Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
One of the really important discoveries in the science of val is that IT diminishes the self IT IT leads to advani shing self. Your less focused on your appearance, you're less focused on your status and you're more interested in things outside of you like an ecosystem or a group of people or the meaning of a piece of music or an idea and moral idea, right? And that's good news. The benefits of all are many, and we have found that one of the reasons are also good for our stress levels in depression and and feeling of connection is IT shift your attention from the self, the vanishing self, two things outside of you.
Welcome to curious minds at work on your host, gale Allen. This year, we witnessed a solar eclipse. Walking the streets of my nights or hood that day, looking through my solar clipsed glasses and sharing them with others.
I felt a profound sense of all, and I saw that all that wonder reflected in the faces of the people around me. For one or two hours, we were part of something bigger than ourselves, and that experience took us out of ourselves. It's soften and connected us.
Experiences like that are what made me want to read decor kelton's latest book, or the new science of everyday wonder and how I can transform your life. In this conversation, we talk about what all is, how IT works and why IT matters. We also talk about how to build more aw into our lives.
Before we start one quick ask, if you like the podcast, please take a moment to leave a rating on itunes or whatever you subscribe. Your feedback sends a strong signal to people looking for their next podcast. And now here's my interview with deck or killer decker cartner. Welcome back to the podcast. It's great to have you back .
on and is great to be with you. Go in .
your book. You encourage us to actively seek out all in our lives in an ordinary day week. What brings you are.
you know one of the surprising and uh the lightful joys of writing this book is that I actually learn to cultivate more every day on, uh, scientifically, we started defined in different countries that people feel, oh, two to three times a week, you know. So that tells us that it's readily accessible. And for me, gale, you know, i'm lucky to walk to work.
And so I always stop by trees that I bring me on. I, uh, take a look at the sky pretty regularly. I ve learned to cultivate all in the music.
You know, just my appreciation of music, just listening to japanese minimalist, or brian, you know, just just take a moment and feel the eye that and people are, you know, we learn from the research that moral beauty, people's kindness, encourage and overcoming and sense of justice spring us all and i'm always a tune to, uh, the moral beauty out in the world. You know, we saw prioritize now the problems of people create in the world, uh, some channels of digital communication over prioritize moral ugly. Ss, you know, the despicable things that people do, which are true, but there's a lot of moral beauty that I am in tune. Move around during the day.
Thanks for sharing that because I think is really helpful for us to see that and we're going to talk about this later. IT doesn't have have to .
be lofty yeah you know I think one of that we have you know conceptions of of human experience and that's what we do science for us to provide truth. And one of the surprising raise about all is that does not have to be lofty. You don't need to study classical music for ten years to feel all IT doesn't take money, you know. And so you can go outside, you know, just literally ten minutes ago, as I was arriving to work, I saw this little chain of five year olds as part of a high school of three year odds. They're all walking together holding a rope.
There is nothing more awesome to be, honey. Yeah seriously .
and I just stopped and I like, oh, oh, let me just well, in this for for thirty seconds and IT restored my faith in human beings to take a step back.
What is all I always want to start from a place of bliss? Define IT.
You know, so I study, emotions have done so for thirty three years or so, and and emotions, or brief states that influence our thought and get us to do things in the world. And all is a brief emotion we feel when we encounter things that are beyond our frame of reference, right? We have a frame of reference through which we look at the world in all transience that so it's typically really vast and big. And then all also arises when we encounter things that are mysterious that we just don't understand. So it's the feeling we have when we encounter vast mysteries.
You gathered and studied twenty six hundred stories of all from people in twenty six countries. This LED you to create what you call a taxonomy of aw, what you call the eight wonders of the life, whether any of those wonders that particularly surprised to you.
You know, this was the first time in my career where I felt like I couldn't devise a measure to capture the experience that we really had to get people's own stories of. All like Williams James gathered when he wrote the varieties of religious experience. And so um we we gather these stories from twenty six countries.
Like he said, many of the categories of the eight wonders probably want to surprise the audience you know nature, spirituality, visual stuff, paintings and buildings, music and some of this, the categories ies, rather that less surprising. The most common category around the world is the moral beauty of other people. Their kindness encourage collective movement, you know, is very common at sports or rituals or dancing with others.
And then there were a couple of categories that really surprised me. One was big ideas. People are obstruct by big ideas.
And then the life cycle, you know, we when we see life begin, a child is born. The first flowers of spring, you know, new, new growth on a tree were all struck. And then also, when not life passes, right, a beloved relative passes away. You know, the leaves fall from a tree as winter hits. So the lifecycle .
is really surprising. What did you not fight in the story so that you expect, define? Or what was that mentioned? What didn't come up?
Yeah, this was really funny. You know, technology never came up, you know? No one mentioned a smart phone or a google search, you know and and that tells us that technologies are pathways, are Carriers or mediums of all. They're not the thing itself. Um people got mad at me.
Um food was not a common source of all you know I live in berkeley and they're all these foods and they can go on forever about league soup and I get to wait in and say sorry that's not a source of what no it's sexual encounters didn't make people you know there were mentions of that, but IT wasn't a common source of all. And that just tells us food, insects and technology of very important sources of emotional meaning. But that all really is different in its own space of meaning.
Did context or culture affect people's responses? Because clearly, you know you you did a really road in, and i'm curious if that influenced anything, if you saw any patterns .
there profoundly. So, you know, and everything, every emotion is shaped by a culture and profound ways. Every emotion we think of this less often is shaped by the historical moment of our times right you know Young people today feel climate dread.
They see the destruction of the amazon and the disappearance of species and and the barrier reef in the like and they don't look at nature and immediately feel all like I might. They feel worried and anxious um and culture in our research has had profound influences. One influence is in how much fear is part of the all experience.
Fear is common all IT mixes with all often. And we ve found that cultures that are more higher article and religious and where there's more economic inequality or suddenly has fear in IT, you know, in a culture of high economic and inequality like india, you just you feel fear when you're experiencing on so that's interesting. And I have to tell you this one finding gale, which which blows my mind.
We've done a few comparisons of u sl versus you know on china and japan. And in the united states, five ten percent of the time people feel all about themselves. You know, people saying things like, man, did you see this latest tender photo or this award I want? I was just like, oh my god, our narcisa knows no limits.
How do you square that? How how do you square as A A researcher, someone who, as you said, expressing narses ism in relation to, oh, does that square is there A I mean, clearly there's attention there. But what about.
well, you know, one of the things we worry about, all the wonderful characteristics of humans, uh, our capacity for compassion, the fact that we can produce music, that we we can be move to farm community through art, you know, our capacity for generosity is that cultural forces, economic forces, uh, political forces, can, can put IT to punishes users.
You look at the rWandan genocide, for example, portrayed by Philip garvage is great book, a lot of the things that make us feel all we're put to use to lead the genocide movement, and dance and chanting and music and shared identity, things that we yearn for and feel all in. But IT was problematic and and destructive and ruinous in genocide. And this is a case, I think, where our over emphasis on the individual has harmed dog in some sense, or reduce its potential of people are feeling all about themselves. They're missing these deeper sources of all, like nature or moral beauty or music, that we need more of today.
We talked about this a little bit, but all and scale. So is there a distinction between every day, all and the and the all of something that we might perceive to be loved, like know the northern lights verses as imagined earlier? I can walk by a tree and see some changes in a tree. Is there any impact on that either physically? Or is there a distinction there is and and .
know we don't know empirically and it's actually this really deep question. And like you might think of, they're being biga, right? You see the northern lights, or my daughter daily.
And a couple years ago in this backpacking in the high year, and we were right, admits the lightning storm, a thousand year lightning storm, know. And those are once in a lifetime experiences. And then there's this other kind of a small or or lower case.
You know, just every day are you you know you are walking and you notice the pattern of shadows that that leaves create when they fall or you hear laughter of children and just things that are around us all the time. We don't know if they differ their impact on well being. We know all helps your heart IT helps your immune system IT helps you handle stress Better. And so it's an interesting question.
Does do the big experiences of all last longer? Do they benefit your heart more? And we just we literally gale don't know, you know and and that's know people go to musical experiences, for example, they come out, you're like that concert changed my life and forever A A different person same with backpacking in nature and and the question is, does the big all changes more? And and that's for future research to to find out .
you write about how I impacts us and how IT gives us the experience of what you call a vanishing self. What does that mean?
We live in one of the most self focus times, I think, in human history. You know, we take selves of ourselves. We post about our own experience.
We live in an era where the the cultural ideology of individualism has pet to focus on the individual and freedom and self expression and rights, lot of good stuff. And we know empirically that this excessive focus on the self can lead to anxiety and depression and rumination, and worse, and self harm. And one of the really important discoveries in the science of all is that IT IT diminishes the self.
IT IT leads to a vanishing self. Here, you're less focused on your appearance, you're less focused on your status, and you're more interested in things outside of you, like an ecosystem or a group of people, or the meaning of a piece of music or an idea, a moral idea, right? And and that's good news, right? The benefits of all are many, and we have found that one of the reasons that also good for our stress levels in depression and and feeling of connection is IT shift your attention from the self, the vanishing self, two things outside of you, which we need to do.
I was so struck by that when I read the book, and I thought, this is one of those where is almost like a mental health prescription.
I work a lot with doctors and the all book. This book has stir conversations with people working with children and chronic disease and palate care and post partum depression. You know, the the disease of the twenty first century in many ways, and and the mas are like, oh my goodness, you know, I need more all in my work and my patients need this.
They need to get out daughters. They need to turn the music as a form of health care. You know, they need to remember the moral beauty all around them. And and so yeah, I think this is we've done a few studies showing that is good for people's health. And I think it's it's gonna be prescribed in softies in the next ten years is interesting .
because what you're talking about is not about distraction. You're talking about something different, right? We have all of these ways that we currently distract ourselves. And you would think that, that would create some sense of i'm not thinking about myself as much, but that's not really yet. I was just in a very different category.
what important distinction of this distraction, you know? And I was recently in a conversation with a design team, and we are thicking. What's the opposite of aw, you know, when you're just absorbed in the big things around you that bring life to the world, know and and this designer rightly said distraction that, you know, we we get distracted and our attentions floating around and hovering on different things from what we could be thinking about. And then as the opposite is when we're fully absorb in an important thing, you know one of the effects of the new technologies, smart phones, that that is we become perpetual distracted for the scrolling. I just learned a new phrase, domes grows.
When you hurt that, did you feel like I gave you language for something you have ever felt?
Oh my god, I was certainly like, there is like a part of my day where I go at domes roll. First, like, how was the world doomed? Secondly, who are the people I really you are morally ugly and how the meeting there do you know? Yeah, that's not good for the mind no, not all. And then that's the opposite of all, which is like, you know jane goal has this quote talking about the aw that her champagne is that you live with felt and he says, you know isn't IT isn't IT obvious that our chimpanzee relatives will feel ah in the beginnings of spirituality which is really being amazed at things outside of yourself and when we find that we're not distracted and and what good news that this is easy to do in today's culture.
jack is their connection to .
wonder yeah, very much so you know, he took took me about ten years to figure that one out yeah you know what? When emotions unfold, you know, and emotions are like these waves, they come through us because of something happening out in the world, in our minds. They move our bodies.
And then what they do fundamental is they lead us to want to do things, action tendencies, and then they lead us to jumps. Sark called at the magical transformation of emotions. They lead us for a moment or two or longer to see the world in a particular way.
You know, i've done research showing meant fear. When you're feeling fear, you get started by a near accident on the on the road, for example, you see the world as threatening until you figure out, oh, it's no longer threatening, you know and all shift you to see the world through the lens of wonder. And wonder is this cognitive mental state that follows all where you're just like curious and you hunger to discover things and you generate hypotheses about what might be true.
Um IT is a great IT follows experiences of all and IT leads to discovery to make sense of the world. One of my favorite examples that I learned about in writing this book is a floss's book on wonder by Fisher, where he charged how, you know, newton and they card. These great scientists were freed, doubt and all struck by rainbows.
They're like, what are these things? How is IT that? The color spectrum suddenly floats in the sky, you know, and and they did a lot of math in color theory to figure out.
And and that's wonder. Wonder is when you feel all about something, you know, i've been all struck by minimalist music since I had seventeen years old. Philip class since even right.
And brian eno, japanese minerals and john adam, and I like I, just when I feel all struck by that music, I get into the state of wonder, like, what does that tell me about reality? And and that's wondered. IT leads you to, in the state of curiosity, to discover things.
Can cultivating all this is going to be a value statement, but if you're willing to, we can play with IT. Does IT make us Better.
Can IT make us Better? I wouldn't say, in the spirit of the manual content, the grade philosopher you like all the time, this is a universal truth but IT gets close to IT which is you know when you if you are feeling trauma um as a veteran and you go outdoors a lot, it'll make you feel Better about the world and you will help you with your P T S E if you're feeling chronic pain and you listen to music for all science shows you will you will handle pain Better in our studies um people who feel little moments of all looking up in the trees, taking on big views of around them are listening to music or watching BBC earth.
They will feel more altruistic theyll share more they feel um less and tagish to people have different political views than their own so all moves this towards altruism m less tribal ism, a greater sense of common humanity, Better health and and so you could say that makes us Better. There are abuses of all, you know, hit. They're probably abuse.
The genocide of rWanda, which I talked about. There were curiosity rooms in the air, astok racy of renaissance uo pe and and later where they gathered all the amazing things from around the world installed from other cultures. And that's an abuse of all. But on baLance, IT tends to make a space. In this interview deck.
counter shares the science of all and talks about the important role plays, encountering stress, anxiety and alienation. If you'd like to learn more about ways to lessen stress and anxiety by tapping into the world around you, check out episode two sixty two with Normal farm author. The book Better in every sense.
Like deck, he share science best ways to feel lighter and happier. Sensing is not thinking, and IT really is something radically different to move from a place of of thinking into a place of sensing. And you will feel the difference immediately, like within a minute.
And if there's something for you in that, then that can be the start of opening a door to a whole other during in your chat during your life. Now let's get back to my interview with dq kilner. I feel like what i'm also hearing from you as a feeling of perspective.
I'll give you an example, would be very concrete, was taking a walk the other day, and i'd love to listen to birds. And a cardinal actually was down, maybe three feet from me, which never happens. I could hear them.
I recognize the bird song, but I got to see one. And, you know, they have such a distinctive color. And their beakers orange, they're kind of red.
And IT was just doing its thing. And IT was so awesome to be watching this bird doing its thing, not caring that I was standing three feet away from IT aware, very cautious. But it's a wonderful thing sometimes to have a sense of how humans are.
Just not that important that bd didn't need me. IT was gonna its thing. IT was going to Operate in the world in a way IT needed to. And human beings, the only thing I cared about was making sure IT was safe.
But those feelings are just to me, wonderful because it's like you said, IT takes us out of ourselves, but IT also helps us realized we're just not always that important most of the time, we're just not that important. There's something really phenomenal about that. I don't know why it's it's like a for me, IT feels beautiful. You know that we don't have to always be front and center and I just I don't have us to say that, but that I ve just struck by that in relationship book in this concept .
of ball yeah you know what a deep comment, gail. And you know the philosopher Thomas nego has this a spectacular book, the view from nowhere, where he writes about humans capacity for perspective taking. And I love your use of the word perspective. And he Wrights, you know. And I think all of our listeners will have had this experience where most of our lives is, from the subjective point of view, our the lens of the self gale or darker, looking at reality and trying to advance the self and self interest that we survive that way.
But we humans have this incredible capacity to get out of the self and have this higher level perspective on life, right? And people may experience IT and nego rights about IT in terms of it's almost like you can float up into space and look down on your life or as if you're filming IT and say, like h that's just darker at this moment in time in human history, right? And and it's liberating and IT IT feels so good.
Take that perspective upon the self to a distant perspective, third person or higher. And how does that? You know, we've published work on that. That moments of all, you know you for me is interesting, like I get a lot of IT from in museum looking at paintings. So I was like, wow, our film. You know, a lot of people feel this in film, like all this character is going through a similar drama as me, like their mom is dying or whatever. I and suddenly that that perspective, that you share things with other people, this is part of the human condition you look at your life, is just one piece of a broader, narrow theme or source of meaning IT IT makes us feel good. And empirically, what we find is that makes you feel that's stressed the daily hassles of life seem really trivial that you're like, I always worried about parking tickets, know when I get them to me and so they really like, no is a parking ticket um and that gives you a more equitable ity you feel like, uh, you know, this is OK I can handle all the things that through perspective that all brains.
I like what you said there's a word you used to that I think was really wonderful. And hold on to as liberating how IT liberates us. You worked with prisoners and sand quinton prison.
What you saw felt there. You talk about other people's kindness, other people's courage, how those things inspired. Or can you tell us about that experience?
You know, IT was a life changing experience that continues to this day. You know, I was just starting to write this book or really started to put my thoughts together about what to say about all. This is a phenomenon on all that we feel all the time, and like einstein said, is just a basic state of looking at the world that's accessible to us.
And I grappling with a worry that all you know feels rare, needs resources and like and so I got asked to be part of the restoring justice program in and quinton and restorative justice is about you know taking responsibility for the harm you've committed, trying acknowledging IT ah and then trying to make things Better and in insane rant this is serious stuff. These people have killed people you've you know violent acts at a and they really want to like improve the world as part of the start of justice program, giving a talk inside and quinton, every american to go inside a prison, just to know what are just the system where IT leads to. And I I was with one hundred and eighty prisoners, and I was me in five or six volunteers.
And, you know, you're like, wow, this is my safe here. You know what's going on? Is this okay? I got i've started to feel safe and giving this talk.
He was about all compassion and gratitude. And I just like, I got ta ask these guys like what brings them aw in sand, quinton. And you know, american prisons are brutal.
You know, prepared other western european prisons where we have the most brutal prison system. And these guys, you very hard lives are like the answers they gave me. We're one of the central inspirations of the book. I was like, and I was every day I was like, I feel are by my Sally and reading the the bible or the kan ever learning how to read or um getting my high school diploma or having a moment when I get to hug my grandchild or looking at the air or. Hearing the fog horns you know from the same party co bay, san quinton is right on the bay and I still remember that moment as vividly as you know being close to the dallam or seeing those in mandela came out of prison you or um you know having a conversation with Steve curr who's a person of all for me or is the the big IT all experiences when I heard that from them I was like, this is everywhere if you can find this in prison in these everyday ways, we've got to be able to to bring this to our life today and and then IT LED to friendship scale and being involved in other organizations related to incarceration and having a beer central source of moral beauty in my life.
Thanks for sharing that. I know when I read IT in your book, IT was extremely powerful to read. I so admire that you asked that question of them. And I was so curious if just being asked that question if they just appreciate IT.
you know, I mean, one of the central things that happens, you know in prison is they wanted, do good. You know, this is and a lot and many don't. You know, there are very hard people in life everywhere in the world. That's what the judicial system feels. We put a lot of people, thirty percent and there for drugs, you know, probation being there and you know they wanted you good and and they wanted they want to be seen as a human who made mistakes as a kid. Very often these are mistakes they make when nineteen or nineteen and yeah when that when as a researcher comes in from berkely and ask them their view of what's wonderful about life, it's empowering to them and and we need more of that.
There's another story you sharing your book about doctor host and ray on the streets of oakland. And i'd like for you to talk about that as well. I've lived in cities for most of my life, surrounded by many homeless people, and again, people who aren't often seen, rarely have a voice. And I just thought this was another really beautiful story.
Thank you. doctor. Live fast is he's a hospital list, which which is someone who just does all the work of medicine. You know, anything that comes in, he's trying to help. When you work in a hospital in an american city, a lot of your day is dealing with what we call frequent fires.
Who are people who come into hospitals a lot, emergency run a lot, and they are often unhoused, and they have psychiatric conditions, because ronal rag and eliminated seven hundred thousand beds for psychiatric patients. And we have seven hundred thousand unhoused individuals now. And and and they they have, you know, they have every health problem going on.
They they don't have good food, they have psychiatric anxiety or or delusions. They have are sleeping outside the weather, hurt their skin, sleeping on the ground has LED them, they have bedsores, they are overweight, they have diabetes, they've got everything going on and that who leave feels with on one of the patients. His name is ray.
And ray has all kinds of conditions going on. And you know, for a long time, brain conditions, rebel policy, you know, poor health, really compromise physical health, probably going to live a shorter life. Live gets into his medical mode.
He's got a few minutes with him and he's about to treat him and give him and then move on. And ray is like, man doctor has is so great to be with you. I just feel happy every day that I get to live life. And and IT just jolts leave out of his overwork approached to delivering care, which is true in our system. And he looks into his eyes and he seized the moral beauty, the guy and they have this moment where they talk about love and happiness and service and being human. And and his patient gives that to leave right and that's one of the lessons of moral beauty as its just IT comes from unlikely places, prisoners and the frequent fires in our medical system and students and schools and and and people out the every every day streets right and we just got ta look for IT to be empowered in our work.
I was reading a book about social connection. It's a new book out by science writer David robson. And he was talking about something called the collective ever visits. And then I read your book, and you write about this concept as well. Can you tell us what IT is and what its connection is to all?
It's one of my favorite sources of all. And the term was coined by the french sociologist, a meal dr. Caine and a meal dirk cam, in the nineteen hundreds.
Really founding figure in sociology, studied religion in different parts of the world. And he's like, what is IT about? What's like the core phenomenon? And that makes people religious.
And he started to see people doing which uses and dancing. And now you could think about speaking in tones and charismatic churches and crying together, and praying and meditating together, and hugging. And he called the collective ever visits.
It's when we move together in unison, share an awareness of what is sacred or divine, and start to feel ecstatic and all know. And the feelings of odd is like, wow. And he called IT collective ever vessons.
And I love that the phrase, and when we studied IT in our stories of, there are all these amazing stories of collective evidence about the train changes, you know, rituals in church, singing inquires, dancing, you and there's whole new dance movements. And I profile rat, a agrawal of daybreakers, who's giving dance that hundreds of thousands of people doing yoga, t gong. And one of my favorites that surprise is surprising, is sports. You know, when you go to a sporting of them, you know, I go to these call football games. And people have their cow chairs, and you stand up and chair to wear the clothes and you hope people cow losses or what?
It's so much fun. He is so much Better.
It's a start and now is a fun. It's sacred. You know, it's like, this is, this is irreplacable. And I hope, you know, and I think I hit a nerve during the pandemic, we lost all that, you know, and we need more of IT just to get out, move the other people.
You did an experiment with participants over the age of seventy five, deliberately looking for all. Tell us about this experiment and why this age group, what they wrote about, what was the impact? What was your goal?
This study, in collaboration with Virginian term at uz servant's go kind of IT, was one of these studies that speaks to a lot of important questions someone might have about cultivating all one question you might have is if I deliberately, to use your wonderfully chosen were yale, go seeking and do iron, you know, which is an intuition. Another one is, you know, if I um if I try to do this over and over again, does IT ruin the experience.
Another question you might have is, god, how do I implement all in my daily life? And so what we did with those questions in mind is we had people who are seventy five years old or older go out and try to find all in their weekly walk. Lot of people are walking these days, which is great, so good for you.
And and so in one condition, people tell me five years older, older went out and sought out all, you know, find something that mysterious. Break your usual pattern. Look at small things for a minute and big things and fine mystery and the other condition, really nice control condition.
They did a vigorous walk, you know, they just walked and did what they did. They did this once a week for eight weeks, and we had them fill out scales of well being and also take pictures of themselves. And there's an important lesson er and so so why seventy five years old or older are at the age of our participants? At that age, you know people start feeling more anxious.
They feel a little bit more depressed because people are passing away. Their, their bodies are compromise. Perhaps their minds are a little less sharp.
And is anxiety producing what we found deliberately seeking all with the all work is people felt more all over the course of time. They felt more prosocial love and kindness for other people. The photos they took demonstrated the vanishing self in their self fee.
In the awl condition, the cell starts to move off to the side of the photo and vanished, you know, because they're just more aware of like the beautiful parks cine or the sense of in the photo. And then importantly, these people, more elderly, felt less distress. And we know that pain is is tough when you're older. And here is an instance in which are reduced distress of aging. So really good news for cultivating all in our daily.
Is there anything that you're thinking over that she's thinking of building on with that experiment? Or IT does feel like an experiment with that kind of done IT did this thing well.
You know you want to one of the things that happens in the science, that idea of positive emotions that in terms of their health benefits is like, how do we translate these two things? You can give people medical setting or or an intervention if you have for depression. And so that she's testing net now for clinical conditions.
We're developing all practices with music and visual art and nature to really help people with anxiety or depression or trauma. And so the all science is starting to lead to new clinical approaches coming your way soon. You write about .
games and movement and how important they are in cultivating. Do you want to say a little bit about that?
humans? And Michael Thomas elo, in his book becoming human rights, brilliantly about this IT. One of our signature strength is is to is to move with other people, to share awareness, with other people, to share ideas, to share play and games.
Ames and, you know, have a deep history of this, the olympics, and then earlier, the, uh, mine ball cord games, three thousand years old. We're really about sharing movement in games. You would play a game, backcourt game, and then everybody would get together from neighboring tribes. They would chair food. They would play other games.
They would dance, they would singing, is almost like a festival, right? And festivals are, as barbera iron right has written, are just this universal human impulse to get together due games and dance and play and have sports and you know, and get drunk and have rivalry and share food and and what, you know, that is one of these moments where what humans are doing underlying that is we're actually creating so social, moral communities. When we share games and share food, we we learn how to negotiate conflicts, we learn how to share resources.
We learn, learn how to transcend tribal ism to find a greater collective. And there's now contemporary science by people like Molly crack finding. You know, when you go to festivals.
You become more altruistic to other people more generally. When the olympics happen, a shire games experience. We feel Better about humans. We have more hope. We wanted do things that Better the world, right? A lot of the environmentalists movements now of our starting to have this collective feel of, like, go out in plant trees together, Green cities, the wild, a playground, and that two can bring up the the best of human through all so under appreciated source of morality and community.
When I first interacted with folks who had been to burning man and they would come back, I was always blown away at the before and the after they would go. Even for folks to go every year, I was blown away by how they would leave and how they would return. And so much of the way they would return and the way the things they would talk about and how they saw the world in those like first initial months until, of course, that kind of you know goes away after a little bit but was so different. It's so much in line with what you're talking about.
a general urge of our times as our surgeon general evac mercy has argued. As you know, we are not mean and we got to get back to together ness and burning man is like, together is on steroids, you know, much like if you are devoted to religion and go to church, it's like that.
And and what I found doing the research and then just the personal explorations with all, it's hard to find that in the small are ways, you know, uh, I go to a yoga studio twice a week. And that has this collective movement and sense of transient community. We suddenly walk out, they're wow, people are are really doing good and they're working hard to be kind and civil to one another.
You know, you can go to the park. Uh and one of the benefits of parks, which really transformed city, is the collective stuff that goes on check IT out, people playing checkers and they're sharing food and they are playing sports, and suddenly this music thing happens, or there's this person doing drama. So I really, you know, burning man does IT with full power, you know. But if you don't want to paint your body and get naked and you know then, and you know good to them, it's not my thing. But then you can, you can find IT in so many places, humans are really strong at this, and it's been really cool. Just to see, like, you know, I do a lot of work, as I said, with medical doctors, and they're like, you know, thanks to the all research i'm now when I hudd with my team, we dance for two minutes, you know, or we tell stories of our, we take turns reading, sharing a favorite piece of music, that's all collective movement and and gaming games to to, to combat this epidemic of nominees.
Is there anything to think about her? Have you thought about her? Does IT come up at all the connection to attention? And i'll be more specific.
I was listening to an interview recently with a person named uh d gram burnet and he's actually professor who studies the history of science and right now his big fascination is with an organization and nonprofit is created called the straw er attention lab like it's all about helping people come together. It's like an informal, non academic way of coming together around sensory experiences that they can reflect on, share, discuss. And his interest in IT is coming a law from this idea of attention, what we attend to the science of attention. And i'm curious as attention come up in anyway or has to come up anyway in the of research.
you know IT hasn't, but IT really should. And and you've highlighted, I think, one of the real transformative powers of all and IT has to do with attention. William James are great.
You know, one of the founding figures in the psychological science and the fields I work in um wrote that attention is really our character. It's just ourself, our identity, our Better sides, what we attend to and how we attend to IT. And then he really made the case that you know, these emotions and cognitive states, like wonder that we move through are forms of attention.
You know, we move through hundreds of thousands of those states, everyday forms of attention. And it's precious, right in and all is a form of attention, is a way, you know, of looking at things in front of you. And i'm looking at a variety of things, like a ball, you know, i'm looking at the light on IT and like how that's really lights remarkable how IT reflects that. I think we always have the possibility of our and how we attend to the world the prisoners of san quinton taught me that they could be inside a cell in solitary confinement, which is horrible and brutal. Um and unconstitional tional and and still in that place find wondering what they're attending to wow I could think about my grandchild or this passage from the bible. What have you so you know, I think IT is a form of attention and we need to move away from this big or and sexualization like, well, all is really like same paul on the road to damascus and being converted or you know seeing the red wood tree and understanding that rather it's there in every moment of of our conscious awareness in the state of attention that are part of them and and let's hope movements like the attention that will get us there. And this thinking about all and IT seems .
like it's got elements of some other things you talked about, which is connection .
yeah you know all awakened you to the sense like, oh, I share attention both historically and in the present moment with a lot of other people. You know how I look at life is is through the the attentional lens of my parents and a best friend and my partner and and in the literature that I read. So just a road now. And there's a lot of philosophical work now on this that, you know, we think of attention and consciousness narrows is like what I think in my mind, but is actually distributed a in many different places.
So the female of podcasting is curiosity. What are you most curious about today?
I what I most curious about today, what moves me, know we are in this mental health crisis, rising anxiety, rising depression, rising suicide and Young man rising self harm, rising reduced life expectancy in the united states is just like the big indicators tell us we need to shake things up you know unless the rising harm to the environment um and I think we're at this inflection point and there are ways in which we're turning no greater use of renewable energies know first time in a long time carbon emissions world wide down.
It's set a and what I I just have been in so many conversations about all about how music can heal us, about how visual art can help prisoners, about how stories of moral beauty help medicine, about how getting out in nature and rewilding schools and rewilding cities like singapore is doing can catch a carbon and make citizens feel Better about life. That's all. All those are all all practices. And so i'm curious about whether if we really if we make this more of a movement, which IT is in some ways, we can meet the crisis of our time, our times and and i'm hopeful there .
is so much in your book. And of course, we don't have time to go through all of IT, though I would love to just anything I haven't asked that you specifically would like to speak to.
It's kind of an abstract point, but I think it's important, which is we are at this peak of individualism. Sociologists and others have noted self expressive individuals, m Young cabage says. And you know, we need to shift self expressive individuals and leads to materialism, carbon emissions, narcisse, anxiety, even polar ization.
And and and we need to shift and at the end of the book, you know, seeking, like what's the what's the conceptual magic of all? And you know, other people in different disciples got me to the idea that all awaken us. Like you have hinted that through this interview.
Gale, the idea that I am as self and part of things, i'm really independent, not independent. I'm inter dependent on the natural world. I need to recognize that i'm inter dependent on the people around me were independent at our work, and I feel that all central lesson is that were part of things that's good. As we cultivate that and we move away from this generational focus on the self may be focusing on relationship like a part of nature and part of a political movement and part of this neighborhood. Uh maybe I will help us shift in ways um that that really address the problems of our times and and and make us a little bit more obstruct.
I'm not known I want to to pull quote from your book that speaks to that, which is we are a part of systems larger than the self, a great thing firster of member. And I think that's what you're are trying to bring to the forefront in the book. But also, I feel like in this interview you've come to that again and again, these systems of nature, these systems of spirituality, the systems of person hood.
We didn't talk about this, and i'm just going to kind of just briefly bring IT up. But one of the many, many beautiful things in the book, and probably for me, just personally, given where I am in life and life circumstances, was your talking about your brother and his illness and his death. And I wondered if you wanted to speak about that at all. IT is an unbelievably beautiful thread that is woven throughout your book. And I actually was just so touched by the fact that you would share that story with us.
Yeah, thank you. yeah. I, you know, my brother roof was Young, year Younger, and we had this amazing childhood of counter cultural parents living in the sixties and music and art and literature from my mom and dad and the country we we spent formative years out in the country, you swimming rivers in the lake.
He was probably the central person of moral beauty to me, taught me how to be kind and but, you know, stand up for the vulnerable, and which he did always. And then he passed away of collen cancer, and I blew me off the map. The privilege of writing this book, IT, has in part has been to stimulate conversations about the lifecycle. You know that this is inevitable. Lot of us lose people too Young and it's mysterious and and IT IT derails us but then we grow you know and we grow through all.
Um when he passed away I was in profound grief doing this all science I know it's good for and I like, I like I got to to start over and find all again because rolf gone and I listened to music in new ways and I went into the mountains and he and I went to and I went to the prisons into the asha and. I talk to spiritual leaders. I'm not a religious person that I talk to ministers and month and I, you know, thought about the life cycle and and went to museums.
IT just changed me, you know and I was talking to somebody recently in a convenient about all about how when we lose people who are so vital to our sense of wonder in life, um we start over and we transform and we read. We discover new things and we grow and and I grew centrally in being more curious about life and more curious about life cycles and more sharp in my focus about, like, well, this is what I can do in the world, you know and and so yeah IT was um you know was a life changing event if the world is different I I miss him every day. I hear his voice every day.
I struggle because of IT, but also i've grown. We don't have good languages and narratives around palate care or a loss. And we're starting to and I feel grateful this, you know, being with all off and telling the story has helped people think about IT.
IT definitely helped me. And you know, is, i'm at the age where I am losing more people in my life. So your story of off really resonated and just came at the perfect time.
Stephanus go, in many ways, this is always on the cutting edge. And I get the library newsletter because I love the same to go public library. And I thought, wow, I wonder if they're one of the few libraries doing this.
They actually have workshops and get people together is to talk about death. And I know, you know, so many people would think, why would you do that? But I think it's phenomenal because we don't talk about IT.
It's profound, you know. And there's new research. You know, the hymen ayn bud traditions teach kids practices of like imagining a person you love is a baby all the way to when they die.
And school kids do that. And here in the U. S. We're like, oh my god, don't say that word. No one would talk to me about IT when my brother was really becoming ill, and I had to discovered on my own. And then kudos to the same for school library for encouraging those conversations.
Decor, I can't thank you enough. IT is such a pleasure to speak with you again. And I will say to you that every conversation I have with you is one that, for me is always an experience of all. Thank you for that gift.
Thank you for this conversation. I've learned so much, and I jotting down notes about new things I need to study. So thank you. Has been wonderful once again to be in conversation of you.
Curious minds at work is made possible through a partnership with the innovative s circle, an executive coaching farm for innovative leaders. A special thank you to producer and edit a rob making ability for leading the amazing behind the scenes team that makes IT all happen. Each episode, we give a shout out to something that feeding our curiosity.
This week is john the ancestors book the wall, a master world builder. The author shows us how individual act made over time impact all of us for good and for bad. He taps into what makes us human and gives us a call to action. What a book.