Life Examined

This week, British author Katherine May offers a (heart) warming perspective on winter. Rather than dread or endure the cold and dark days, rediscover some of the simple ways to enjoy some of the beauty and stillness that winter offers.

Elizabeth Rush, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth, describes her voyage to the most remote place on earth, Antarctica, to see the Thwaites Glacier, a crumbling sheet of ice the size of Florida. It’s melting so fast that it's known as the "doomsday glacier.”  “The only thing I could think of as a metaphoric likeness was the wall in Game of Thrones,” says Rush. She shares her thoughts on individual climate action, carbon footprints, and how her experience in Antarctica framed her own dilemma on motherhood in a rapidly warming world.  “If I'm gonna wish a child into this world, I have to wish this world upon that child, so I better be part of the change,” Rush says.

Yiyun Li, author of Wednesday’s Child: Stories, discusses the beauty of storytelling and examining losses in life. She shares her personal experience with grief and the therapeutic effects of gardening and writing. The podcast explores the role of English as a literary language and the universal theme of grief in literature.

This week, cognitive scientist and professor of psychology at Yale University Lori Santos explains that negative emotions are very much part of the human experience and essential to leading a happy life. Leaning into these emotions and accepting them is better for us than trying to dismiss or suppress them. 

Dr. Anna Lembke, director of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, discusses the role of dopamine in the brain and the addictive world we live in. She highlights the impact of the internet, explores the connection between addiction and mental health, and explores physical movement and dopamine neurotransmitters. She also emphasizes the power of radical truth-telling in recovery and decision-making, the effectiveness of support groups, and delves into the dangers of fentanyl in the drug epidemic.

Lisa Miller, professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University and author of “The Awakened Brain; The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life,”  talks about the connections between a spiritual life and mental health, specifically what happens inside the brain when a religious or a spiritual practice are introduced. Miller, a scientist and not a theologian, talks about her personal experience, work and research to develop a “new foundationally spiritually based treatment to help awaken our natural spiritual awareness..the awakened brain.”

This week, professor and director of the Convergent Behavioural Science Initiative at the University of Virginia Leidy Klotz explains why when it comes to solving problems or finding ways to improve our lives -  subtraction rather than addition can be the less instinctive but often the most effective solution.

Oliver Burkeman, journalist and author of Four Thousand Weeks; Time Management for Mortals, explores our relationship with time and the modern obsession with time management, efficiency, and making the most of this valuable resource. Depressing as it may sound, Burkeman says, the average person has about 4,000 weeks. Drawing on history and philosophy, Burkeman offers a sane and sensible approach to how we spend our time, and suggests that we “not buy into the idea that more and more efficiency, and processing more and more tasks, is the path to happiness.”

This week, psychology and education professor Peter Coleman explains that conflicts and disagreements are not just normal in relationships but actually a good thing - we don’t learn without conflict.

Professor of American Indian Studies Mishuana Goeman addresses the common misconceptions about Native American land and the ties between the land and language. Indigenous ecologist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer draws on the knowledge of Indigenous peoples and speaks to the value of living in reciprocity with the natural world. A member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Kimmerer explains how our relationship with the planet can improve through a better understanding and appreciation of Indigenous culture.  “Human beings are newcomers here to this earth, and our existence is entirely dependent upon the gifts of the other beings who are already here,” she says.   Mishuana Goeman (Tonawanda Band of Seneca) is a professor of Gender Studies and American Indian Studies at UCLA’s Institute of Environment and Sustainability and Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous Affairs. She says Indigenous communities held strong ties to the land, and those ties varied from tribe to tribe through language, art, and song.   Robin Wall Kimmerer is a guest speaker at UC Santa Barbara’s Arts and Lecture Series Tuesday November 14th at 7:30pm at Campbell Hall.  Learn more about this and other events at artsandlectures.ucsb.edu.