Etikettarkiv: podcast

Podcast 18/52 – slow money while foraging

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Today, as I was riding my bike home from singing with my choir in the church this morning, I stopped to pick stinging nettles and ground-elder. I am filling my freezer with quickly blanched nettles and ground-elder, to savor during the winter. And of course I am using the green gold on a weekly basis at home right now as well (green smoothies, pies and lots of other things).

nettles and ground-elder

So as I was picking I listened to Woody Tasch from Slow Money on Peak Prosperity, a podcast I’ve blogged about before. A lot of the episodes are way above my capacity, as it’s centered around economics, and I’m neither interested or knowledgeable about economics, I willingly admit. But this was really interesting. Slow Money is sort of the investment equivalent to Slow Food. In the words of the organization itself:

Slow Money catalyzes the flow of capital to local food enterprises and organic farms, connecting investors to the places where they live and “bringing money back down to earth”.

There’s been two episodes recorded with Woody, but I listened to the most recent one, from 2014, so scroll down a bit on the page to find it. 

And possibly, the reason this episode was right up my alley is perhaps because:

This is about culture. This isn’t about economics. It’s about what’s more important, economics or culture? And guess what? In the United States, we have spent the last hundred years proving to ourselves that economics is much more important than culture. 

And yes. It’s very deliberate that Woody speaks about culture, the word that both brings with it images of tilling the land, growing food and other useful plants, as well as the customs of the society I live and work in. And for me, it’s not an issue I have to think long and hard upon. Culture is more important that economics. Economics is a part of culture, and the culture within the economic system is part of the problem for sure. So there’s a challenge for us, to change that culture. That’s part of the reason why Peak Prosperity exist in the first place.

What’s more important for you? Culture or economics?

Podcast 15/52 – Similarities between UKIP and the Swedish Democrats?

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Was working in the garden yesterday, listening to a podcast from the RSA on something or other. Don’t quite remember actually. Anyway, as I was cutting up branches for the garden bin, sweeping up old leaves from the outside seating area and other typical ”it’s spring and there’s stuff to get done in the garden”-stuff, when one show from the RSA ended, a new one automatically began. That’s how I ended up listening to a pod on UKIP and the left behind: what a new party tells us about modern Britain. This is not an episode I would have put on from reading the heading, but I’m very glad that I got to listen to it. So I decided to make it the 15th podcast recommendation from me this year. (By the way, you can watch it as well if you prefer that. I don’t.)

BoldomaticPost_Political-scientist-Matthew-G

I don’t know much about the Swedish Democrats, honestly, and I certainly know even less about the UKIP in the UK, but as I listened I wondered if there are more similarities between the two parties, and the trends in the respective countries, or if what’s happening is totally different in Sweden and the UK?

Are the same demographic groups being attracted to the Swedish Democrats as to UKIP? Are the reasons for voting Swedish Democrats the same as those for voting UKIP? Has anybody done such a thorough analysis of the voters and rationales for voting Swedish Democrats as the analysis made by Matthew Goodwin in the UK?

I don’t know. Still. I haven’t gotten any answers to my pondering. But perhaps you know, and can help me learn more about this? Articles to read? Pods to listen to?

Podcast 14/52 – we need a more economist way of thinking!

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That’s a line I never thought I’d write, but Steven Pinker has an interesting rationale for stating that the world needs a more economist way of thinking. The way he describes it closely resembles a question I’ve entertained personally hundreds, if not thousands of times in the past 3-4 years: Does it serve me or not?

BoldomaticPost_What-makes-us-tick-Steven-PinCurious as to what I’m talking about?

Believe it or not, it’s another excellent show from London Real, featuring Steven Pinker. The episode was originally aired in 2013 if I understand it correctly, but it was just published again, so I picked up on it.

And I’m very happy I did. It’s an episode spanning all sorts of things, from Noam Chomsky to gun-control in the US, from linguistics to hunter-gatherer tribes, from what makes us tick to bullying, from economic thinking and utilitarianism to religion and the ever-decreasing amount of violence in the world. And just about everything in-between as well.

It’s a strangely optimistic podcast. After listening to it I have an urge to encourage more people to listen to it, if nothing else to hear Pinker explain the decline of violence, which he does in the beginning of the show.

He says (paraphrased):
If you paint your image of the world based (solely) on news sites, you will surely believe the world is more and more violent and evil, since the news media show that which happens (homicide, mass murder, war, terrorist attacks etc), and not that which doesn’t happen.

He makes a good point there, because news is about what happens. So even though there is less and less violence in the world, of which there is no doubt, news media will pick up on the violence that is there, because what would be the newsworthiness of a peaceful street corner of a previously violence-ridden neighborhood? None, or so it seems.

Steven Pinker seems to be a genuinely curious person, and he’s asking questions constantly in the podcast. Quite inspirational, I must say, and it makes me more curious about him. So he leaves me intrigued, and I am gonna listen to the podcast at least once more, to see if the connection between Pinker’s ”economist way of thinking” actually is similar to the way I use the question ”Does it serve me” or not.

When you read ”We need a more economist way of thinking in the world?” – what does that provoke in you? 

Podcast 13/52 – tossed in a tumbler for 3 hours!

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black tumblerPodcast tip number 13 and I thank Michael Sillion and his PodOfTheDay-blog for this episode, which had me feel like I’ve just been through a 3 hour ride in a tumbler. Sometimes exhilarating and sometimes just really confusing. (Maybe actually being tossed in a tumbler would only be sheer hell, but work with me here, please.)

The podcast I’m talking about is London real with Tai Lopez, and once I’d finished the 3 hour long episode I actually pressed play once again. Am now almost two hours done second time round, and I’m vacillating between nodding vigorously, totally agreeing, and then once in a while I shake my head, get a sceptic look on my face and absolutely disagree with some things.

And you know what? I love that. I love the perplexity of the grey scale, of not saying ”I absolutely agree with 100% of everything Tai says” but not going ”I don’t believe a word this dude is saying” either. I like that, because it pushes my boundaries, expands and challenges my understanding of the way of the world, and gives me something to take a closer look at.

I almost get short of breath when listening because Tai speaks so much and fast, and Brian Rose of London Real does nothing to slow him down. London Real somehow very macho, and I haven’t listened to a lot of London Real episodes for that reason, but this one. Yeah. It works. For me. Somehow, despite the length, the tempo, and all the parts I disagree with. Funny that. Does it work for you?

Podcast 12/52 – why we are here!

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Yesterday I had another one of those ”Wow, this podcast is so good, I want to listen to it again, as soon as I’m done listening to it the first time around”-moments, and the podcast that made me all excited was the One You feed-episode with Glennon Doyle Melton.

I found a lot of really significant passages in the conversation in this podcast, and a few of them went straight to my heart. One of them centers on the habit we have of not sharing our vulnerability with each other. Glennon tells a story of when she wrote a post on Facebook, sharing her vulnerability in 25 bullets. The response was amazing and supportive, but also, people dared to show their vulnerability with her, after she had shown her. And she was struck by the fact that people she knew, she only really thought she knew, because there was so much pain and hard experiences in their life, that they had never shared with her. She shares her reaction to this, in the podcast:

I was pissed! Because what are we doing? Why are we even calling each other friends? We sit together and we’re talking about things that do not matter, and you’re in so much pain, and I have the same pain. This just gotta be what we’re here for: to talk about this stuff! 

hold backNow, why is it like that? Why do we barely go skin-deep? Why is it so hard to be vulnerable? Why do we hold back, from sharing our pains, losses, grievances, but also our joys, tender moments and highest wishes and dreams? And why do we believe the mind-made monsters about what will happen if we are wholehearted and vulnerable, when  in my experience, usually it’s the opposite. Yes, there will be haters, but haters will be haters, to quote Taylor Swift, and why should we (or I) let that stop me? And what I have received in love and connection on account of opening up and being vulnerable, far surpasses the ”hate-responses”.

And still. I hold back. I shy away. I hold my tongue, for fear of the reaction, even though I know that if someone came to me with what I am dying to share, I would open my arms and heart and just hold a space for whomever it was who shared their vulnerability. Why don’t I think others would do the same for me? Isn’t that why we are here?

 

Podcast 9/52 – Love and Sex and Attachment

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Today marks the start of the blog challenge #Blogg100 in Sweden, and just as the last two years, I’ve decided to play. However, I have no real plan for doing anything other than what I normally do, which is blog daily…. but, who knows, I might think of something special as I go along.

However, today is Sunday, and it’s time for my ninth podcast tip, and I’m opting for an episode from On Being with anthropologist Helen Fisher, called Love and sex and attachment. I listened to the episode earlier this week, and just like a few other podcasts, immediately re-listened once finished. Today as I found the link for the episode I see Helen Fishers photo, and was a bit surprised. Her voice doesn’t sound like she looks. Have you ever experienced that? Anyway, that’s a side note.

Love, sex, attachment. I mean – you can’t really go wrong there, can you? It’s something we are all interested in and affected by. And that’s actually the reason why Helen got into this area of scientific enquiry in the first place, because she was so interested in that which ties us together, that which we all have a relationship to, the similarities between people, rather than that which separates us.

BoldomaticPost_relationships-evolve-and-a-goOne of the take away’s for me from this podcast is the ever-changing nature of relationships, and that it’s actually a sign of a good relationship, that it is constantly changing, growing, evolving. And you know why? Because life in itself is constantly changing – nothing is permanent. We have somehow gotten tricked into believing it is, or should be, but in reality, life is dependent on change, changing thoughts, changing needs, changing mental states, changing relationships. So how could we ever believe that any one person, or any one relationship, could be permanent? Is it a need for safety and security that have warped somehow? Perhaps due to the loss of the local community, that Krista Tippitt and Helen Fisher also touch on in the show?

 

Podcast 8/52 – Dinner with Einstein, Jung and Herbie Hancock?

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Listened to this episode of Peak Prosperity the other day, and since then have listened to it another two or three times. It’s a conversation between Christ Martenson and Andrew ”Treebeard” Graves on becoming the change we wish to see, and exploring the development of inner resilience.

And they go deep into stuff that really resonates with me in many ways. Sometimes perhaps simplifying a bit much, but still, there’s a lot of what they speak about that I agree with.

So, since I’ve talked and written much the past quarter on listening for that which I don’t already know, I’m now challenging myself to write about what I heard that was new to me… hm, let’s see… *reading through the transcript of the podcast, trying to find something that sticks out as new to me*

First of all, listening to this conversation as such, on a podcast such as Peak Prosperity surprised me, but also made me quite happy, because I’m hoping it will resonate with the Peak Prosperity community, and will lead to even more people actually starting to look within.

And also, I’d like to join in on that dinner conversation with Einstein, Jung, Herbie Hancock and Chris Martenson. I sort of knew Albert Einstein have said something like this: “People think I had these great ideas, but it was not me. I just opened myself up and creativity flowed through me. I was a vessel.” but I had no idea Carl Jung and Herbie Hancock felt the same. I actually had to google Herbie Hancock, because I’ve never really listened to him. Found a great tune quite fitting to the theme of the podcast itself actually:

Imagine all the people living for today.
Imagine all the people living life in peace.
Imagine all the people sharing all the world.

Now there’s a vision to dream of.
I do. I dream of that, and I try to act it too. I see the potential for it, the possibility that exist in every moment. A world where we live as one. And becoming the change we wish to see in the world is the only way to get there, I believe. Do you?

Podcast 7/52 – Releasing criticism

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During the Christmas holidays I took long solitary walks along the beaches off the coast of Vejbystrand, where my mother lives. Beautiful landscape, highly varying weather, and great podcasts to keep me company, vejbystrandwhen I didn’t feel like walking in silence.

One of the podcasts I listened to was this one, the Good Life Project-interview with Tara Sophia Mohr, who said something to the likes of this:

Feedback tells me nothing of me, and everything about the person giving it. 

And I stopped in my stride. Went back on the podcast, and listened again, and yup, that’s what she said, Tara. That the feedback she get’s tells her everything about the feedback-giver, and nothing about herself.

Wow. I giggled a little to myself, and could imagine the amount of energy I’ve wasted on fully diving headlong into someone else criticism and feedback about me – taking it for truth. Scary almost, now that I think of it.

Now, she made it clear, that just because she doesn’t believe feedback tells her something about her, that she’s not interested in hearing it. On the contrary, she’s extremely interested in it – just because it tells her so much about those she’s interacting with.

Come to think of it, it’s been a while since I listened to this episode of Good Life Project, and I think I might take my own recommendation and re-listen to it the upcoming week.

What do you make of her statement? Agree? Disagree?

 

Podcast 6/52 – The disembodied western culture

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On Being is, as you might have guess, a favorite of mine, when it comes to podcasts. And this episode is as good as the next. Because they truly all have something special.

In this episode I met Bessel van der Kolk for the first time, and just from spending fifty minutes with him and Krista, I know I would love to listen more to him. He’s an interesting man, and I would love to meet him, talk to him, listen to him tell me more about what he’s discovered during his life.

There’s a part of the show, near the end, where Bessel and Krista talk about the disembodied Western culture, and I’ll just let you read for yourself:

DisembodiedDR. VAN DER KOLK: … Western culture is astoundingly disembodied and uniquely so. Because of my work, I’ve been to South Africa quite a few times and China and Japan and India. You see that we are much more disembodied. And the way I like to say is that we basically come from a post-alcoholic culture. People whose origins are in Northern Europe had only one way of treating distress: that’s namely with a bottle of alcohol.

North American culture continues to continue that notion. If you feel bad, just take a swig or take a pill. And the notion that you can do things to change the harmony inside of yourself is just not something that we teach in schools and in our culture, in our churches, in our religious practices. And, of course, if you look at religions around the world, they always start with dancing, moving, singing …

MS. TIPPETT: Yeah. Crying, laughing, yeah.

DR. VAN DER KOLK: Physical experiences. And then the more respectable people become, the more stiff they become somehow.

Disembodied. Stiff. Detached from ourselves.

Watched The Imitation Game for the second time the other day, and flinched at the ”stiff upper lip”-reference the head master makes when telling the teenaged Alan Turing about his friend Christoffer passing away during a holiday. I flinched, and feel very sad. How much pain have we, as a culture, not inflicted upon each other, by using words and phrases like that, setting that as the norm; being highly disembodied, clearly making it the thing to strive for.

And I think, even though Alan Turing must have been a school boy during the 20s, that it’s still so to a large extent. Rather than make use of our body for learning, school children in many many places are still told to sit still. Disembodied, that’s the culture we live in. And this is just one example, I’m sure I could come up with a number, if I wanted to. I don’t though.

Because perhaps there is a change coming? What with new research such as neuroscience, and new discoveries on learning, physical and mental development etc. Dare I hope?

 

Podcast 5/52 – Autism at work

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It’s Sunday, and Sunday means podcast-tip of the week. This time, a program I listened to almost a year ago, but it’s stayed with me. It’s an RSA Event entitled Autism at work: Releasing Talent and Harnessing Creativity. It’s not an easy listen, perhaps, but do give it a chance. If you do, I believe you will hear something new.

I remember taking a walk while listening, getting frustrated and elated both. Frustrated because there is so much human potential that goes to waste, basically because of lack of understanding and knowledge. Elated because there is hope at the end of the tunnel, this program give examples of companies really thinking about what their needs are, and realizing people within the autism spectrum are spot on for those needs.there is a place for everyone

Now, that might seem callous of me, as if the only way to have worth on this earth is if you are employed and somebody can directly utilize your skills. That’s not what I mean, so please don’t misunderstand me here. Rather, opening up work places, organizations etc, for a wider spectrum of how human beings can be, with similarities and differences, hopefully will lead to a more allowing society.

I believe it to be an innate need of human beings, to belong. So what can be done, to enable more people to find their place and their crowd?