Think Again - a Big Think Podcast

NOTE: This is a special guest episode of Jason's new podcast Clever Creature. Please subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts! The Moleskine is open, the page is staring back accusingly/ Like 'come on, Punk, what makes you think you possibly could fill the likes of me? Reflections on a big creative leap of faith: the making of this podcast. A staples manufacturer on the brink of death, taking solace in his gut flora and the memory of his daughter's love for LOL Surprise dolls. A song about deserts, real and figurative. A conversation with Jason's son Emre about the Ice Cream Desert and music-making as a doorway. And a "bonus track" 7 minute guided meditation at the end. . . . You can learn more and join my mailing list at my website. Or maybe you want to join our Facebook Group And hey—I'm making this first season all on my own—it's a blast, but it takes a lot of time! Please consider supporting the show by joining our creative community on Himalaya Premium. Just download the Himalaya app for any smartphone, search for the show, and click "join membership" at the bottom. . . . Episode art by Nathan Gelgud Theme song by Emre Gots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

[From February through March 22, 2020 (his last day hosting Think Again) Jason will be revisiting favorite past episodes. Jason's new show, starting May 12th, is Clever Creature with Jason Gots.] I’m underground as I write this, one day before taping the conversation you’re about to hear, speeding through New York City subway tunnels that aren’t all that ancient but whose darkness, and rats, and crumbling, esoteric infrastructure holds fear and fascination enough for anyone who contemplates them. Waking up this morning—notice how you wake up, not down—I felt my already barely remembered dreams sliding off of me in layers, like leaves, or hands. And the longing to submit to those hands and slide back down, underground, into the caverns of sleep. My guest today, Robert MacFarlane, has dug deeper than I could ever hope to into the meanings and magnetism of the underworld —tunnels, caves, sinkholes, and the living, fungal earth of our world and our imaginations. At one point in his new book UNDERLAND he brings up the fact that to a neutrino, our solid physical world is just a a mesh—Mount Everest is a wide-gauge net it can pass easily through. In MacFarlane’s writing, the layers of the world are transparent, overlapping, always already present. He’s often called a “nature writer”, but that’s a poor proxy for what he actually is: a philosopher poet with the gift of sight in the darkness, whose penetrating vision turns the world inside out. Surprise conversation starters in this episode: E.O. Wilson on the world of pheromones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

[From February through March 22, 2020 (his last day hosting Think Again) Jason will be revisiting favorite past episodes. Jason's new show, starting May 12th, is Clever Creature with Jason Gots.] -- Among other things, music can be medicine. Like a vaccine, it sometimes works by giving your body a little taste of the disease. Other times, of course, you just wanna dance, and James Brown might be just what you need. But the medicine songs I’m talking about are the ones that break your heart open no matter many times you hear them. And you want them to—because that’s what it feels like to be alive. Nobody knows this better than my guest today, singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell. Like the centuries of blues and folk songs that echo through it, transubstantiated by her voice and guitar into something almost too beautiful to bear, her music is powerful medicine. Anaïs wrote all the songs, lyrics and the book of the new (14x Tony-nominated!) Broadway musical, HADESTOWN, directed by Rachel Chavkin. It makes new again the ancient story of the singer-songwriter Orpheus and his lover Eurydice, who he follows all the way to hell, and leads most of the way back again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

[From February through March 22, 2020 (his last day hosting Think Again) Jason will be revisiting favorite past episodes. Jason's new show, starting May 12th, is Clever Creature with Jason Gots.] -- Note: I feel I should let listeners know that this episode of Think Again is about surviving and thriving in the face of unspeakable trauma and sexual violence. And in order to get to the thriving, we have talk about the trauma, which may be painful for some listeners and inappropriate for kids. But I don’t want to scare anybody off—I think it’s one of the most valuable conversations we’ve ever had on the show. -- For a human child growing up, trust is the foundation of everything. We learn how to regulate our emotions, how to see the world as relatively stable and safe through the connection with the people who care for us. Severely neglected children can suffer all kinds of harm to their ability to think, connect with others, and learn. But what happens when the caring bond is not only missing, but is horribly abused? Distorted through incest and sexual violence? How do you build a self and life after that? And let’s say you somehow manage to survive to adulthood…to thrive, even. How do you fill the place in your heart where the love and the trust is supposed to be? My guest today has had to answer all these questions for herself. She is the playwright, author, and activist Eve Ensler. You may know her as the creator of the Vagina Monlogues. What you might not know is that all the horrors I’m talking about happened to her as a kid. Let me take that out of the passive voice: her father did that to her, and more. And he died without saying anything remotely close to “I’m sorry”. So Eve wrote his apology for him—her book THE APOLOGY is a letter to her—to Eve—in the imagined voice of her dead father, retelling what happened, why it happened, and trying to figure out in these twisted circumstances what an apology would even mean… Surprise conversation starters in this episode: Jared Diamond on immigrants and innovation -- Thoughts on relistening: This episode with Eve Ensler means a lot to me. I came late to the feminist conversation about patriarchy and masculinity. About the ways men are taught to be ashamed of vulnerability, and how all that fear and shame can lead to violence. Listening back I’m struck again by this one thing she says: “Language changes everything. It’s like the word 'vagina'. If you can’t say it, you can’t see it. If you can’t see it, a lot of things can happen to it in the dark without your permission.” There is so much hope and power in the work Eve does to break the silence and encourage others to do the same. As a man, I hear it especially loud and clear when she says it’s time for men to “...make a choice. Whether they’re going to maintain allegiance to the male code or step into the next paradigm. Stopping the domination so they get to be free in this lifetime.” I hear it and I personally, enthusiastically accept that call. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since 1976, Sharon Salzberg has been sharing ancient meditation and mindfulness practices in a voice the contemporary West can understand. Her warm, funny, down-to-earth books, dharma talks, and guided meditations have helped struggling meditators worldwide establish a strong practice and reduce the suffering in their lives. In this episode master teacher Sharon Salzberg considers whether it's ok to teach mindfulness to the armed forces, how practitioners of meditation and mindfulness should balance openness with discipline, and so much more. Sharon’s latest book is Real Happiness: a 28 day program for realizing the power of meditation, now thoroughly updated and revised for its 10th anniversary. Note: This will be the last original episode of Think Again with show creator and host Jason Gots. Throughout February and March he’ll be running a retrospective of favorite episodes with new commentary. On May 12, 2020, he’ll launch a new, independent show: Clever Creature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Freedom. Everyone wants it, but knowing where to look for it is another matter. And to make matters worse, the world is full of things that feel like freedom but might just get us more tangled up in everything we’re trying to escape. How much freedom can money buy? How much money? How free are you on a tropical vacation? Would uploading your consciousness into the cloud and downloading it into a robot avatar on Alpha Centauri make you more free? How about falling in love again? How about three margaritas with friends? Or six? How about falling in love again? A better government? Less government? No government at all? I’m here today with Joseph Goldstein, a beloved teacher of Buddhist ideas and practice in the West and a personal inspiration to me, to talk about freedom of the mind and spirit—and the kinds of effort and insight that can lead there. Joseph is the co-founder of Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts and the author, most recently, of Mindfulness: a Practical Guide to Awakening. - Jason Gots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The other day on social media a friend asked what the heck is up with this Mr. Rogers revival. Why does everyone suddenly love this guy so much? Moments before, I had been listening to a new podcast about Dolly Parton, and her weird, almost saintlike ability to bring people together across cultural divides. In a moment of deep mistrust and cynicism, there’s this hunger for people and things worth believing in. I’ve also got Bodhisattvas on the brain lately. In Mahayana Buddhism, Bodhisattvas are the embodiment of compassion. Absolute compassion for all living things, even those that really piss us off. THE WORLD COULD BE OTHERWISE: the Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path is a wonderful new book by my guest today, poet, Zen priest, and translator Norman Fischer. It’s a collection of thoughts and practices for becoming Bodhisattvas ourselves, warts and all. A Bodhisattva commits to the impossible for the benefit of everyone. “beings are numberless: I vow to save them all.” According to Norman and a couple thousand years of Buddhist tradition, we can do this too. Boddhisattvas or saints, Dolly and Fred Rogers possibly included, are needed at all times and places. But right now, when trust and kindness are in short supply, we maybe need them—and need to embody them—more than ever. – Jason Gots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While reading Deborah Levy’s novel THE MAN WHO SAW EVERYTHING and her recent “working autobiography” THE COST OF LIVING I often found myself pausing and kind of sinking into a passage I’d just read. Going back and rereading it not because my attention had wandered nor exactly to unpack an idea but because I felt the need to experience it over again. To have it happen to me. Levy started her career writing plays that have been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company and broadcast by the BBC. She is the author of multiple novels, several of which have been Man Booker Prize finalists, the short story collection Black Vodka, and two of the aforementioned “working autobiographies”. The two books of hers I’ve read are packed with ideas, but like great theater, they treat ideas as verbs. They’re thought in action. In a sense they defy you to talk about them. But let's try to, anyway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Maybe the opposite of goodness is not evil. Maybe the opposite of goodness is, in fact, numbness.” There are so many questions we never ask. So many assumptions we make every second of every day because our minds and our lives are sealed off from one another, accessible only through time, patience, and the slow work of trust—all of which are often in short supply while we’re running around trying to stick to schedules. And there are some questions we don’t ask for other reasons—because the answers might tell us more than we want to know about ourselves. I’m so very happy to be here today for the second time on this show with British-Turkish author, speaker, and educator Elif Shafak. In her latest novel, as in all of her work, she asks some of these forgotten questions and, maybe more important, signposts the infinity of doorways we walk past without noticing. The book, 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in This Strange World, was one of six on the shortlist for this year’s Booker Prize. Like any human life, that of its heroine Leila is strange, beautiful, and important. And all too easily tossed aside. Surprise conversation starters in this episode: Ibram X Kendi on the dangerous idea of the dangerous black neighborhood, and anger and analysis in social justice movements, from our conversation on Think Again Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do you have a body? I do, but I was mostly unaware of this fact until somewhere in my mid-30s, when my life strategy of living like a bourbon-loving brain-in-a-vat became increasingly untenable. Since then, I’ve come to understand something that might have been obvious to you all along. The body’s not just a convenient support system for coming up with clever things to say—it’s how we experience the world. It’s most of what we mean by living. And for all its marvelous autonomy, it’s also wonderfully, bafflingly complex. My guest today is the author Bill Bryson. In his new book THE BODY: A GUIDE FOR OCCUPANTS, he has been kind enough to demystify it for us to the extent that that’s possible, and to help us revel in its mystery everywhere else. Bill is the beloved author of A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING and A WALK IN THE WOODS, and I’m delighted to have him on the show. Surprise conversation starters in this episode: Excerpted from Think Again episode #215 with Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1972, the year I was born, there was apparently a famous TV ad for Geritol. My guest today describes it thus: “…a husband spoke to the camera while his wife draped herself over his shoulder, smiling like something between a model and the brainwashed resident of a creepy commune…”My wife’s incredible. She took care of the baby all day, cooked a great dinner and even went to a school meeting—and look at her!” Her potion of eternal youth, of course, is Geritol. It’s got all the vitamins and iron she needs. This perfect woman grins silently at the camera as her husband concludes: “My wife: I think I’ll keep her.” Though what constitutes “getting old” for women in America has been a moving target throughout US history, it has rarely been a picnic. But our history’s also full of women who have raised hell and pushed back in a hundred different ways against the cultural and literal corsets America keeps trying to stuff them into. My guest today is New York Times columnist and celebrated author Gail Collins. Her new book is No Stopping Us Now: the Adventures of Older Women in American History. It’s a bumpy, often exhilarating ride through the lives of older women in America from colonial times up to the present day. And Gail’s good company as our wise, wisecracking stagecoach driver. We’re headed West, and there’s hope on the horizon. Conversation starter clips in this episode: Liz Plank on masculinity, from episode 214 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the past half century or so feminism has had its hands plenty full dealing with the abuse and inequality women suffer at the hands of horribly behaved men and the systems they build. Too full to worry much about what the hell is going on inside those men and why. And there are powerful arguments to be made for the fact that it is not women’s responsibility to help men figure out how not to be monsters. But I’ve noticed an interesting shift in the discourse lately. In the wake of the #MeToo movement (things happen fast these days…that blew up at scale in 2017), some threads of the public conversation have turned toward what my guest today might talk about in terms of the "gender ecosystem", the ways that ideas about gender shape our identities and behavior and the fact that those behaviors impact everyone in society for better and worse. Regardless of whose responsibility it is to solve these problems, the question of where masculinity goes from here should matter to everyone. My guest today is journalist and cultural critic Liz Plank. she was named one of Forbes’ 30 under 30, has produced and hosted multiple acclaimed digital series for Vox, and is the author of the new book FOR THE LOVE OF MEN: a new vision of mindful masculinity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Like too many of us, I hated history classes throughout my school career, and only realized as an adult that there are few things more interesting to ponder than the ways people lived and thought in different times and places than my own. After all, we’re all stuck in our own time, limited by our culture, consciousness, and whatever knowledge we may possess of what came before. Maybe that explains part of the appeal of historical fiction like the series Downton Abbey, set in a great Edwardian country house in the early 20th century. My guest today is stage and screen Director Michael Engler. He’s the director of the new Downton Abbey feature film, and he directed episodes of Downton Abbey, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, 30 Rock and much more for TV. Meticulously recreating one corner of Edwardian England and building original story worlds within it, Downton Abbey is part romantic comedy, part historical drama grappling with the tensions of class and society at the sunset of empire. Surprise conversation starters in this episode: Comedian Pete Holmes on visualization Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices