While speech and discussion are central pillars in our species’ history and evolution, not all conversations are created equal. This week, Kathleen shares a compliment she once gave a friend who made her “excited to talk”. Examining the phrase, what does it reveal about the relationship between closeness and what we share or say? What would its opposite be? How do we benefit from/respond to this type of influence?
Episode 240: No Longer Epistolary
As communication technologies have evolved over the millennia of human history, we’ve adopted new methods of communicating with one another. And with the emergence of the new, we see older approaches reserved for more traditional or antiquated practices. So how do we approach letter-writing, a method which was once the only means of long-distance communication? What role does it play in our modern society and as email, texting and other means increase in popularity, what does the relative decline in letter-writing mean for our ways of connecting with one another?
Episode 239: Between These Eyes of Ink VI
“Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past.”
This week, we return to "Between These Eyes of Ink," a series which dissects and considers quotations and the insights they contain. For our sixth episode, we welcome Sam Whipple to help explore the idea that “Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past”. How does this quotation distort typical perceptions of forgiveness and time? In what was does forgiveness repair, heal or change our memory? Are we able to pursue different “futures” because of “pasts” we’ve come to forgive?
Episode 238: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff V
This week, we return to the tradition of reacting to a book of insights entitled "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff". In particular, we look at chapters encouraging us to become less aggressive drivers, to tell others that we love them, to develop our compassion and to surrender to the fact that life isn’t fair. How do these chapters and their particular insights help us to focus on what truly matters? Are some of these insights more compelling or useful than others? Are some more challenging to implement?
Episode 237: Who Paid 99 Cents?
Can we ever quantify the innate curiosity so many of us share? Perhaps unintentionally, the company Thinko did just this in October 2018 when they launched WhoPaid99Cents.com. The function of the site, in beautiful clarity, is simply to record and display who chose to pay 99 cents for access to a list of others who had done the same. Several articles take shots at the site for being useless, wasteful and unnecessary. But what about a different perspective? How might a space like this illuminate the strange tug many of us feel to peek at the activities of others? With its entry point of 99 cents, how might it help us measure (a certain type of) human curiosity?
