, uh one of these very
Speaker 1: essential ways. It's kind of an ordinary, everyday virtue, um,
Speaker 1: but it's it's an essential way that we can reach
Speaker 1: across the mystery, um of the other. And there aren't
Speaker 1: many things that we do in our lives that are
Speaker 1: more important than that. And and it can be with
Speaker 1: our own children or parents, or it can be with
Speaker 1: that stranger or that very different other in our community
Speaker 1: or in our world and in the world we live
Speaker 1: in now you know, we are in very well, very
Speaker 1: real ways interdependent with strangers. You know, it's strangers across
Speaker 1: the city and strangers across the globe. UM. And so
Speaker 1: listening is this absolutely essential tool um, that we need
Speaker 1: to cultivate um to live into that gracefully, to live
Speaker 1: into the reality of our time. I do believe that
Speaker 1: listening is a spiritual virtue. I think it's something that um,
Speaker 1: we have to kind of relearn. Uh. We we live
Speaker 1: in a very noisy, busy world and that you know,
Speaker 1: much of that is not bad. It it is our reality.
Speaker 1: Much of that is exciting and full of possibility. UM.
Speaker 1: But it does it does force us if we want
Speaker 1: to become better listeners, to create spaces um where real
Speaker 1: listening can happen. And you know, listening is not um
Speaker 1: just about being quiet while the other person takes their
Speaker 1: turn speaking, which is kind of what we've turned into. UM.
Speaker 1: Listening is about presents. It's a really really being present. UM.
Speaker 1: It's about all kinds of wonderful things like being open
Speaker 1: to be surprised, being open to be amazed. UM. It's
Speaker 1: also about some frightening things, like like being vulnerable. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you really go into an encounter or a conversation
Speaker 1: with a real intention to listen, UM, you you have
Speaker 1: to open yourself and you have. You don't have to
Speaker 1: set your personality aside or your convictions aside. You know
Speaker 1: those are part of you as the person who's present
Speaker 1: taking that in, but you do you do have to
Speaker 1: be open to soften and in a sense you have
Speaker 1: to open to be changed. Um, at least you know,
Speaker 1: again not in necessarily giving up who you are, but
Speaker 1: making room in who you are and in your sense
Speaker 1: of the world for the integrity of these other words
Speaker 1: and this other person. So listening in that sense, Um,
Speaker 1: it's a very basic tool, but it's transformative. It's very challenging.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think many of us are very
Speaker 1: are very it at. We had a guest on Rosalind
Speaker 1: Wiseman who has done a lot of work with teenagers,
Speaker 1: young boys, young girls, and she describes, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: get it exactly right, but you you alluded to it.
Speaker 1: They're listening. Is is going into a conversation with the
Speaker 1: openness to be changed. Yeah, at least at least go
Speaker 1: you know, at least having your mind open to that idea.
Speaker 1: Whereas a lot of conversation I think very much is
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna listen to you that I'm going to
Speaker 1: make my point and then yeah, yeah, and really listening.
Speaker 1: You're not listening, you're thinking all the time about what
Speaker 1: you're going to say next. Right, and and here's the
Speaker 1: thing that's what we've been trained to do, right we um,
Speaker 1: of course, of course we're not. Many of us aren't
Speaker 1: good listeners because it's it's not a skill that has
Speaker 1: been cultivated, right. I mean, neuroscience is on our side
Speaker 1: here because it says that that we are actually all
Speaker 1: can be, can keep learning and changing across the span
Speaker 1: of our lifetimes. But the the you know, the the
Speaker 1: downside of that is it says you have to practice.
Speaker 1: You know, the ways you want to change, you have
Speaker 1: to practice. It's like throwing a ball. You get better
Speaker 1: at it by practicing it. And if we want to
Speaker 1: become better listeners as individuals and as a culture, we
Speaker 1: have to practice it. How do you listen while you're
Speaker 1: doing an interview? Because I find that to be one
Speaker 1: of the challenging things is I'm trying to listen and
Speaker 1: I'm also thinking about where the conversation is going. And
Speaker 1: you're very good at what you do. What what's how
Speaker 1: do you approach that? Well? I mean, one thing I
Speaker 1: will say, just following on what I you know, what
Speaker 1: I just said is that I've been doing this for
Speaker 1: ten years and I definitely have gotten better at that,
Speaker 1: and that that really is a part of the skill
Speaker 1: of being a professional listening, a professional listener, a host,
Speaker 1: and a conversation leader. That you are juggling a lot
Speaker 1: of things right. You're you're not just listening, You're also
Speaker 1: moving the conversation forward, you know, And I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: the narrative arc of the conversation. Um. I so a
Speaker 1: couple of things. I mean, UM, we we leave about
Speaker 1: ninety minutes for most of my first conversations, so UM,
Speaker 1: and that that's really important. Um. Now, only about forty
Speaker 1: five minutes of that makes it into the radio show.
Speaker 1: But what that means is that, UM, we can I
Speaker 1: can relax into a space with someone where we don't
Speaker 1: have to immediately you know. It takes a little time
Speaker 1: to warm up, right, and we can do that. So
Speaker 1: it's often true that the first ten or fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: of the conversation is not on the air. It's essential
Speaker 1: time to get to that that more intimate place we
Speaker 1: got to. Um, A real conversation is is messy, and
Speaker 1: if it has a little bit of adventure in it.
Speaker 1: You know, you may take some risks and the other
Speaker 1: thing about having and it's just that somebody can go
Speaker 1: off on a side road and and I can think
Speaker 1: to myself as they're doing it, boy, this is probably
Speaker 1: a side road. And we may not use it, but
Speaker 1: it's prompt you know, it's interesting and and and and sometimes, um,
Speaker 1: those side roads lead to something completely wonderful and surprising
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't have known, you know, to make happen.
Speaker 1: So so there is just this practical thing about creating
Speaker 1: the right container. Um. And then uh, you know the
Speaker 1: other thing I do, and I do think this is
Speaker 1: part of the container too, is I do a huge
Speaker 1: amount of preparation. You know, I read a lot. If
Speaker 1: people have written I I try to take in other
Speaker 1: interviews they may have done, other ways that I can
Speaker 1: have a sense of who they are and really not
Speaker 1: just what they know, but how they think. Um. I
Speaker 1: think that when I come into a conversation with that
Speaker 1: sense of them, that even if you're talking to somebody
Speaker 1: across the phone line, somehow that communicates itself. And so
Speaker 1: it's a it's it's to me that's like an act
Speaker 1: of hospitality, creating a hospitality hospitable space, you know. And
Speaker 1: I think that a hospitable um uh presence just communicates
Speaker 1: itself kind of palpably. So and you know the difference.
Speaker 1: We all know the difference between sitting down with someone
Speaker 1: and you feel like you're going to have to explain
Speaker 1: yourself and you get into a certain mode that is
Speaker 1: somewhat uptight, or you sit down across from someone and
Speaker 1: you sense they get me, you know, and and then
Speaker 1: you can relax, and then that's going to be a
Speaker 1: different kind of conversation. And then thirdly, I just say, no,
Speaker 1: I do take all these notes into an interview, um.
Speaker 1: But part of the point of preparing is to be
Speaker 1: so prepared that when the real conversation starts, you can
Speaker 1: put the notes to one side, and then they they
Speaker 1: become more of a kind of roadmap and outline. But really,
Speaker 1: I hope and because I you know, I can follow
Speaker 1: better what's happening because of all that preparation, UM. But
Speaker 1: I hope to be so prepared that that I can
Speaker 1: set the notes to one side once the conversation really
Speaker 1: starts and for much of the time just be listening.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a combination of all those things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: interviewing you is sort of like cooking for Julia Child.
Speaker 1: So I'm doing my best here. A book that you
Speaker 1: talk about a lot in one of your favorite books,
Speaker 1: is also one of my very favorites, which is Letters
Speaker 1: to a Young Poet. Yeah, do you want to share
Speaker 1: maybe a thing or two from that book that most
Speaker 1: resonates with you and that might be applicable to what
Speaker 1: we're what we're talking about. Well, my favorite favorite line,
Speaker 1: my favorite thought from Letters to a Young Poet is
Speaker 1: lkas Relicus idea of living the questions, of loving questions,
Speaker 1: of holding questions. And this has really formed me, especially
Speaker 1: as I think about not only as I think about
Speaker 1: what I do, but as I think about being a
Speaker 1: healing force in this culture that, as you and I
Speaker 1: talked about a minute ago, is so focused on answers
Speaker 1: and on competing answers, and in fact, we've kind of
Speaker 1: been trained, and we've been trained to feel like to
Speaker 1: start getting nervous, you know, if we don't have an
Speaker 1: answer to something pretty quickly, and if we have, if
Speaker 1: we have questions, and we turned it into a debate,
Speaker 1: and the debate ends and someone wins, or if we
Speaker 1: have some very complex, you know, challenge or development in
Speaker 1: our society, we try as quickly as possible to resolve
Speaker 1: it with a law. Um you know, we take a vote.
Speaker 1: And but so many of the things that we're dealing with,
Speaker 1: like we are just living in this amazing moment in
Speaker 1: time when we are re reposing the big questions you know,
Speaker 1: what does it mean to be human? And the contours
Speaker 1: of our answer in the twenty century and the ways
Speaker 1: we the ways we what we how we move through
Speaker 1: the world, even the practicalities of that are just radically
Speaker 1: different from previous generations. Um. So I find this idea
Speaker 1: of Rilca. You know, Rilka said, love the questions themselves
Speaker 1: as if they were locked rooms or books written in
Speaker 1: a very foreign language, and don't search for the answers
Speaker 1: which could not be given to you, because you would
Speaker 1: not be able to live them yet. And so he said,
Speaker 1: now the work now is to live the questions. And
Speaker 1: I just I feel, on a very practical human level,
Speaker 1: if we would just step back from all the things
Speaker 1: we think we have to fight about, you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: just all of us on every side, and step back
Speaker 1: and just taking the fact that these questions were raising
Speaker 1: are huge, even something like especially something like redefining the
Speaker 1: meaning of marriage, just like stepping back and saying, wow,
Speaker 1: this is a big deal. You know, but we could
Speaker 1: all on every side say what a big deal that
Speaker 1: in our generation we're redefining marriage and and in that,
Speaker 1: in doing that, redefining family and redefining community and all
Speaker 1: of you know, those things are huge manifestations of how
Speaker 1: we how we pose and answer the question what does
Speaker 1: it mean to be human? So so to step back
Speaker 1: and dwell with this, I think is to also let
Speaker 1: ourselves dwell with the questions, to understand that they have
Speaker 1: power in and of themselves, and that um on some
Speaker 1: of these things that we're taking up. Um that technology
Speaker 1: is forcing us. You know, technology is kind of blowing
Speaker 1: up a lot of things the way they've always been.
Speaker 1: Whatever that means for the last fifty years. Um uh.
Speaker 1: And and I think a lot of this the big
Speaker 1: structural changes. You know, we can take votes, we can
Speaker 1: we can we can have the winners and losers of debates,
Speaker 1: we can pass laws, but we are not going to
Speaker 1: have real deep consensus on a lot of these open questions.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe in our generation, maybe not in all
Speaker 1: of our lifetimes. I do think, however, that we could
Speaker 1: agree that we'd like to live into the questions together
Speaker 1: and then it becomes, you know, then we start to
Speaker 1: honor the questions, and then we start to focus more
Speaker 1: on how we treat each other along the way while
Speaker 1: we held questions. That's kind of you know, in my
Speaker 1: little space, I think that's kind that's the that's a
Speaker 1: virtue I'm trying to cultivate. Yeah, that's one of my
Speaker 1: very favorite favorite parts of that that book also, and
Speaker 1: I like it taking it to a more personal level
Speaker 1: with being comfortable with not knowing things in life, and
Speaker 1: there seems to be such a people have. I think
Speaker 1: we have such an innate desire to know are we
Speaker 1: doing the right thing? Or what's going to happen with this?
Speaker 1: And and I you know, I remember reading that when
Speaker 1: I was young, and it just was so profound to realize, Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't have to I don't have to know that.
Speaker 1: And it it points to something else that you refer
Speaker 1: to a lot in your in your interviews and in
Speaker 1: your writing, which is two concepts that I think are
Speaker 1: at the heart of um a lot of spirituality. What
Speaker 1: we talked about and those are paradox and ambiguity. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: do you want to share maybe a little bit your
Speaker 1: your view on on Let's maybe start with paradox and
Speaker 1: the role that plays in spiritual development. Well, I'll just
Speaker 1: tell you that in the early days of the radio show,
Speaker 1: at one point I think my producers like forbade me
Speaker 1: to use the word ambiguity. It's using it all the time.
Speaker 1: But it's a very catercultural thing. And the truth is,
Speaker 1: uh so, much of what is interesting and meaningful in
Speaker 1: life has a lot of paradox and ambiguity to it, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a mything. Like it's not that we
Speaker 1: never have certainty or that we don't have moments of certainty,
Speaker 1: but they don't last, you know, and that's fine. That's
Speaker 1: the way life is. Uh So, you know that in
Speaker 1: itself is part of the amadox of human existence, that
Speaker 1: we that we really are driven to to want to
Speaker 1: know for sure and to want to have ground to
Speaker 1: stand on, and that that calms us um. But but
Speaker 1: the the only real certainty is that everything will change,
Speaker 1: and so that's the great you know, that's a piece
Speaker 1: of spiritual evolution. Taking that in that I actually think
Speaker 1: I think, you know, the work you're doing and the
Speaker 1: work I'm doing, and the work that all the people
Speaker 1: who were interviewing and the people who are you know,
Speaker 1: so many, so many people and all over the place
Speaker 1: and all kinds of things are kind of moving towards
Speaker 1: that kind of reality base. UM. I don't know I
Speaker 1: was talking, you know, I could you can talk about
Speaker 1: paradox and ambiguity and in almost any context. To be
Speaker 1: more concrete about it, yesterday I was I was being
Speaker 1: interviewed actually by a or an evangelical seminary. And what
Speaker 1: wasn't they were asking me about. It was an it
Speaker 1: was an email interview, you know. It was questions and
Speaker 1: answers and I'm trying to think what the question was.
Speaker 1: But anyway, what I talked about, and this is one
Speaker 1: of my favorite things to talk about, I was like,
Speaker 1: it was like the question was, how can you know,
Speaker 1: how can our tradition UM be more constructive in a
Speaker 1: pluralistic world? You know, And I think that for religious
Speaker 1: people in particular, UM, that can feel just like a contradiction,
Speaker 1: right or like a tension. Um you either are secure
Speaker 1: in your faith or maybe you have to give that
Speaker 1: up to in order to engage with the religious other.
Speaker 1: And I just think that's a completely false choice. I
Speaker 1: I because the paradox of inter religious and really meaningful
Speaker 1: inter religious encounter. And I think this paradox is there
Speaker 1: for all kinds of really meaningful encounter with difference. When
Speaker 1: you really connect and make a connection in a relationship
Speaker 1: with someone across some divide or some kind of difference,
Speaker 1: the paradox is that we always we understand ourselves better,
Speaker 1: We may even sink more deeply and interestingly into our
Speaker 1: identity at the very same time that we come to
Speaker 1: some kind of new openness and appreciation to this different other.
Speaker 1: You know, if you don't have to give something up,
Speaker 1: so when when Um, But it's it's paradox, it's not
Speaker 1: intuitive and um. And it's also this kind of thing
Speaker 1: that unless you've done it, you can't believe it. It's
Speaker 1: hard to just present it as an argument. Um. But
Speaker 1: so many of the great things are like that, and
Speaker 1: spirit will we I think that this is that, you know.
Speaker 1: The way I think about this is how uh you know? Mystery?
Speaker 1: A reverence for mystery is such a huge elemental part
Speaker 1: of every religious and spiritual tradition. Um. And so even
Speaker 1: at the core of our traditions. They ask us to
Speaker 1: understand that in any given moment, in big ways and small,
Speaker 1: there will be things we understand, we get and understand
Speaker 1: and are certain about, and things we will not understand
Speaker 1: in this lifetime. So there's this creative tension that we're
Speaker 1: called to UM, and I think it's an enlivening tension,
Speaker 1: and I actually think it's very relaxing that mystery can be.
Speaker 1: You know, honoring mystery UM can be remarkably calming if
Speaker 1: you if you can give yourself over to that creative tension.
Speaker 1: It's more calming than the than the work of constantly thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: there must be something wrong if I can't figure this out,
Speaker 1: and how can I find this down exactly. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, it's that letting go of having to know UM.
Speaker 1: One of our one of our early guests was Oliver Berkman,
Speaker 1: and he wrote a really a great book called The
Speaker 1: Antidote Happiness for People who Hate Positive Thinking, and it's
Speaker 1: it's a really enjoyable book. I think you'd really like it.
Speaker 1: But one of the things he talks about is that
Speaker 1: if you could know everything that was going to happen
Speaker 1: to you in the rest of your life, even if
Speaker 1: it was all good. That would kind of take all
Speaker 1: the all the fun out of it. It would you
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to know that, You wouldn't want to know
Speaker 1: everything that was going to happen, even though we often
Speaker 1: feel like I wish I knew everything. If that happened,
Speaker 1: you would lose a big part of being alive, which
Speaker 1: is exactly that mystery of sort of finding out what
Speaker 1: happens and and and just you know, back to the
Speaker 1: back to the roka, enjoying the questions, the question. And
Speaker 1: the other reason that wouldn't work, uh, is that is
Speaker 1: that the real quality of life is that you get
Speaker 1: to a lot of the places you wanted to be
Speaker 1: or you or you you were meant to be, but
Speaker 1: you would never have known it through things that went wrong,
Speaker 1: right through things failing that you that you thought were
Speaker 1: right for you. And there's something so magical and beautiful
Speaker 1: about there's something also completely cruciating about it in the
Speaker 1: moment usually um but it's not a straight line. One
Speaker 1: of the things we say at the one You feed
Speaker 1: a lot is that there's no shortcut to lasting happiness, right.
Speaker 1: We've got to do the work to improve our lives,
Speaker 1: but this can be really challenging to do without some support.
Speaker 1: Our lives are busy, there's a lot of things clawing
Speaker 1: at our attention, and we might have ways of working
Speaker 1: with our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that are not very
Speaker 1: good for our well being. So if you'd like help
Speaker 1: working on any or all of those things, I've got
Speaker 1: a couple of spots that have just opened up in
Speaker 1: my one on one coaching practice. You can book a
Speaker 1: free thirty minute call to talk with me, no pressure,
Speaker 1: and we get to know each other at one you
Speaker 1: feed dot net slash coach. You've talked in the past
Speaker 1: about your your battles with depression, and actually one of
Speaker 1: the things that you said about depression was that it
Speaker 1: taught you to look for things that you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: looked for, wouldn't even thought to look for otherwise you
Speaker 1: actually had it. You also referred to depression and you're
Speaker 1: putting sort of a positive spin on parts of it,
Speaker 1: calling it a black Pandora's box, which I thought was
Speaker 1: was was a wonderful way. Can you maybe share how
Speaker 1: that how that journey has gone on for you? You
Speaker 1: you you wrote about it early on. You know shortly
Speaker 1: after you'd come out of I'm curious years later how
Speaker 1: that how that battle continues to go well. Um, so
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess something that's kind of shocking, Um,
Speaker 1: when you experience something like depression and you you know,
Speaker 1: you come at the other end, but you're never going
Speaker 1: ever again to be somebody who doesn't know that that
Speaker 1: black pape plays exists and is a possible place for
Speaker 1: you to go. And you know, jet At and that's
Speaker 1: that's not so much in letters to a young poet,
Speaker 1: but darkness, the darkness that is part of life was
Speaker 1: also something that Realka is great about, um, you know.
Speaker 1: And so in that way, I have not had um,
Speaker 1: a kind of you know, kind of clinical depression. I
Speaker 1: have not fallen all the way into that blackpool against
Speaker 1: for a long time, but it never It's always a
Speaker 1: part of who I am, you know, and I partly
Speaker 1: have not fallen into that place. I've certainly, you know,
Speaker 1: I think The thing is, I certainly have stood on
Speaker 1: that precipice. The thing is, I know I know where
Speaker 1: I'm standing now right and it's through a huge amount
Speaker 1: of self care, you know, in self knowledge, um, and
Speaker 1: you know, some of it very practical, just how much
Speaker 1: exercise I get and how much sleep I get, and
Speaker 1: and and I know the cost of of overdoing it.
Speaker 1: Um and then I don't know. I'm in my fifties now,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm finding I didn't like the idea of
Speaker 1: turning fifty at all, but I'm finding I am finding
Speaker 1: getting older to be this really wonderful thing where you
Speaker 1: just more and more can relax into things as they
Speaker 1: are and calmed down. And um uh, I don't push
Speaker 1: myself as hard as I used to. I'm not as
Speaker 1: hard on myself as I used to. And that was
Speaker 1: a part of my depression. So there's something that happens
Speaker 1: with age that is healing. Um. But it's huge, and
Speaker 1: and it's in many I mean, it's made me. This
Speaker 1: is one of the one of the thoughts that comes
Speaker 1: through in all of my conversations is you know, the
Speaker 1: things that go wrong for us become part of our
Speaker 1: capacity to be compassionate towards others, Like they become part
Speaker 1: of our gift to the world if we let them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's absolutely true our depression for me, I agree, Certainly,
Speaker 1: the struggles and challenges I've had in life are a
Speaker 1: huge part of who I become. There's another thing that
Speaker 1: you've talked about that I this right on topic with this,
Speaker 1: that I really I really liked. And you listed a
Speaker 1: bunch of people we would all recognize as great teachers
Speaker 1: or leaders, and you say that they became what they
Speaker 1: became not in spite of the hardships that they faced,
Speaker 1: but because of them. Yeah. Well, I I don't believe
Speaker 1: in saints and I really love uh, I love a
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't want to say. I don't
Speaker 1: like the way we use the word sainthood or heroism
Speaker 1: or um. There's a phrase I love of Einstein. He
Speaker 1: talked about spiritual genius um, and that that's that the
Speaker 1: spiritual geniuses of the ages are more, uh more necessary
Speaker 1: to the dignity, security, and joy of humanity than the
Speaker 1: purveyors of objective knowledge. And he was talking about Gandhi,
Speaker 1: who was alive in his lifetime. He was talking about
Speaker 1: Jesus and Moses and Buddha and St. Francis of ASSISI.
Speaker 1: But the thing is um, whether you want to list
Speaker 1: saints or spiritual geniuses, whether it's Mother Teresa or Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King Jr. You know, or Einstein in his ways,
Speaker 1: these were all deeply flawed human beings, right. You know
Speaker 1: the saints are saints, aren't born. You know that the
Speaker 1: and and and that path, the spiritual genius um is
Speaker 1: one through being fully human and wrestling with all the
Speaker 1: things that we all wrestle with um. And that's just it.
Speaker 1: It's so it's so important to remember and not to
Speaker 1: put anyone up on a pedestal in that sense. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Gandhi has uh Gandhi as a quote that makes me
Speaker 1: laugh every time I hear it, and he says that
Speaker 1: he was exposed to the principles of non violence non
Speaker 1: violence through his marriage, which was just just. And actually
Speaker 1: I think the truth is that's probably where he was
Speaker 1: least effective. Oh exactly, Yeah, you read his biography clearly
Speaker 1: is not. Yeah, but I think that's just I read that,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure he hadn't meant that to be funny,
Speaker 1: because it is really funny. Probably not his wife though, No,
Speaker 1: she may not have thought that was so funny. The
Speaker 1: other thing, you you were, you just led into this
Speaker 1: idea of spiritual genius. I'd like to ask you what
Speaker 1: spiritual is an interesting word that I never can find
Speaker 1: a better one. And yet I'm always curious as to
Speaker 1: how people define that word. Do you have any working
Speaker 1: definition of that word that works for you? Oh, it's
Speaker 1: a good question. Um. A lot of people used to
Speaker 1: ask me ten years ago when I started the show,
Speaker 1: there was a big curiosity about what's the you know,
Speaker 1: what's the difference between religion and spirituality? And and I
Speaker 1: don't I don't hear people worrying about that so much anymore,
Speaker 1: you know, my I think to give a short answer
Speaker 1: that it's a symbiotic relationship. Often it's not necessarily neither
Speaker 1: or um. But I do think there's a greater uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I say tolerance. There's there's a that
Speaker 1: the words spirituality has taken on some depths and integrity
Speaker 1: in the culture at large that it didn't have just
Speaker 1: a few years ago, which is interesting. Um. And I
Speaker 1: really think that the kind of spiritual the searching spiritual
Speaker 1: energy of American culture has has really there's been a
Speaker 1: real evolution from I mean, I kind of mean that
Speaker 1: the spirituality that's happening outside institutions, although a lot of
Speaker 1: it's also happening inside institutions. But you know, from the
Speaker 1: from the new age of the eighties, which was a
Speaker 1: very suspected in many ways, you know, it was really superficial,
Speaker 1: a lot of it, of course, not all of it. Um.
Speaker 1: And somebody talking to me about spiritual promiscuity, um, which
Speaker 1: I thought at the time, I thought it was a
Speaker 1: great phrase. But but but there's been this evolution. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing. We twenty one century people are have
Speaker 1: a freedom to choose and create our spiritual lives. That
Speaker 1: is completely unprecedented. Right until not that long ago, our
Speaker 1: parents and grandparents were mostly you know, spiritual life and
Speaker 1: tradition was inherited. It was like you had blue eyes
Speaker 1: and you not only were Christian or Jewish, but you
Speaker 1: went to this church or that synagogue that your parents
Speaker 1: and grandparents have gone to before you. Um. So, so
Speaker 1: we were figuring this out, and I think there is
Speaker 1: an increasing amount of integrity to talking about spirituality. Again
Speaker 1: that happens outside traditional institutions, but also is becoming a
Speaker 1: force of renewal inside a lot of institutions. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: challenge and renewal. And I don't know what do I mean?
Speaker 1: I mean, I I you know, I think atheists have
Speaker 1: spiritual lives, or can have spiritual lives. Some some of
Speaker 1: them might not want to use that language. Some of
Speaker 1: them are very happy with that language. Um, so it's
Speaker 1: definitely not synonymous with religion. I guess, you know. I
Speaker 1: think it's the inner work. It's the inner work that
Speaker 1: accompanies the outer work of our lives. The truth is
Speaker 1: that our traditions are religious traditions, and our spiritual traditions
Speaker 1: are these vast repositories that have been thinking about that
Speaker 1: and asking questions about it, and creating rituals and creating
Speaker 1: communities around it for thousands of years. So they are
Speaker 1: these repositories, and it's you know, it's no accident that
Speaker 1: that we turn to them or that or that they
Speaker 1: are the places where people find this often. In the
Speaker 1: first instance, we had a we had another guest on
Speaker 1: Who's who. I don't even think he meant to, but
Speaker 1: he said something that just so hit me. I was like, that,
Speaker 1: so it's my my current working definition of what spirituality is.
Speaker 1: And he he said, spirituality is simply the recognition that
Speaker 1: happiness doesn't come from things on the outside. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I was like, that kind of does nail it for me.
Speaker 1: It's it's that there's this interior life. That that's where
Speaker 1: you know, the true happiness and true joy comes from.
Speaker 1: And if we're not tending that field, we're not going
Speaker 1: to grow those plants, so to speak. Yeah, it might
Speaker 1: be interesting to start collecting definitions of that. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I think it would be interesting too, because it's a
Speaker 1: term that I agree with you. I'm becoming more comfortable
Speaker 1: with it, I think as the times evolved, but I'm
Speaker 1: still not entirely comfortable with it because it's so I
Speaker 1: guess back to our earlier point about being comfortable with ambiguity.
Speaker 1: But it's a pretty ambiguous term. Yeah, it really is. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that, Um, we're we're nearing our time here.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to thank you for, uh for coming
Speaker 1: on the show. Uh. The last thing I was going
Speaker 1: to get to, and I think we've covered it simply
Speaker 1: by doing it, is that you've mentioned that, Uh, you
Speaker 1: think that humor is a is a spiritual virtue, which
Speaker 1: I often think is a very underappreciated humor or levity
Speaker 1: is a highly underappreciated spiritual virtue. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the things I like about listening to you is you
Speaker 1: you laugh often. Well, thank you. I when I first
Speaker 1: started my show in public radio. All these dour public
Speaker 1: radio programmers were so worried that this would be too
Speaker 1: serious and so earnest and and some of them still
Speaker 1: say it is, and I do that just tells me
Speaker 1: they haven't been listening. But you know what I say
Speaker 1: is I have never met a wise person. And wisdom
Speaker 1: is something you know when you see it who does
Speaker 1: not smile easily and know how to laugh, including to
Speaker 1: laugh at themselves. And then I did uh for years
Speaker 1: one of my dream people, I wanted to interview with
Speaker 1: Desmond too too, and I finally sat down across from
Speaker 1: him a few years ago, and he told me uncategorically
Speaker 1: that God has a sense of humor. And of course
Speaker 1: he just embodied that you sit with him and and
Speaker 1: he's one of the most joyful, funny people you've ever met,
Speaker 1: alongside all his gravity. Right again, there's another paradox, right,
Speaker 1: Those two things don't cancel each other out day, enliven
Speaker 1: each other. And I have to say that when Desmond
Speaker 1: Tutu tells you God has a sense of humor, you
Speaker 1: believe him. So I'm not telling you I would I
Speaker 1: would agree. I think that there is humor. Humor everywhere,
Speaker 1: and it's one of the very best parts of life. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. I really appreciate this. I'm so
Speaker 1: happy for your project and I'm glad. I'm honored that
Speaker 1: you want me to be part of it. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. It's it's certainly an honor for us
Speaker 1: to have you, so we will we will talk again.
Speaker 1: Thanks Ca. Okay bye. If what you just heard was
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