today on our show
Even though I listen to some music while at work in the lab - and then do my best to enjoy the eclectic mixes of contemporary German pop, 80s one-hit-wonders, and 90s one-hit-wonders, all thanks to my colleagues and YouTube - most of what I have listened to this summer has been podcasts. The ones that get my regular attention are BBC Radio 4’s “In Our Time“, the archived and remarkable “TED Talks“, Cool Hunting’s video podcast, and, naturally, Chicago Public Radio’s “This American Life“. Podcasts have become an addiction, though one requiring the comforting environment of home to actually pay attention to and enjoy - I simply cannot be walking around campus or whatnot and make a thread of sense of a podcast; the static scenery is best.
The method of presentation that “This American Life” takes is quite possibly the most effective one for my attention span. Stories. You can tell me that you own a Jaguar and I’ll zone out in the first few syllables. But if you tell me the story of how you interned for a famous Swiss designer and how you became his dearest apprentice and then he decided that you should take possession of his Jaguar upon his death… Wow! I’ll be waiting for each word to drop from your experience with the delight of a kid waiting for the clinging bells of reindeer overhead.
Stories are not something that require serendipity in order to take form; they require commonplace observation and interpretation. Red doesn’t begin to accept meaning until people attach it to such ideas like hot or stop or glamorous. In the same way, your regular routine is nothing more than a cog in a machine until you spot the odd quirks we all have and see them for that, instead of “just the way things are.” For example, I am incapable of getting a good day started without a toasted bagel with a sliced banana and cinnamon sugar as toppings. To an uninterested observer, I am eating breakfast; but I see it as a morningtime religious experience that is connected to the overall wellness of my entire day. See, story.
Maybe the greatest cause of stories is an exuberant attitude. Those millions of Americans who work for the thought that money will solve their insecurities and that their debt disappears one day before their children inherit it - well, frankly, they have no capacity to witness the richness of life all around us, and how wonderfully dynamic both the earth and humans can be. You’ll never realize you have a story if your greater concern is the survival of your materialistic life. It’s impossible to spot a gold coin in a haystack if you are adamantly looking for that pin.
So, my point is that you should listen to “This American Life”. “Each week on our radio program we choose a theme, bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme…”
June 17th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
While I also enjoy a good story, I think that, oftentimes, too many people bring too much meaning to relatively meaningless events in their lives. There are certainly important and meaningful moments in the course of one’s life, but at the end of the day someone might simply be fueling themselves. Personally, I have grown weary of people bringing meaning to nothingness and then passing it off as being enlightened.
June 17th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I think what you are describing is often called “shallowness” and is the best descriptor for those millions of blogs out there that consist of little more than a quasi-detailed tally of a given day-in-the-life and then gripe and complain about their personal hang-ups.
My main idea is that richness of living is around us and that training ourselves to see it is an admirable feat. The millions of people, both personal and professional, whose writings cry for ultimate justice and fulfillment experience zero richness, nor are they aware it is present.
June 17th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
I would disagree with you on the issue of “shallowness.” I would say that those blogs are completely useless. I am not saying that thoughtful and meaningful writing should not happen. What I am saying is that the so called inspiration for much apparently thoughtful writing seems arrogant and self-important. My blog (though hardly an active one) has been victim to my emotional whims, but I have often strived to write meaningful entries. Many of these entries have been borne from ideas floating around in my head that I am simply trying to share with whoever may care to read about my thoughts. Again, I am not a big fan of people airing their dirty laundry, so to speak. I am just not a fan of writing that tries award special merit to something that is really not deserving of it.
June 17th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
EDIT. My previous post should start with “I would AGREE with you…”
June 18th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Hey — that’s exactly what my blog is — a quasi-detailed tally of a given day-in-the-life with gripes and complaints about my personal hang-ups.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Kellan - But since you are a new mother, you are granted so many more freedoms regarding excessive monologues. I’d even put up with pig Latin as long as you tossed in a fresh photo of Michael with the post. Because you [we] have special digital capacities to do so, it’s important, I believe, to document his life in as many ways as possible. If the internet is around in 18 years when he is reminiscent and graduating from Future High School, he’ll weep with joyous tears at your attention to his caretaking and upbringing, as spoken of in your writing.
And if he doesn’t weep, I’ll give him something to cry about.
June 18th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Hee hee.
Actually, he’ll probably be weeping with embarrassment at the baby pictures that the whole world will see.
June 20th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
I also like my friend’s podcast: http://www.feastoffools.net
: )
-jason