Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / Never SURRENDER — how to stay HUMAN in the age of AI | Dr Flynn Coleman

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Never SURRENDER — how to stay HUMAN in the age of AI | Dr Flynn Coleman · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

0:00
The big lie is that we are separate and that if I just get more, I'll feel okay. Once I started writing it, I couldn't stop. As a writer, that there is something that you are hiding from or thinking about or that has been there for a very, very long time that you finally feel like you can... What do you think AI is mirroring about the collective soul? It's mirroring...
0:24
I've always had a deep interest in humanity and what it means to be human and also what it means to be humane. What would have to be true for AI to be a utopic vision? If any one person ever tells you, I'm building a future that we can all trust, just sit back and let us do it, they're selling you a version of snake oil. I used to be the one coming in with all the hope. I am a lot less hopeful now. But Rebecca Solnig says, if you don't like the word hope, how about the words
0:54
What does the soul mean to you? So the concept of the soul is
1:08
I'm so happy to hear that. I also felt nervous because of the unknown, but also your book is putting me in conversation with the very same aspects of our humanity that we demean or diminish are actually the most crucial elements of ourselves. So as I was nervous, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm not a machine.
1:28
I'm nervous. Exactly. No, and you get it. That's what was so interesting reading your questions. I was like, oh, that's so interesting. She found it. She feels like it fits in with her work. And then I immediately knew you got it because it's not a book about that. It's about people. And it's about the animal kingdom. And it's about systems. And it's about dismantling white supremacy and racism and sex. I mean, you immediately got it. It's my ideal situation that 10 years later, like you said, you grab this in the ether. I live for that. And I write for that. And that's really what we're talking about. So
1:58
very excited and I want to know more about like you and and but I know that we have to get to this podcast so maybe you know yes we'll infuse all of that into it um I'm so grateful I will just share like a tiny piece of my life of my story so my name is Ayanda I am South African and Namibian and I grew up in South Africa until I was 18 and then left to the States for 10 years but I do think I always grew up with this like intimate understanding of apartheid and racism of course you do
2:28
Yes, and my uncle was in exile and all these like familial and also then seeing sort of what happens when all this trauma inflicted on in the public sphere, how that is then mirrored in the domestic sphere and how women then bear the brunt with all our gender based violence in South Africa. We have one of the highest rates of that. And it's really this.
2:50
this deep trauma that has never been given its place. You know, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is so beautiful. But I love how you say the soul is like a process versus like an event. And so I felt like there's a process of healing versus like an event of healing. And I wish that had been stretched out more, which I think maybe they did a little bit more in the Rwandan genocide. No, but you're right. Like I had so much hope for it. Right. They didn't...
3:16
The data shows it didn't really work. Yeah. I mean, the data doesn't even begin to tell the story. So, yeah, I think that that's something that people I've spoken to and that I'm thinking about, too, that all of these things that we had hoped that might work to replace these kind of non-existent systems of justice and impunity. Actually, we still haven't found anything.
3:38
The answer and this idea of truth and reconciliation, I think it was a brilliant idea and I had more hope that it would work, but I don't. And there are some interesting things that have happened. Now you have the Rwandan parliament is 61% women, for example, which you never would have had. Sexual violence categorized, it's like a category one crime along some murder. So those are a lot of things that only happen. I mean, there's just one example of the Rwandan women that pushed and pushed and pushed for
4:04
this. So it's not like there isn't progress, but I think also what you're feeling is that there's no winning in war and there's no winning in these situations because people are already lost. And so I think about that a lot and it's like, if it's not justice and it's not truth and it's not these systems and it's not these commissions and certainly not the courts, you know, I mean, we have to keep looking for what the answers are. And inevitably, of course, it
4:29
People talking a lot about patriarchy now and really, I think, seeing how little it's helped. And so I think, like you said, just women. Women, and I don't just mean just women in charge, but that concept of community and care.
4:44
And cooperation and coming together. Like, I don't have all the answers, but what we have been doing hasn't worked. So how can we be centering these? For example, the things I've learned the most are from, inevitably, from something like a cooperative of women that have come together. In Chile, I saw that. They come together to create art after the year of disappearances. And it's not like systems were fixed because of that. But these women rebuilt their lives together.
5:10
They learn financial skills. They created art. They search for their loved ones. And so it's not, it doesn't answer all of our problems, but there is something in coming together and like leading through care and empathy and kindness. And you probably think about this a lot, but like wellness, I don't even know if we've started, but wellness.
5:28
As not just self-care, but community care, right? And that collective coming together because no one of us lives or dies or anything in between in isolation. So anyways, okay. I adore that. I feel like so grateful for your wisdom on community care and this like, I don't know if you would call it the feminine...
5:49
It's like also very indigenous practices and wisdom that you bring into your work. So the first question I would just love to ask you, because I feel there's so much that we can all receive and learn from you, is what does the soul mean to you?
6:02
What does the soul mean to me? So I'm honored and delighted to be here. And it's such a beautiful question. What does the soul mean to me? So as you saw in the book, I do introduce this idea of the soul, which I think is often very disconnected from some of these conversations. And I actually just had a conversation with a friend two days ago about, well, what do we think about this chasm between science and faith or the soul and the material world? And I think one way to think about the soul is,
6:31
Which is, of course, one of our most eternal questions. Who are we? Do we have a soul? What has a soul? And obviously, as you saw from the book, I have a very broad definition of who I think is conscious and has a soul. And I think that one way to think about the soul, though I certainly don't know, is kind of...
6:48
an eternal, never-ending process of unfolding and evolving and becoming and perhaps learning, but maybe more than that, unlearning. And so I think it's a process of discovery. One of my favorite quotes, and it's also in the book, it means that much to me, is Raina Maria Rilke's idea of living the questions.
7:13
So that always hits me so deeply because I always say, you know, I'm never my career or my life or just whenever I'm having discussion, I'm never one for like easy answers. And unfortunately, I don't have any, but I only can think about this idea of continuing to just ask and live the questions. And then the poet David White. Yeah.
7:35
Talks about, as you know, this concept of having courageous conversations. And so that for me is the most difficult thing, right? To live and swim in that uncertainty. We crave, me and everyone else, we crave control and understanding in a chaotic world. We are on a ball floating in the darkness, in the vastness, in this unknowable cosmos.
7:59
And I think that, you know, the concept of the soul for me is something to do with this ever unfolding, evolving process of becoming who we are. And for me, it's also very, very important that we include our natural worlds. Like Albert Schweitzer, the famous doctor who used to work with leper colonies, talks about widening the crucible of humanity. And so for me, when I think about
8:25
human rights, or I think about the soul, or I think about who gets to be included. I think our job here is to have this ever-widening circle of who belongs.
8:35
And I think that we all only become more enriched. I think there's this deep, deep lie that when you give rights or something to someone else, you lose. This concept of the ego, this concept of scarcity. I mean, everything comes from that. White supremacy, colonialism, oppression is, well, if you have rights, then you're going to take something from me. But no.
8:57
It's in that process of trying to treat each other better. I think that we become more and more of who we are. So the concept of the soul is something that I'm always thinking about because I think we should treat all living things as if they're part of that. And there's also a lot of really interesting theories about the idea that the soul isn't one individual thing that we individually have. It's something more shared.
9:19
And I can tell, you know, when I think about these things that my brain isn't big enough to really take it all in. But there is something, this idea that we all are part of something collective. So those are some thoughts I have on that. Wow. Oh my word. That was so rich and resonant. And as you were speaking about this unfolding, this ever unfolding becoming, I got this image of a river and like this beautiful feeling of a continuous journey. And then also the connective aspect of that, that relationship.
9:48
There is no solo. We're all part of this collective river. And yet we're also finding our way along that stream. And I adore the invitation to live the questions and to stay in conversation with the uncertainty and with the beautiful possibility of asking, you know, and of discovery like you shared. So as you were saying, I was like flowing along this beautiful journey. There was so much in there that you shared.
10:18
it's so potent in your book that you have this deep love and devotion to humanity, to kindness, compassion, care, all these values that are so critical for us to return to and to also follow people who already embody those values like yourself and like your work does. So I just love how you described this unknowing and this becoming and this evolution. And I'm curious within that, so what do you think AI is mirroring about the collective soul?
10:47
Another beautiful question. It reminds me when you were talking about a river. It also happens to me in the book, but Oliver Sacks has this quote that says something like, time is a river. And I love how you added the piece because that's exactly what it is. I mean, the river is always flowing and it's always water, but it's always different, yet we're always connected.
11:04
And I think that that's another example of learning from nature. So I think, what is AI reflecting? I do, we spoke about this a little bit before, but I think for me, I don't, again, have a
11:19
I stumbled into this field many years ago, and I think technology, and particularly AI, mirrors who we are. And we have always evolved alongside our tools. So technology, of course, we tend to think now about AI or digital tools, but fire is technology. Mm-hmm.
11:37
Irrigation is technology. Celestial navigation is technology. And we've been evolving alongside our tools. There's some really interesting historical patterns about, for example, the human thumb, right? Evolving alongside our language, alongside our tools. So we've always been shaped by our tools as they've shaped us. It's like a two-way street. So I think AI is interesting in the fact that it is mirroring who we are. And there is...
12:05
what's happened with AI, especially with the speed and the scale, is that we're all touched by it, whether we are boycotting it, whether we hate it, whether we love it. We are all touched by these tools now. And so I think there are so many things that it's mirroring and a lot of it, I really don't like what we're seeing. And I think that AI is different than technology, the speed and the scale. And the only other way it's really different is that it has this existential threat for us.
12:33
in this potentiality to be smarter than we are or could ever be. So it's mirroring first and foremost, the biases, prejudice, judgments of the people that are building it. And specifically, it's a very, very small group of people from a very, very small demographic that are essentially building these tools that are affecting all of us in our future. And that's a major problem because for me...
12:54
As a student of human rights, what I study is power. And so when we think about these things, it's very important to think about who has the power, how do we redistribute power. So I think it's showing us our biases, our judgments, our fears. It has the potential to do some other interesting things, certainly in the medical field, certainly in terms of doing a lot of these things that can be useful if we work in partnership. But I think it's mirroring
13:18
our deepest fears. And I think it's mirroring also the desires and wants of a very select few that will never have to live in the world that most of us live in. And the future is being built by a very, very small group of people. And regardless of how you feel about that on an individual level, that is a very, very dangerous thing. If any one person ever tells you,
13:39
I'm building a future that we can all trust. Just sit back and let us do it. They're selling you a version of snake oil. And so I think it's mirroring our fears. I also think it's mirroring a lot of who we are as human beings in terms of being, you know, we are animals just like any other beast. We are one link in the chain of evolution. Mm-hmm.
13:59
And so it's mirroring a lot of the societal feels we have about everything from war to capitalism or post-capitalist state to racism to sexism to also just our blind spots. You know, as a human being, we have to make some 35,000 decisions every day just to get out of bed and walk down the street. So we have to use heuristics or haptic learning or shortcuts. So human beings, we are designed to make assumptions.
14:25
We are designed to make assumptions about each other. And we are designed that way because, you know, I mean, it's just one very ancient example. We had to immediately know, you know, back in the tundra, if this was a saber-toothed tiger, if we could trust it or not. Immediately make snap decisions. So as a result, we make so many snap decisions now, which is why eyewitness testimony across race, for example, is notoriously unreliable. Mm-hmm.
14:47
Because our brain is making judgments all the time. And so the goal is not to be a blank slate. No one is. But I think to be able to look in the mirror, just like relationships are a mirror. So I think it's an opportunity for us to look in the mirror and say, well, if I don't like what I see, how can I build a better possible future? And I do think that in the decades since I started working on this book, I can't believe it's been almost that long. I think we are really starting to not like what we see. Mm-hmm.
15:15
And I think that the opportunity there is to say, okay, whether or not we've crossed the Rubicon in terms of these tools becoming so powerful that we don't have a choice not to live with them. I think we always have a choice to being able to be willing or brave enough to look in the mirror and say we still have an opportunity to live.
15:38
take a different path. Because I think what also happens and what's endlessly important to me is this idea of imagination, moral imagination, societal imagination, creativity. I mean, that imagination we have as children and recapturing that. And part of being imaginative is realizing that we can always build a better future. So Rebecca Solnit in a recent interview did this thing I love because I think it's becoming really relevant, this concept of hope. I used to be the one coming in with all the hope and this is how we can build these tools. I am a lot
16:07
less hopeful now. But Rebecca Solnit gave this great interview and she says, and she wrote Hope in the Dark, this incredible book about hope. And she goes, well, you know, if you don't like the word hope, how about the words never fucking surrender?
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So I was like, okay, we don't like what we see. There's a lot of, you know, there's so many over, there's patriarchy, there's war, there's AI, there's climate crisis. There's so many horrors. Ironically, that of course, we can now see because of these screens in front of us, right? The algorithms are allowing us to see these things across our screen, but we can still say no matter what, I will never surrender.
16:42
I will always try to build a better future for our children's children. And I love that because even if we don't have hope or we're anxious or we're depressed and we're seeing these horrible things, we can say never, never surrender.
16:55
Oh my goodness. Wow. Never fucking surrender. I am obsessed. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. That's so powerful. There was so much generosity in what you just shared. I'm not even going to pretend to be able to capture all those magic or reflect all that magic. But this metaphor of this looking glass, this mirror and what it's showing back to us, I found so powerful and compelling and poignant in your work because it's...
17:19
It feels more, you know, we don't necessarily, there's other technologies like an airplane. You don't feel that mirror effect as strongly. But like with this specific set of technology, this mirroring effect that it has is so powerful and potent to see. And I also adore what you are saying in that.
17:35
I love where you started, where you said that, you know, you said fire is technology. And then in your book, you also write about language being technology. What I loved about that is it makes us all remember we are technologists because the image of what a technologist is, it's such a narrow white, went to Stanford, Harvard, you know.
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male, Western American, probably from, you know, wealthy person who is creating our digital infrastructure. And that's the problem because it's like, we all use the digital infrastructure. There's no local solution when we're all on it. You know what I mean? And so it's really powerful how you've framed it. And I think what you're saying about, I love how you started where you're like, I have no interest in AI really. I care about people. Can you tell people how ironic that
18:24
My last book is The Human Algorithm. And I did stumble into this world. And then, of course, as we all know, the world exploded in terms of thinking about AI. But yes, I've always had a deep interest in humanity and what it means to be human and also what it means to be humane. Mm-hmm.
18:45
And this is always what interests me, which is why, you know, when I wrote my book about AI, ostensibly, it's really about the animal kingdom and about poetry and about Leonardo da Vinci and about creativity and all of those things. And I think what you said is also very relevant for that because I'm, of course, at heart, a human rights activist, a human rights lawyer, and I've studied international relations and political science. And my interest is in how we learn to build a brighter future. And those things really,
19:11
remain available to us even when it seems desperate. I mean, what you just said is a brilliant example. And part of what we talked about before is I had this colleague at Harvard who talks about building technological AI systems around the concept of Ubuntu. That is available to us. And another colleague who talks about indigenous systems and
19:32
So, you know, and even our neoliberal economic system is just one way to do this thing. Right. And as you just said, you know, we have this very male dominated Western way of doing things, and that is not the only way. And as I think we're also seeing, it's not working. Exactly. And so there are all these other possible futures that we can still build in all of this. I mean, what's interesting about
19:54
intelligence and intelligent technology, because we actually know very little about the human brain and very little about intelligence, is that we focus on one type of intelligence. I'm always trying to say this, that we have this holy grail of building this artificial intelligence, but the model we're using is this one very specific type.
20:14
I mean, what about intuition? What about emotional intelligence? Or what about the intelligence of the animal kingdom all around us? For example, even if our goal is just to explore distant space and distant planets,
20:27
You can look at the octopus. We have a central intelligence. So basically, all of what we have going on is in this incredibly magnificent human brain. Very energy intensive. And it's interesting. Michael Pollan has a new book out. And one of the things he said is, you know, the brain is actually just designed to keep the body alive. So first of all, what about embodied intelligence?
20:47
What about, you know, it's the same reason we don't study a woman's body in medicine. What about bodies? What about thinking about the intelligence throughout our body? So an octopus has what's called distributed intelligence. Two-thirds of their neurons are in all of their tentacles and the hundreds of suckers. So if we're just trying to explore distant planets, the octopus intelligence is actually much better suited. Wow.
21:10
to the rovers on Saturn or the rovers we might use on Mars. And it's a completely different way of thinking about the mind, intelligence. And again, we tend to focus on this one very specific way that we are quote unquote smart. But take a look at pigeons. I mean, I could have an entire podcast just on pigeons. They can detect cancer in image scans.
21:30
No way. They're a descendant of dinosaurs. The reason we have so many is because they were used as carrier pigeons, right? So animals have this built-in GPS system that ironically humans, of course, have completely lost, right? Because we use, and GPS is an incredible invention, but we're using it so much that we're atrophying those parts of ourselves.
21:50
So there's just so many different ways. Bees, I could argue that bees are potentially the most important being on the planet. And they're being completely wiped out because of environmental reasons. So there's all these different ways. I think everything has to do with perspective. And no one of us has the perspective.
22:07
the entire perspective, which is why this cooperation, cross-pollination, speaking to people that are different than we are, that fear of the other is the most dangerous part of us in so many ways. All war comes from that, right? Wanting to create this hierarchy of someone or something is different, so I need to make them feel less than I am.
22:26
and they can't have any rights because what if they come for what I have? But actually, the best futures that we can build are when we learn from others. I always say the most important thing we can do in any conversation is to pull out a chair for someone that's not represented, not a friend of ours, not someone who thinks like us or acts like us, but who is not represented here? It's one of the most important questions I think we can ask.
22:48
Wow. Yes. Oh my goodness. Absolutely. I love the awe that you have for nature and natural intelligence and this commitment. I loved like the little, all these things you're teaching us about the distributed network of the octopus and how you shared how salmon can like travel across the ocean and then know exactly where they were born and return and the wisdom of trees as like a collective intelligence. Yes. And
23:11
that we have this very narrow human supremacist view of intelligence. And I think there's also quite an element of like karma in your book or like that, you know, this destiny feeling of we are condemned to be treated how we treat, you know. And I am obsessed with this idea that the more forms of intelligence that we acknowledge or the more forms of sort of surrender to a greater sort of unknown that we can embody, the more we're actually creating space for ourselves in this future.
23:40
So how do you sort of parallel how we treat the natural world with how AI may come to treat us? Such an exquisite question. Yeah, I do think it's such a beautiful way to think about it, this idea that how we treat others is our destiny or our karma or fate or however you want to describe it or whatever resonates with you. I also...
24:01
I also struggle because I think this concept of justice, which is so important, you know, we obviously have not seen it bear fruit in society in so many ways. So I also really struggle with this belief in that, but at the same time, the world we live in is not necessarily so. I do think that we are here to take care of each other.
24:20
And people ask all the time, I mean, in my work, I lose most of the battles that I fight, right? In human rights work, in the work that I do, we lose almost every battle. It can be incredibly disheartening and incredibly difficult. And so I think a couple of things about that. I think one, it can be very freeing and is incredibly important to think about the work that we do
24:42
to not worry so much about seeing it bear fruit and to think about our children's children's children and to do that work with the focus on never surrender because you never know the ripples that might create something that you yourself will never see.
24:58
And I do think that when people say, well, human rights are in trouble or there's war and it seems to be getting worse and it feels so hopeless, especially as we're watching these wars unfold on our screen and in climate disaster and there is so much hopelessness and I feel that too. In addition to never surrender, I think that we still have to go down swinging and
25:24
We always can think about how we might treat each other a little better. There's always something in that. And when people ask me about some of the more provocative things like, do robots have a soul or robot rights or why is it important to treat them well? This seems like something out of science fiction.
25:44
It is, though science fiction, of course, is powerful because it taps into this deep, deep sense of humanity and things that are really happening here is that we can always be learning to treat each other better. Empathy is a muscle and compassion sitting in other people's suffering is a muscle. And so when you talk about a mirror, part of why we don't want to face these things or we avoid looking in the mirror or we avoid connecting with who we think is the other is because...
26:08
It's so painful to sit in someone else's suffering and to realize that that person that doesn't have a home that you're looking at is someone we don't want to see. And same with death. Why we fear death or disability. We don't want to see where we're going, but we're all heading there. We are all heading to the same place. And so I think Rumi says that out beyond right doing and wrong doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
26:32
We have to find a way to meet each other in that field. And the way to get there is through looking in the mirror and through that vulnerability.
26:40
And I think it's interesting because, I mean, I can certainly relate to treating everyone so well except for myself, right? Right, and having all that compassion in the world except for myself. And so there's something in there that we don't want to see. And it has to do with this fear of, well, soon me and everyone I know won't be here. And maybe it isn't going to turn out okay. And I live with that every day too.
27:06
But step by step, it becomes this practice of every day, can I be a little bit more open? And that's hard because it means your heart breaks every day. I mean, my heart breaks every single day. Sometimes I wonder how I can survive all of that, how anyone can survive all of that. But that's where books and stories and poetry and speaking to people come from because everything you feel is...
27:27
You can open a book in a library and someone else across time and space has felt that before. And we felt something like that. And through books, we can live, you know, we can connect. I mean, you and I connecting, having this conversation. There's all these different ways I think we can learn to treat each other better. And we never lose when we do that, regardless of what happens. Speaking of David White, I was having a conversation with someone the other day who told me something David White said that I didn't know yet, which was...
27:56
Brought me to tears. It was, I think he was quoting someone else, and it was, I know you're lost, but the forest knows where you are. All you have to do is be still and let it come and find you. And it was so resonant to what you just said, too, about the trees having intelligence. I talk about my book, Dr. Susan Simard has a whole book, and I think a new book coming about the intelligence of trees. Something about, yes, you're lost. Mm-hmm.
28:23
But the forest knows where you are. Oh my goodness. And it hit me so hard because we all are lost. I feel lost every day. But there is something collective or bigger or the trees or something we can't quite explain that knows where we are. And if we just get still and listen, it can come and find us.
28:41
And I love that too, because we also live in a culture of chasing and of pushing and pushing and of constantly now seeing across social media, for example, comparison. Shakespeare says comparison is the thief of joy. And we live in such a culture of, well, this person is doing this. Because back in the day, you might only meet 100 people in your lifetime. Now you can literally see a filtered, curated image of what anyone may or may not be doing.
29:09
And so it creates this culture, speaking for myself too, of chasing and of, oh, well, it's never going to be enough. And what did I do wrong? And how can I be better? But what if we just got still and understood that the forest knows where we are?
29:23
Oh my goodness. That is so precious. I love that. I love David White so much. Me too. You may be lost, but the forest knows where you are. That is so stunning. You know, what it calls forth within me is this inherent sacredness and inherent belonging that we all have, but that...
29:40
with capitalism and supremacy, we are made to feel like is conditional. And we're always on the outside of even the way that we treat ourselves, as you mentioned, where we are, obviously we've internalized the surveillance culture and we've internalized this oppressive force within ourselves, especially as women. But I feel like there's this deep way we've been alienated from our own kind of intimacy with kindness. And I think that
30:04
that's, I think, maybe where you mentioned where our work sort of intersects is this deep value of like this inherent worthiness that we all have and how I think spirituality, one of the commentaries it can make is on love. And I think what your work does is it speaks to love as an ethic, as a philosophy to root the way we imagine technologies. And
30:27
I love how there's this commitment to a lot of these values. I'm not sure how you feel about the feminine and the masculine paradigm or like, you know, you're really, really rooting in care and compassion and intuition and collaboration. And these are traits that, you know, across time, a lot of women and people who have identified with more of the feminine spectrum of energy have embodied and yet has been so...
30:50
just completely denigrated and just, wow, eroded. And so it's like this return to something so ancient within all of us. And I also want to say that I absolutely love what you said about planting seeds. I think there's that quote about, may we plant seeds under whose shade we may never get to live. Yes, yes. And also recognizing that,
31:09
someone back then believed in the possibility, you know, said, what if I just tried this tiny thing and that compounded to us being here today? So we have an inheritance of change that we owe our future children's children a contribution towards. So just so much resonance with what you've shared and
31:27
I think people may be wondering, you seem to be doing such incredible work in the world. If you could just give us an insight into like your human rights work, what is that? And the work you've done on genocide and the work you do now, like it seems like you've just painted such a broad, beautiful palette, but it's all connected to humanity. And so I'd just love to hear that more of that.
31:48
Yeah, so much in there. And I recently wrote a piece in The Guardian that is so connected to this concept of feminine mythology that you said. It's about Artemis and the latest mission to the moon. Wow. And I was thinking a lot about, I mean, the myth of Artemis and as the huntress that goes to the moon. And so anyways, it was very important to me to think about
32:09
Like you said, how far we've come in the seeds that others planted. I mean, we are capable of such destruction and horrors, but yet we have gone to the moon. And we had the first woman that was orbiting the moon and then the first black man in deep space. And that happened last week. And this concept, and like you said, this concept, I mean, this is science across thousands of people and people that have worked their entire lives to send us to the moon.
32:39
And eventually we will go farther. And we've also, I mean, we had a brand new telescope a few years ago that came out and unfurled itself into space to see back 13 billion years to the origin of time. That is who we are. I always say that individually we're so small, but together there's no star we can't dream of exploring.
32:58
And especially if we embrace, like you said, all parts of ourselves and all of our different types of ways that we can not just work together, but connect through these deep, deep ancient inheritances of who we are. And so, yeah, to answer your question, I mean, humanity is the vein that runs through everything. And I, in so many ways, stumbled certainly into this work about being trained in and then thinking about AI and eventually being asked to speak and write about it.
33:27
My adventure, which is something I've been writing about now in a new book that I'm working on as well, this adventure to thinking about who we are, what humanity means, started by being in a different place and seeing other people and how they had been discriminated against and how they had been marginalized in society and yet flinging open their doors to welcome me, a stranger, into their homes and into their lives and thinking about
33:55
We were all strangers once, as the saying goes, but it only takes that small essence of bravery and humanity to realize how deeply connected we all are. Because I think that's the big lie, is that we are separate.
34:12
And that if I just get more, I'll feel okay. And if I have more, and if I look better, and if I stay young forever, and if I just get this job, and if I just get this person to love me, and if I just do this, and if I just build this company, then I will be okay. And we're grasping for control in a deeply unknowable universe, but the answer is more in community.
34:33
And in embracing that vulnerability. And I watched, I mean, it's just one example. I watched this person who had been exiled and discriminated against just welcome me and so many others into their community. And it opened up my life and it broke my heart, but it also opened me up. And so being able to see the world and have these adventures and learn about other people became so, so important to me that I wanted to find a way to like honor and celebrate and try to hold on to that humanity.
35:01
And what does it mean to be human at its core and also to be humane to each other, to ourselves, to the animal kingdom, to the natural world around us, to the people that aren't even here yet? And the Dalai Lama once said something about this. I believe it was a speech he gave in New Jersey, but it was basically, and it's so relevant, like you said, our...
35:22
society of white supremacy, racism, sexism, this post-capitalist fire that we've created on this earth, which is that when I only want something for myself, or I'm only happy for myself, or only do things for myself, I so limit my opportunities to be happy. Right? Because it's so fragile. Just like the ego when it's just about you.
35:46
And again, the ego is survival. We need it. Some of us don't have enough of it. And it's that sense of survival. We need it. It's that balance. But when I only think about myself, I so limit my opportunities. Wow.
35:59
to be happy, to be joyous. And I also think joy is a rebellion, right? Especially in these times, like you said, to be fully yourself, because a lot of us, you know, society tells us, whoa, you're to this, you're to that, you're this, but what do you mean you're also that? Right? Some of us get to be Renaissance men, but a Renaissance woman, whoa, you know, that upsets people,
36:17
the quote-unquote status quo that we have. And so I'm always thinking about this idea of how can we embrace our imperfections, our vulnerability, and also tap into this vast prismatic brilliance of the humanity all around us. Wow. And again, I don't know that I have any answers. I don't even know about hope. I don't know about our future. But I do know about never fucking surrender. And I do think about things like,
36:43
joyful rebellion and dance and poetry and connection and passion. And that has always been at the heart of what I do. And I think at the heart of it, we all want to belong and we want to be seen, which ironically can be the hardest thing, right? To open yourself up to being seen. But I think that in learning to see others, I believe in the deep intrinsic
37:07
deeply, deeply intrinsic and inextricable, like equal value of all living things. And that is the core. And that has been challenged again and again, you know, by laws and by systems. But I think that that's small minded thinking, you know, waging war is small minded thinking.
37:26
And otherization and those hierarchies are small-minded thinking. But to be expansive, I think, is, of course, the harder way to go. But that's how you explore distant planets. That's how you get to the moon. It's like that. Hidden Figures is one of my favorite books. I love this movie, and I talk about this a lot. And I thought about it a lot because Katherine Johnson's original calculations as what was then called a human-calculated mathematician, was...
37:52
When Artemis splashed down last week, within minutes at the exact bullseye in the ocean, that was Katherine Johnson's calculations. Wow. By hand. Wow. One of the brightest minds ever of NASA, right? A black woman. Mm-hmm.
38:08
That they had to fundraise so she could go to school. And her mind is the reason that we splashed down on that bullseye within minutes. Wow. Oh my gosh. Right? And in the film, which is based on the book, which is based on the lives of these women, she's asked at the end, well...
38:27
She had been the one to calculate the calculations for the orbiting of the moon and in the dialogue in the movie as well. Do you think we're going to get to the moon next? And then she goes, well, we're already there. Oh.
38:40
Right? She had a vision. We're already there. And imagine what it took for her to be able to say that and what she had to go through. Right? And so that's the struggle and that's the heartache and that's the injustice. But when we talk about movements or change or what it takes to get to the moon, in that sense, it took one woman believing in herself and what she was capable of to say, no, we're already there. So if there's a future we want to build, what if just a small group of people say, well, we're already there? Hmm.
39:11
Because every single movement starts the same way, which is a small group of committed people. Dr. Chenoweth, also at Harvard, did the studies on the percent of the population that needs to be gathered in a critical mass in order for a social movement that's world-changing to start. And you know what the number is?
39:28
3.5%. That's all it takes. No way. 3.5% of people. Oh my goodness. Right? To come together, whether you're marching, whether you're activating for something, petitioning, protesting, singing songs of resistance, whatever it is, it only takes a small group of people. And that's where humanity lies. And Baldwin talks about it too. Mm-hmm.
39:51
I mean, there's so many versions of this, but Baldwin, one of our greatest writers who exiled himself and only was able to find himself and find that sense of being able to breathe outside of his own home country says something similar. You know, it's just that it's that small group of people committed. And he basically talks about the world being held up, our humanity being held up by the soul, by the humanity, by the power, by the bravery of that small group of people.
40:20
But he says it with a smile, even with all that interview moves me every time because all he'd been through and all the discrimination, he still with a smile was like he was seeing that group of people. So they're there. They're here. Oh, my goodness. Wow. I could listen to you speak for ages. I'm just in paradise. Oh, my goodness. Wow. Wow. Wow. Oh, my word. This thread of...
40:44
Shifting from individualism and finding meaning and hope and striving within the self to that our power comes from collectives and our power comes from each other. And you mentioned, what was the name of this incredible black woman mathematician? Catherine Johnson.
41:00
Katherine Johnson. Katherine Johnson. There's also Dorothy Vaughn. There was a group of them. Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. So them, Dorothy Vaughn, Katherine Johnson. I'm also thinking of the tiny ways they were loved and how that is part of them creating those calculations and how, you know, there was some nourishment somewhere, a mother, a grandmother that also fortified them. And we are also inheriting that love.
41:22
And that love is baked into so much. And yet it can be something that is so minimized and reduced in terms of its importance and value. And it's rigor. Like it's not seen as like a rigorous subject, which is such a tragedy. And I just love how you are affirming because of that 3.5%. Like we can all envision ourselves as being 3.5% of anything, you know. And in this book, you really, this language you use that I'll never forget, which is that we are all architects of the future.
41:50
And I'm just so moved by that. Can you say more about this? Because it's so interesting how in some ways it's like capitalism and supremacy and colonialism deflate our sense of self, but then in some ways and then inflate our sense of self in these narcissistic ways. And it neither serves anyone except the system itself. So I'm fascinated by how we reduce our power in some ways, but then overstay our power in others. And it's this interesting tension because...
42:17
We're living in a very narcissistic time, but then we're also underestimating ourselves at the same time. So, yeah, that's so true. And I feel that so deeply. I do think we're living in a time of narcissism. Obviously, it's existed since the origins of the word. But, yeah, I do think for a lot of reasons, some more insidious, you know,
42:41
History will always show looking back, but I think that the prevalence of social media, right, and being isolated and what I call atomized. Because again, keeping us afraid and scared and atomized, right, is how people make money off of us and how the power structures. Because for example, if all women banded together-
43:02
it would be an unstoppable force. So patriarchy requires women feeling that scarcity mindset or that sense of jealousy or that sense of competition. So keeping us small and atomized and isolated is how power structures retain that power. And you see that across a lot of different systems. And I love what you said too about
43:25
that heritage of care and that lineage of community. I was asked the other day, we were talking about, someone asked me, well, how do we get matriarchy back? And why did matriarchy fail? And I thought it was a really interesting question because I don't believe it failed.
43:41
And that's ironically like a very patriarchal way of thinking about things because it didn't fail. It's just that, you know, war and pillage, right, prioritize these other ways of being. But matrilineal or community or care has survived. We just don't honor it. Just like raising children is not honored in the economic system.
44:02
There are all these different ways of doing things that we're here just about how we hierarchize and how we focus our priorities and who we choose to say should have rights or should have power, often based on these very...
44:18
These very antiquated systems about, you know, this very psychological ego-based concept of, I want to hold on to things. And if I were to let go or to let someone else have power, what might happen? And we have to be willing to widen that circle and we have to be willing to give up some things.
44:36
to be able to think about things differently. And there's a lot that comes to mind when you ask that question. I think of this idea of individualization that I think, like you said, has harmed all of us. That's what's interesting about these systems, that they've harmed all of us.
44:51
And all of that anger and that fear and that sadness comes from the fact that we have broken from something essential. And we are interconnected. And that connective tissue that binds us all means that poets and writers and political thinkers have said this. You know, that when someone is in chains and when someone is oppressed, we all, in a sense, agree.
45:11
And I think that tipping point is when you can start to fight for justice and for rights for people that are unlike you. And to realize that we are all connected because that's where that deep joy comes from. That sense of individualism, I think, can lead to shame and it can lead to this confusion and this sense of scarcity and jealousy. And there is a lot of people that make money off of that.
45:35
And what would happen if we banded together in a different way? And what would happen if we dismantled systems in a different way? And I also think that there's so many examples from the past that we can look to. There's examples of matrilineal care. The Haitian Revolution is an incredible example, right? We open history books and we see what other people have done and learned from. Indigenous wisdom, which you've mentioned a couple times as well. That is there for us.
45:59
And it is an offering to do things, yes, in a new way, but perhaps in an ancient way that we've lost touch with. And so this, like you said, we're in this narcissistic time and we've overestimated that. But at the same time, I think, for example, this idea of self-care.
46:16
Or like, if only I recycle, then we will stop the climate disaster. And that, of course, is a ploy from the large companies that want you to think that to kind of shift the perspective away from who really should be doing the work. To be ending our dependence on these fossil fuels that are stripping us of our humanity and our rights and our very homes. Because we are going to have a billion climate refugees.
46:44
That's going to be a problem for all of us. And these systems of power, I mean, a related question someone asked me the other day as well.
46:52
Do people in power become more corrupted? Or is it those people, or perhaps that narcissistic personality that is more geared towards leadership? Because there's a lot of examples, of course, present examples of leadership deeply connected to ego and narcissism and things like that. And I think that that, of course, is something that can be, I think what can be really scary and what we're seeing right now is these are qualities that are not only not being corrupted,
47:20
chastised, they are being celebrated. And it's interesting because the very concept of hubris
47:26
is an ancient one. And hubris in a different time was looked at very, very differently. It was frowned upon. Or even in ancient, ancient times, it was even close to being a crime. And now, of course, it's very celebrated. Like you said, to inflate certain aspects of ourselves and to inflate this sense. And it's very connected to a colonial Western white supremacist patriarchal mindset. Mm-hmm.
47:51
But I think the important thing to think about is that none of us are winning. Why are all of us then feeling this deep sense of unhappiness? And it's because I think it goes back to what you asked before about treating ourselves better. How you treat someone else is a reflection of how you feel about yourself.
48:07
And that for me too is a big realization that sadness and that anger and that wanting to otherize or wanting someone to feel worse is really that very ego-based need to try to fill a void in ourselves.
48:26
And that's a very, very important thing to think about in terms of us recognizing that we are animals, we are afraid, we are beasts trying to survive. And how can we evolve to feel a little bit more connected and a little bit less afraid? And I certainly don't have the answers to that. But I do know that there is something beyond...
48:48
When you strip away, Brene Brown talks about this too, stripping away that armor and connecting to that. What would happen if we stripped our armor and actually looked at each other? And I think it has to do with that vulnerability. But I also think people realize, and I can certainly relate to this too, that it's scary because it costs us something.
49:08
and it's very interesting too so Viola Davis who always listen to everything Viola Davis says she gave this interview I'm so locked in whenever she speaks wait Viola Davis oh my word I heard you say oh my I love her I'm so locked in whenever she says a single word oh my word I love her so much I love her so much just always listen to Viola Davis and she gives this interview and she's talking about
49:30
Because this is something I'm thinking about a lot as I work on my next book and I think about vulnerability and creativity. And of course, she knows a thing or two. And she says, she tells this great story of how art and being willing to love and being willing to be seen, it costs us something. It always costs us something. And she tells this story of this acting class and a bunch of people get up and they say, to the students in the acting class, we want you to do the most vulnerable thing you can do.
50:00
And then most of the people get up and they take off all their clothes, right? Take off all their clothes, that's vulnerable. And then one person gets up after that, fully clothed, sits in the middle of the stage in the classroom and writes a letter to her father. And Viola Davis goes, that's what I'm talking about. That's vulnerability. That cost her something. I think about that a lot.
50:21
No wonder we're so afraid because what is it going to cost us? But again, there's something beyond that being seen and willing to see someone else that I think is what narcissists, of course, are so afraid of because narcissists comes, the etymology is, narcissists was looking and all they could see is their own reflection and how isolating and alone that must feel. Wow.
50:47
Because we all are going to experience death and disability and illness and injury and pain and everyone we ever have loved will one day be gone. So we can't avoid that. But we can sit in the darkness together. And that's ironically where things like poetry come from, right? Ethan Hawke has this great interview too, where he talks about, you know, when everything's going great, you know, who needs art? Who needs poetry? But then you lose someone or you fall in love or you get your heart broken. Mm-hmm.
51:15
And that's when you open up, right, the pages of a book or a poem or any type of art. Completely. And we connect with each other. And so I think that, you know, there is no...
51:26
Easy cure, easy answer to any of this. But other than like you said, we are feeling very atomized and we're feeling very isolated and we're feeling very individualized. But at the same time, some of these tools, ironically, can even help us connect with each other. So it's really all about what we're willing to do and what we're willing to give up to get something so much greater. Because there's always that unknown in between. To get to the possible better future, we have to take the leap.
51:54
And, I mean, the studies show this, science shows this, a lot of experiments have showed this, that we are, and I can certainly relate, we are more comfortable in the cage we live in. Because it's familiar to us. Yes. I can relate to this in so many times in my life, so many mistakes I've made where I chose what felt familiar. I didn't even know it was subconscious. But I thought that's familiar to me. That feels safe.
52:15
This cage feels safe. This is good. But no, there's love out there. There's belonging out there. There's another hand reaching back. But you have to be willing. Ooh, you have to be willing. I love willingness. I think it's such a powerful energy. What you have just shared, the Viola Davis quote about, oh my word, the vulnerability and that it costs us something. That is so, you know, it really resonates with me so deeply because I'm,
52:43
Something I'm thinking a lot about is how people are using AI and the vulnerability that actually people are craving to be more seen that we are actually allowing each other. So I'm so fascinated by how people are disclosing, they're sharing, they're using AI as an advisor, as a therapist, like there is this hunger.
53:02
to be seen and to have a nonjudgmental space. So I'm so curious to learn more about that. And then one other thing I just wanted to share is that I love what you said about Ethan Hawke and the poetry example that really resonates with me and Dr. Ruha Benjamin saying,
53:17
Who I'm obsessed with. Oh my goodness. Wow. So fantastic. She's so wonderful. She says this thing about how when we heartbreak is obviously awful, but when you break your heart, it creates more surface area to connect and to reach out. And I think that is just so poetic and beautiful because it is in these moments of heartbreak that often people are
53:35
you know, they are open to art or they're radicalized. They're willing to go and protest because they realize this includes me. And so it's a very powerful, also political energy to be present to heartbreak and stay with it versus we're now so confused.
53:50
conditioned to flee. And we have all these devices that I certainly, you know, to numb or to escape. And therefore we're not as politically potent because we're not feeling and feeling is the catalyst. So those are two thoughts that came to me. But yes, I'm so curious to just keep
54:07
Flowing with you, Riva. Right. The AI. So, yes, I love her work. I love her books. And that's beautiful and so resonant. And she does amazing work on technology, of course. Yes, race against you. And intersections with race and all of those different, you know, ways that it can both break our heart and different ways we might do things.
54:24
So yes, I mean, your question about AI and specifically generative AI, so the large language models that of course have really broken through in terms of the public being able to interact with these tools, which has been a real tipping point in terms of people thinking about what this means.
54:44
You know, we're seeking more non-judgmental spaces, which becomes very problematic, of course, because the tools are trained to be sycophantic. And the reason, of course, that any of these tools are that way is to keep us on the tool. So, you know, one thing I say about Gen AI and I say about social media that's important to remember and that we often forget is that the tools are not meant to be our friend. They're meant to make money for a very specific group of shareholders. Yes, absolutely.
55:11
And it's not to say that there aren't incredible people with incredible ideas, but that's very important. And it's not, again, individual blame and guilt isn't necessarily useful here because we live in a capitalist system where people and companies are designed to create shareholder profit on a quarterly report system. And that's how things are built.
55:32
Even though there's plenty of incredible ideas out there, that's usually what gets greenlit by venture capital funding. And it's there to design to make a profit. So it wants to make you feel a certain way. And when you think about human beings, we are animals with needs, with desires, with emotions, with chemicals coursing through our body. It's important to remember that when we use these tools. And it's one thing for you and I to talk about how we might use Gen.AI to help us
55:57
research a trip or to learn something new about medical diagnosis, it's another thing to talk about an eight-year-old or a 12-year-old or someone whose brain isn't fully formed and what that means for the future of critical thinking. The studies are already showing that our neurons are firing less when we use these tools. Now, these tools are here to stay and we're only in the very early stages. So that type of love it, hate it, or boycott it, I think is a little less useful because this is the society we live in.
56:26
And, you know, we all want to be at the beach all day in a beautiful utopia doing whatever we love to do. But we have this world that we live in, which is the same answer I give to people. I don't like politics. Well, me neither, really. I'm a political scientist because the personal is the political.
56:41
And if you have a marginalized community or if you're a woman with a body or if you're, you know, most groups that aren't the absolute, you know, top of this quote unquote hierarchy, your body is political. Your life is political. Politics is political. And if we want to be doing things like making music, going dancing, reading poetry, going to the movies, whatever we like to do, we require systems that can support us in living those lives. Mm-hmm.
57:06
And so generative AI, it's really interesting what you say because people are going to these because there is a clear need. I mean, there's basic needs like lack of access to mental health care. Exactly. Right? It's just basic, you know? So there's a reason for that. But it's also because the tools are trained to keep us there.
57:23
And it's because there is this quote unquote loneliness epidemic, which is very, very real. But again, it's based on, I think, an unwillingness to create these systems, a lack of political will or people in power wanting to hoard this power, as opposed to creating systems that work for all of us that include things like mental health care or just connective tissue, how we make eye contact and learn from each other and get open and get vulnerable. And when there's a lack of
57:50
prioritizing community and care and connection, of course we're going to get things that are focused on a more individualistic or ego-driven way of being or a sense of we aren't meant to sit isolated in front of our computers all day, not connecting. But at the same time, that conversation comes up a lot. But I also think in the same breath, we need to say that most of the world also still doesn't have reliable access to the internet. Mm-hmm.
58:20
So we have to broaden our horizons. Some people are playing with fancy new tools and Gen.AI, and a lot of other people don't even have access to reliable internet. So we still have these vast discrepancies and these deep, deep inequities in how we're using these tools. And Gen.AI, again, I mean, it's a mirror, but it's also not. Gen.AI is scraping what is available publicly on the internet to kind of create this
58:44
you know, quote unquote, collective intelligence in this large language model that you can speak to with normal human language to give you answers that are based on kind of the mean average of what's out there. And then of course, they're learning as we go. We're only at the very, I mean, Chachupiti is only a little more than a thousand days old. Wow. We're very, very early days. But as we're seeing, I mean, the vast, vast majority like
59:07
very quickly approaching 100% of students are using tools like this to do all of their homework. And that says a lot. It says a lot about what's the value of homework, but also that the human brain seeks the path of least resistance. And also we live in a society that values to as much as you can, as early as you can. So of course, you're going to want to use these tools to find some shortcuts. I would suggest though, that
59:32
I don't believe our goal is to optimize. I don't want to optimize every aspect of my life. This drive towards productivity and efficiency is very, very dangerous. Because if we're using these tools to help us get shortcuts or do things quicker, I would make a very strong argument that so much of the beautiful juiciness of life is sometimes in doing hard things, doing hard things together. Mm-hmm.
1:00:03
And in learning things, because a lot of this goes to, for example, what is the value of education? If it's just to prepare you to use these tools, that's one thing. But if it's to prepare your mind to get through difficult things and to never give up, that's a whole other question. So Gen AI, again, we're in early days, but one of the things I'm concerned about is...
1:00:21
is that the magic comes from the messy middle when you learn to figure things out. And I don't want to say like, oh, it's horrible or it's great. I don't think that's useful. I have a teacher, a meditation teacher, my meditation teacher, many, many years, basically said to me once, instead of saying, I like it or I dislike it, can you find another way to describe things?
1:00:42
And I love that because instead of like, I hate it, I love it, I hate this conversation, I hate politics, I hate AI. Like, okay, me too. We all want to be at the beach, like, you know, whatever, having watermelon and being with our friends. But at the same time, this is the world we live in and I care about our children's children's children. So what happens as a society when we're not learning how to do the tough stuff? That's a very, very big problem.
1:01:05
And again, I'm not saying never do it. There's so many useful ways that we can use these tools. But if we're outsourcing our quote-unquote courageous conversations to a gen AI, we're not learning how to be courageous. And again, it's one thing to do this as an adult, but when you're a kid...
1:01:25
You know, like, how are we teaching children to be brave and to be strong and to be vulnerable and to be open? And I think that we're missing that. I mean, Anne Lamott, as I'm writing my new book, I'm rereading Bird by Bird for like the third time. One of the greatest books ever on writing. But she talks about...
1:01:43
basically the shitty first draft and like the messy middle, you know, and like, for example, act two in a Shakespearean three act play. Act two is where everything happens. But if you're just focused on A or B or what it says on my LinkedIn bio, you're missing that, like what you were saying before, I don't want to be a machine. I'm human. I want to be nervous. I want to be vulnerable. Like I want to be awkward. Yes. And we're missing that if everything is too pristine. And we're, I think the danger is not only that we're missing it, we don't know that we're missing it. Yes.
1:02:11
And that like the most cherished thing I think is our vulnerability, our awkwardness, our imperfection. And when we don't embrace it ourselves, what happens is then we don't embrace it in anyone else. All goes back to the mirror. So, you know, we're early days of generative AI. I have a lot of concerns about.
1:02:31
I also think it's here to stay. And we're only in the first iteration. And I'm already seeing what happens. And for me, as someone who loves language and who studies languages and who I'm so in love with language and how it can move us and shape us.
1:02:52
I am very, very worried. And at the same time, of course, there's so many magical things we can do with these tools, but it goes back to power and who gets to be at the table when we're building them. I love that thread that comes through everything, these systems of power, this concentrated power. And I'm so curious to learn more about your concerns with respect to language specifically, because I think that is so critical for us to understand. And I just appreciate so
1:03:22
yes I think I'd love to learn about about the the connection to to to power that you just described because I think what the gen ai tools and what you described about how you know the children growing up with them and then the disparities and the imperialist lens of who has access to this but then in the future might we come to just like people find a lot of secluded indigenous people untouched by some of these
1:03:45
just social angst of the West and what it brings, will we eventually come to sort of envy and put on a pedestal the experience of being free from these technologies? So yes, I'm curious to learn more about the language concern and just continue to walk through this river with you. The language concern. Yeah. So I think that, you know, there is an argument and again, it's very nuanced that
1:04:11
Well, but these are tools that enable us to really connect with a lot of information that we might not have connected with before. But just to give one example...
1:04:21
English is the predominant language that is being scraped by these tools. So even, you know, it's very important to remember that you are not getting some absolute truth of humanity handed down to you when you speak to these tools. You're getting a lot of the research. And this is the same across a lot of academias that so much is produced in English that we are missing vast swaths of humanity. So true.
1:04:45
So it's very complicated. At the same time, though, these tools can help you connect in another language. But as someone who has studied languages...
1:04:53
you learn them again through that messy, vulnerable mistake making. I mean, mistake making. I mean, that's how you learn a language is that you make mistakes all the time and you're willing to speak and make mistakes. That's how I've learned every single language, just walking in and making some huge mistake. And then I remember and I never make that mistake again, but being vulnerable, being different, having to express myself in different ways, that's how you learn.
1:05:18
And that's how you learn to be human because that's that empathetic muscle that we're all, you know, we have to use it. And so this idea of language is very interesting because we're having so much overtaken, so much of our language overtaken so fast by these tools. And I sense it all the time. I mean, I can tell, you know, when I'm not speaking to a human, right? Whether it's customer service or whether it's going on LinkedIn or whatever it is, you know, we're now, and again, it's still early days of connecting unbeknownst to us, right?
1:05:47
to non-human entities that we are speaking with. And there's a huge problem there. Huge, huge problem. Because first of all, 80% of communication, it's nonverbal. Eye contact, gestures, connecting, sensing, being in the same space as someone else. At the same time, I love my telephone in the sense that I travel the world and connect with people that I love. Mm-hmm.
1:06:10
It's not a yes or no or love or hate it type thing. But yeah, the very language that we're using and we're already seeing, you know, the studies have started many, many years ago that we are really melding our minds with, first it was Google and now it's Gen AI, right? It's Gen AI starting to speak like these tools, just like they're mimicking us. We're mimicking, right? We are mimicking machines. That's what humans are. It's a really incredible part of our physiology and who we are and also other animals we mimic. We mimic.
1:06:39
That's how babies learn. They mimic. And so, for example, when a baby is learning how to make eye contact less, because as humans, the parent, we're on phones more. And again, we can't do individual blame, certainly not of parenting, which of course is so undervalued and so difficult. But we stare at our screens because entire generations of PhDs from top universities are spending their entire careers. Mm-hmm.
1:07:08
Training us to do that. Like, for example, the person that invented the infinite scroll, who now deeply regrets that. We can't blame ourselves. I actually, and it's a very provocative way of thinking about it. I think it's also very useful. I would suggest that one interesting way to think about technology, specifically AI or social media algorithms, is to think of it less like a technology and more like a drug.
1:07:32
Because what happens with these new tools is that they can skirt regulation. Because it's something new and law inevitably is so behind these systems, which is the same with Uber or Airbnb. They didn't have to play by the same hotel or taxi rules. And same with these algorithms. We don't have the proper guardrails in order to understand how to protect people while we're building them. Whereas, for example, Jennifer Duden is CRISPR, which is going to completely change the world.
1:08:01
of biology, which is essentially like a scissors for DNA to change people's DNA, is really fervent on having guardrails as we build this technology. And they're not a perfect solution, neither are regulations, but having this sense of community care.
1:08:16
Like in Spain, where we're sitting right now, this ban on social media, younger than 16 years old. I mean, it's a very progressive, important move. And for me, it says we care about children. Children have very few rights in our world. Listen to their voices very infrequently. Wow. And how ironic with the most precious thing we have, our children. The children of societies, and as a lot of people say, which I echo, the children belong to all of us. Wow.
1:08:43
And we have to protect that. That was us once. And I think it's the most important thing we have in society, how precious and how unprotected. And so it's changing so much of how we structure our societies and our minds. But again, if we go back to these concepts of care and language as they're learning language, as young people are learning language and how we use it, it's so important. And for me, language has always been like our most powerful weapon. And for marginalized communities or for women, yeah.
1:09:10
you know, all we've ever had is our voice, our bodies and our voice and being able to speak about it. And like what you were saying, that inheritance, there was so, so much of history, we couldn't have credit cards.
1:09:22
We couldn't, you know, as you're seeing this kind of real backlash, access to our own bodies, our own language. And so language is like this most powerful way that we can lay down a history of who we are and what we've been through for other people to connect with now or in the future. So language is very powerful in the fact that machines are creating a lot of it. And specifically that we don't know we're speaking to machines. It upsets everything we do as we are social animals. Yeah.
1:09:50
And we are trained to pick up on each other's cues. So I am very concerned about it. And I have such a reverence for language, which is why I think poetry is such a good example. Because it's almost language at its most raw. It's almost like this thing where you just have to read without understanding and let it wash over you.
1:10:12
And it's this deeper sense of understanding. So I have a deep reverence for it. I think it's so important. And learning languages has been such a sacred part of my life. Making mistakes, being messy, being vulnerable, and connecting with people. But it's also this sense of respect for other cultures. And without having to craft and learn that language, I think we're really...
1:10:35
I think we are really changing how we relate to each other. Oh, yes. Oh, my word. I think that what you said about making mistakes, the middle, the messy middle, and also how that relates to creativity, I often thought even before AI, you know, when we have all these ways to escape discomfort, how many poems, how many songs, how many books are not being written? Because as soon as you get to...
1:10:58
a difficult part, which I experienced as well in my creative life where you're writing something. And then there's just so many things that you can spill out and distract yourself with. And then there's this huge loss of human creativity that then happens when we are sort of conditioned to work in these like machine like ways. And yeah,
1:11:17
to put comfort over creativity or exploration or facing the unknown. And I think what's really interesting about the AI, it's almost like this progression of we become the perfect subject for this thing to completely take over us because we've normalized and welcomed these phones into our lives in this very intimate way. Also because of the systems of, you know, isolation, capitalism that have come into play.
1:11:41
And so now we're so willing to like give ourselves over to these machines. And now in order to not allow AI to sort of erode that aspect of us, we'd have to be the version of us who's willing to say, I'm choosing discomfort. Like, for example, when I was picking quotes, I was like, I know AI could choose, you know, quotes better than I could in the sense of efficiency, but I don't want to be efficient. I have taste. I have a way of expressing myself in the world and I can't.
1:12:07
I'm, you know, I'm imperfect in that way. So I think that really just speaks to me. And then I also share the reverence that you have for language. I adore language, what it moves in you, the embodied aspect of language, you know, the aspect of a poem literally moving something in you. It's so powerful and beautiful. And I'm,
1:12:25
so so so worth protecting and i think what you're saying about children and the protections around also how the nuclear family then imposes this idea that parents are the ultimate arbiters over their child when the children do belong to all of us and there is a more social and sort of indigenous way of looking at children um and and their place in the world so there's there's so many beautiful aspects of what you're what you're sharing that i'm really really committed to and adore and so
1:12:52
I think in the language conversation, something that comes through for me is what you're saying, the importance of understanding these dynamics of these companies and capitalism and the profit extraction
1:13:04
Yet in your book, you mention that there could be utopic possibilities for AI, but it requires certain economic and political realities. And I'd love to like go into there because I think it's important to hold both the despair and what all that's going wrong, but then also the possibility, but what would have to be true socially and economically in our policies for AI to be a utopic vision of what it can possibly express as. Yeah, I...
1:13:28
you know, 10 years later. Yes. A lot has changed in the conversation. Of course, it was very, very, very early days.
1:13:39
You were ahead of your time. And like Cassandra, you know, it doesn't pay to be early. And timing in terms of that, you know, and other people like me, you know, in terms of coming in from the human rights angle, you know, I've been very despondent to see the path that we've taken. I wanted to say one thing that I think is really relevant to what we're talking about in generally, which is, and this comes up, it came up, I gave a talk in Barcelona last week.
1:14:05
Oh, yes. And such as so many beautiful questions and such a wonderful community of people thinking about things. But this idea, you know, that of having a body being very important to our lives. And of course, AI, you know, and I talk about this a bit in the book, this concept of embodiment. And AI doesn't have a body. And how we...
1:14:27
often celebrate that cerebral aspect without celebrating the fact that we have a body, which is so relevant to our lives, certainly as women and everyone. And our rights depend on that, children's rights. Everything depends on this concept of being a whole, you know, being and a whole person, not just what we think or what's on our resume or the, you know, what's on our social media. And in terms of, you know, thinking about a utopic vision, I mean, we have gone down such a dangerous path.
1:14:56
And I do, as you know, in the chapter, in the book, I have these two mirroring chapters on the dystopic vision, which I love how you mentioned. It was such a thoughtful thing that you had said about it. And then the utopic vision, ironically, it's very funny. My publisher and my editor would always say, of course, it's terrifying, but they loved the dystopian chapter. And that's just based on the craft and how it was really, really brought to life in terms of...
1:15:18
terms of not just the surveillance state and drone warfare. But one of the things that's deeply concerning to me that, I mean, it's talked about a lot more now, but it definitely wasn't before. So one of my specialties is working on war and the past and present future of war and what that looks like. And so there's, of course, warfare and semi-autonomous weapons and all of these very dangerous things that relates to how we might
1:15:41
think about laws and policies to protect us against those threats. And there's also...
1:15:49
Of course, the much more insidious threats of AI, which is not just the things that we might see tactically around war, but the insidious threats of how it's changing how we see ourselves or how we see others, like the language aspects and how we think. I had proposed, which at the time seemed very radical, this idea that we need to protect our cognitive liberty, our right to keep our thoughts moving.
1:16:12
to ourselves and to think. And it was before any of these gen AI tools came out in the public, but I knew they were coming. I mean, I had a sense, you know, as someone who's a futurist, I had a sense that something like this was happening. And I was like, this is a problem because even back then, AI could already tell, for example, our sexual orientation based on our gait. Wow. And in a lot of ways...
1:16:34
One way to think about it is it knows more about us than we do because essentially what these tools do is take demographic data from who we are. And when you have something recommended to you on Netflix or an ad comes up or, oh, I wanted to buy those shoes. Did you want to buy those shoes or did it tell you you wanted those shoes? You wanted those shoes. Did you want to watch that movie or did it tell you you wanted to watch that movie? Because again, people spend their entire careers thinking about knowing what you want before you want it. And the reason for that is so they can sell you something.
1:17:03
So anyways, you asked about utopia. We started with dystopia. So utopic visions. I, like many others, believe we have gone down a very dangerous path. As you know, my stance on never fucking surrender, which is, you know, we always have an opportunity in that moment to make some decisions. And there's other people that have taught us about that. Viktor Frankl. Yeah.
1:17:28
survivor of a concentration camp, talks about always, and he would know, right, about always being able to make a choice. And we always have a choice in that moment, which is, of course, why AI gets very scary when it starts messing with our choices in a deep way.
1:17:43
But we always have a choice to say never surrender. And many, many people before us have made that choice to say, no matter what happens, I can help one person. I can do one thing. Yes. And that is the responsibility, the great, great honor and power and responsibility that each of us still have. And I know we have it. And I'll tell you why I know we have that power.
1:18:07
Because if we didn't, they wouldn't be so afraid of us. The powers that be trying to sell us something or keep us down, dictatorship, authoritarianism, surveillance state. If we didn't have that power, they wouldn't be so afraid of what we might do.
1:18:21
as women, as people coming together, care, community. They wouldn't be so afraid of... Jacinda Ardern is a perfect example. Leading with empathy and then being bullied online and choosing something. There's a reason people are afraid of Malala. There's a reason people are afraid of a woman surviving shot in the face. Trans people is a perfect example.
1:18:42
Right? Trans people should be the most sacred at the center of every single fight we are having. First of all, trans people have been here for a very, very long time. And why are you so afraid of this sacred bravery and courage and resilience and beauty?
1:19:00
that should be teaching us exactly. Why are they so afraid? And that's how I know we still have this power. Because I think a lot about whether we've crossed the Rubicon with these tools, with systems of power. Because we also see the history of rights every time we've gained a right.
1:19:16
We've seen a backlash. President Barack Obama is a perfect example of what happened after that. Or rights for women or indigenous populations being snatched back. And we see that. So it's always, you know, democracy is a practice. Every generation's got to refight for it. It's a practice. We gain it, we lose it. Because we have also, and part of that is this very,
1:19:39
powerful human psychology that we can all relate to. And one of the many, many psychological phenomenon of being this very weird, magical, mysterious beast that it is to be a human is what's called the end of history illusion, which is we always believe we're at the end of history and our moment is the moment. Hmm.
1:19:57
Right? So we forget, you know, I mean, there's this great example of every time there's an electoral process in India, there is this man who walks 20 miles to cast his vote. He understands something. He understands something of the power of the vote that it can be taken away and how sacred it is.
1:20:15
And we can forget that, you know, and the United States is a perfect example. Things seem to be going okay. And, you know, I don't know, voting, you know, or your voting rights have been taken away in a very insidious way. We have to practice every generation. We have to practice the things that, like you had said, this beautiful thing that I keep coming back to in our conversation, this inheritance. People have died for our opportunity to sit in this room today. Completely. People have died. Absolutely. Absolutely.
1:20:42
It is our responsibility to honor them every single day with our actions. And I think about that a lot. And everything has to be this practice. So, you know, I mean, one version of utopia could be, and I taught, you know, I mean, there's a lot of like, there's a lot of things like, you know, helping with medical diagnoses.
1:21:02
Or things that like, you know, one doctor with a very, very obscure little known disease and he could never, he or she or they could never, or even a team of doctors, a huge team of doctors could never read all of the medical journals that you need to figure out the answer to this person's medical problems. I could be pretty good at that.
1:21:20
Even helping with certain tactical things like having certain disabilities. There's some very interesting smart devices that can be useful for access in a world, in a universe that doesn't have universal design for anyone that's outside of the norm. So there's things like that. There's also this more conceptual idea of freeing us up. Mm-hmm.
1:21:43
some of the more mundane tasks so that we can realize more of our dreams and be more creative. But it all goes back to systems of power. There are people building these tools. The question is, what are we funding? There's such a tiny percentage of VC funding. The last numbers I checked was something like 3% of VC funding goes to women.
1:22:05
And the number for black women is minuscule. Absolutely even more minuscule. Even more minuscule than 3%. We have people building brilliant things. We could have, you know, like the internet could have been built differently. There's this great example of this like...
1:22:20
like old school, like it was in Vermont, I believe, like just a completely different vision for what the internet could have been. Wow. You know, very hippie based and much more open source. Like we could have had that. Yeah. But we have this. And so it's important to remember that we think this is the end all be all. We think we're the center of everything. We think this is, you know, the worst it's ever been. And there are some arguments. It's pretty bad. Yeah.
1:22:41
we can still build possible futures. And that's where science fiction, poetry, different lived experiences, indigenous wisdom. There are people that have had different ideas across time and space. And so much of, I think going back to one of your other really important, interesting questions about living in this time of narcissism. I also think we live, a lot of the models we're seeing is like, well, by this age, I have to have founded this thing and do this thing. And I have to lead. What about listening? Yeah.
1:23:08
What about leadership as sitting back and listening? Like David White, the thing from David White. You are lost, but the forest knows where you are. Can you stand still? Can you listen? I remember once when I was going through one of the hardest times in my life, I called someone and I was so afraid and I was frozen. You know, that feeling when you just think,
1:23:30
you know, your life might be completely over for whatever, whatever reason. And they said, okay, okay, Flynn, got to get really, really still.
1:23:42
Because all you want to do is escape. Like you said, numbing. We want to numb, whether it's through other people numbing, right? Whether it's through hurting someone, whether it's through numbing out, whether it's through doom scrolling. We want to move and get away from the thing. We want to move and get away from the thing that hurts us or we're running from something. I can certainly relate to that. But this idea of getting still, looking in the mirror, being with yourself or listening for something because the forest knows where you are.
1:24:10
And I think about that a lot. You might not know where you are, but the forest might know where you are. Or people who love you. Or people that you can read about in a book or in poetry or in other types of art. Something out there knows where we are. And can we listen for it? And so I think that
1:24:31
There is a possible utopic version where we're able to say, well, there's someone out here that wants to build this tool because they've experienced this thing and they know how to help this community or that we can build this tool or we can open it up to more lived experience and more open source and more art and more opportunities. Because at the same time, you know,
1:24:48
There's a version of things where, whereas before, almost no one had access to power. I mean, there was a version of things where it was divinely inspired. And if you weren't born with it, you didn't have it. Now you can be a musician and you can pick up a microphone and you can sing your song. And the algorithm really prevents who listens and how, because the algorithm, of course, is trained to keep your eyeballs. The last bastion of value is our attention. And it is being mined.
1:25:16
So the dating apps are not designed for you to find happiness for the most part. They want to keep you on the app because that's how they make money. Generally speaking, it doesn't... And again, this isn't about one company being horrible. It's about shareholder value. And so they want to keep us on the tools because that's how you make money. They don't make money when we're off in a field playing with flowers for free with our friends, with our home-cooked meals by the beach. No one's making money.
1:25:42
And so we have to just remember that. And it's not even necessarily an opting out, but it's that who is someone building something interesting? And we all have the power to honor someone else, to recognize someone else, to support someone else's lived experience. We have the power to do that. And if we didn't, they wouldn't be so afraid of us. And so in the utopic version, there's more creativity. There's more space and time. There's a different way of doing things. There's acknowledging that we can connect with the people across time and space. Right.
1:26:10
But it's going to require a real dismantling and like an unlearning of the ways that we've been and a return. I will say, and you had hinted at this too, and I was seeing something similar. I do see a lot of hope in that when things get so bad, the pendulum can swing. And I do feel, I personally, I mean, I wrote this piece on Artemis and I had people I did not know, I mean, contacting me.
1:26:36
I was sobbing at this piece or just conversations I'm having about people. Well, I have to do something about my life or about my... I mean, I had someone come to me last week that said, I have to build something because this war or these systems are so horrible. And what we're seeing with the unmasking supremacy and pedophilia
1:27:04
And fascism and authoritarianism, people are saying, wait a minute, we have to do something. And that is often a moment in society because a lot of people, most people are decent people. And Anthony Bourdain says something. I mean, a lot of people, you know, most people just want to put on a clean shirt. They want to go to work and they want to feed their family. But we tend to highlight through algorithms and systems of power that
1:27:30
people that are doing these more insidious, dangerous, forward things. Most people are decent people that, as Anthony Bourdain says, they want to put on a clean shirt, they want to go to work, they want to feed their family. What we can do is we can meet them at the dinner table and we can connect. And that utopian version also, I think, is something that
1:27:51
Back to what you said before is that we tend to really focus on the shiny, fancy, new. We love the new. The fancy, new, glimmering, shiny thing. A lot of the best things are old and ancient and simple and coffee with the people that we love. And the taste of melon in the summer. Yeah.
1:28:11
And right like Johnny Cash, you know, my favorite moment is with my wife drinking coffee this morning. That deep, deep sense of here we are. Well, you know, things seem really bad, but we're still here. We're still here. We never fucking surrender and the forest knows where we are.
1:28:28
We're still here. We never fucking surrender and the forest knows where we are. We're carrying these affirmations of the soul, of the spirit of humanity with us. Oh my word. Wow. I think this beautiful invitation to...
1:28:44
to come to what is simple, ancient and human also ties to me to this sexism and what we're seeing in beauty culture and this everlasting youth thing happening and just how all that we need is something that already exists and we're being invited to return to in the very same time that with consumerism and capitalism, we are conditioned to always want what is novel, what is new, what is fresh. And how I am so also fascinated by how those two things work.
1:29:10
come together because I think what's happening in beauty culture is also this like cyborgian look, like a non-human look to a person. And I'm so fascinated by how all these threads tie together. But there's so many things you've said where I'm like, oh my word, we didn't get to speak about this. I, for example, love the drug model for tech. I think that's so critical when I think about my phone use or, you know, AI. Yeah.
1:29:33
I do love the framework of like, how would we treat this? Everyone is addicted. We would try, hopefully, to compassionately help people not be addicted to something. There's this incredible quote by Byung-Chul Han that I'll never forget, which is, nothing should compel us so much.
1:29:51
It is inhumane to be compelled constantly by something. And with Infinite Scroll, for example, that shouldn't exist. We shouldn't be compelled to keep doing things that go against our nature and our curiosity and our creativity. So there is so much there. And this coming back to care, I keep coming back to care, to this kind of refusal to surrender to poetry. And also what you keep reminding us that,
1:30:20
They don't obviously the systems, capitalism, the way that these incentive structures are set up, don't make money unless we're hooked on them, which I think is just so inhumane. When I envision a utopic like movie or book, it's like this council, this like council that represents all kinds of people who come together to decide whether something should exist.
1:30:39
Because even with Facebook, you know, we listen to these narratives of these technologists. This will connect people. This will this. And it's never answerable to like, but what will this take away? What will this ruin? What is already working that this will destroy or diminish within us? How humane is this? And I wish there was like this group of like all kinds of people, like black people, women, trans people, like elders and very young people. Like, what do you think?
1:31:03
And they were like, you know what? What if this happens? And they play it out. And then this council of representatives decide whether something can continue for all of us. And it's just like that's when my sci-fi brain goes to like, there's something needed where some of these things just shouldn't exist. Why can we infinitely scroll? Yeah.
1:31:23
Well, I mean, I know the guy, you know, I talked about the guy that did it and he regretted it, you know, because you couldn't. I think this, I love what you said. I had chills when you said about this idea of compelling compulsion, which is...
1:31:36
Deeply, deeply relevant. And then this council, of course, made me think about a lot of things in political science. So consensus is a very interesting concept. Democracy in and of itself is a very interesting concept. And we have different forms of democracy. So in a direct democracy, I mean, there are experiments and there's even digital experiments. So Estonia and Taiwan are two examples of democracies that are experimenting with a digital democracy. Wow.
1:32:00
Now, again, you can't just transfer, you know, one type of democratic model to the other. You know, there's a reason the United States is so unwieldy because the idea, in theory, the beautiful idea would be, you know, a multiracial democracy of this huge place with all these competing interests. And so democracy in and of itself is this very interesting idea. And so it's consensus because this has been experimented with. And when you think about, you know, ancient Roman democracy, I mean, there's these beautiful ideas, but also women couldn't vote. Yep.
1:32:28
You know, and then, of course, as you know, you know, from American democracy, you know, had this idea. But then, of course, black people enslaved human beings were only counted as some percentage of a human being, but not even to be human beings just for the South shareholder vote. Hmm.
1:32:43
So even when we have these concepts of democracy or people that come up with it, the United States is a perfect example. The ideas are so beautiful. But the implementation by slaveholding people that were only white men, you can't, right? So there's the idea and the utopic version, the aspiration versus reality. In reality, human beings, beasts, with compulsions and egos and, you know,
1:33:07
They have their own version of shareholders that they are beholden to, and you're beholden to your own individualistic desires. So this idea of consensus is very interesting, and it has been used to different types of effect throughout time and space. And this idea of coming together as a council of different types of people.
1:33:24
And it's interesting you mentioned sci-fi because there's a reason that technology companies hire sci-fi writers. It's why I'm so passionate about all types of literature. But sci-fi is very interesting because it helps us imagine different futures. And some of the best sci-fi is powerful because it actually takes from the past and the present. And it's not fiction. I mean, Atwood famously for Handmaid's Tale, she goes...
1:33:47
I didn't make anything up. I drew this from Iran. I drew this from the US. I drew this from France. I drew this from here. She didn't make anything up. She just patched it together in these puzzle pieces. So I think that what you said is also so important because I think the thing that stops us from so many things, I get a version of this question or have this conversation all the time, which is that the inability to do everything prevents us from doing something. Ooh, ooh, ooh.
1:34:17
right? I can't be vegetarian because I love this particular thing, all or nothing. It's never going to work because look, we've never been able to work it in the past. So why do anything? Because I think another epidemic we have is apathy. Ooh.
1:34:35
And I can totally fucking get it. Well, systems haven't worked for me. Why should I vote? Why should I do anything other than take care of myself or get whatever I can?
1:34:47
And it's so relatable and resonant, this feeling of just hopelessness. I have it every single day too, to get out of bed, another day of this, of fighting or just trying to survive and just trying to be human. And because we can't do everything, that's what blocks us. But the people that make change...
1:35:07
Or even find happiness. Think about it differently. I have this great, I took this great class. I take a lot of classes like on writing. And there's this great class on narrative healing. Wow, narrative healing. Narrative healing. And it's also a great book. I highly recommend her work. She's amazing. And it was also a class at places like Omega and Kripalu. And she does this amazing work on narrative healing. And she tells this story in her class, the recent class I took.
1:35:32
And she's from New York. So shout out to my home in New York. And she goes, I used to, I love this. She goes, I used to walk down the street
1:35:43
And I'd see someone who seemed happy and I'd go, God, they're so lucky. They're so lucky they're happy. And then she does all this work and she becomes this writer and she's connecting to the body through writing. And she goes on her whole journey to become this woman that works with people who are writing and want to tap into that parts of themselves. And she goes, now when I walk down the street, I look at someone who seems happy and I go, okay.
1:36:12
They're like an Olympic athlete training to be happy.
1:36:16
That happiness, like all this, it's a choice we try to make every day. Right? To build those muscles, to build those parts of ourselves, to connect, to be of service. And we get so blocked. Me too, because it's like, oh, well, it's not going to work. Or I failed again. I mean, in my work, it's like all failure. You know, and in my life too. Like just failure after failure after failure, or it's never going to be enough. Or I did this and this person still hurt me, or this didn't work. You know?
1:36:47
And so we think, well, okay, what's the point? I might as well just numb out or just do what I want to do for me in some way. But that hasn't made us happy either. So there's something in the work that's,
1:36:59
And Dr. Tressie Cotton. Ooh, Tressie McMillan Cotton. Tressie McMillan Cotton. Love, love, love. Gotta bring her in. Oh my gosh, that'd be amazing. Gotta bring her in. She says something similar. Oh, love her. Love her. Love her work. Gotta bring her into this. Yes. She says, you know, the anecdote, describing that similar feeling of depression, anxiety, and apathy is that the anecdote is action. Hmm.
1:37:24
You got to move. Yes. You got to act. You got to activate. You got to do something. You've got to channel something. You've got to activate. You've got to be, you know, active. Yes. And that's right. But yet the powers that be want to keep us zoom scrolling. Yes. I'm thinking about this as I write my new book. Like it's,
1:37:41
It's one of the hardest things I've ever done, but something is moving. Ooh. And it's like, oh, that's why I've been afraid my whole life to do this. That's why I've been hiding from this. Okay. Because it was stuck. Yes. Right? And I think that's also similar to why we find our happiness. And she also said something, of course. She's always saying something brilliant, but this is related to something else I was just thinking of is that we're social beings, right? So, oh, another thing she had said, we heal in relation to each other, not in isolation. Ooh. Ooh.
1:38:11
I was like, ooh, she's always just like hitting me right here in the chest with so many brilliant things that she says. But right so that that thing we're most afraid of, like what we're saying about numbing out, hiding, being afraid, the thing we're most afraid of.
1:38:27
And Pima Chodron says something similar. Oh, right. So the wisdom of the great wisdom of the great is that the thing we're most afraid of, we go towards that and we go through that and the thing we've been hiding from in that mirror that we're afraid to look at, we look right in and we face the fire and we act.
1:38:42
And if we're afraid or if we're feeling small, we help someone else. We activate. Because also, there's so many people doing incredible things. We don't need to start our own thing. Who can I support? Who can I fund? Who can I? Whatever it is you donate to or you do a phone banking or you just get out of bed and get groceries. My best friend.
1:39:00
Just every time I talk to her and she can go, yeah, I'm getting groceries. And I always get my groceries for my neighbor. I mean, she's the type of person that's just without any fanfare, always doing things like this. Wow. Oh, yeah. You know, my neighbor wanted this. She's just always helping her neighbor get groceries. Just this thing that becomes this ritual and routine.
1:39:18
And that becomes our life. Yes. In a million tiny moments where we make those choices to be kind or to be, and that's why, you know, our great responsibility over the animal kingdom and the smallest of creatures. Who we are is how we treat the smallest of creatures. Completely. Without any fanfare. That's who we are. So I don't know if it's utopia, but I do know that the wisdom of the greats and the ages and the things that I've seen or witnessed, there's something in those million tiny moments
1:39:48
Because I also think we live in a society where it's that big moment. What does it say on my LinkedIn? What's my iPhone notification? Or what's that big thing that I was able to accomplish? But your life has very few of those quote unquote big moments. What it has is a million tiny moments. That's who you are. And Ayurvedic wisdom says something similar, which is like what you do every once in a while. It's not who you are. What, you know, every once in a while, that's nothing. It's what you do every single day. Mm-hmm.
1:40:16
Oh. And ironically, that's the messy, vulnerable, hard, unglamorous part. Yes. But I also think like, you know, my grandma used to say, you can't take any of it with you. You know, anything you own, anything you accumulate, you can't take it with you. But what you leave behind, that's like the only thing that gets to stay, is it not?
1:40:40
and what you leave behind may just be someone's million things you know maybe part of all the shifts that someone needs to take into their body in order to activate i love also what you said about activating because it ties back to the embodiment
1:40:56
You know that when we're in our minds, when we're scrolling, when we're thinking, when we're envisioning, when we're doom thinking, doom scrolling, we're in our minds. But the Tracy McMillan Cotton thing of like action, which is necessarily connection through the body, connection with reality because we act in communion. Yes, I love that. And it reminds me of something I wanted to say. You had mentioned this concept of beauty. And I think about that a lot. I mean, we all, you know, we all like...
1:41:23
whether we want to or not, are a part of thinking about that. And this concept of when we think about the more superficial aspects, and again, it's impossible not to in the society that we live in. It's very visual. But there's a reason there's also this deep sense of unhappiness.
1:41:46
Because when you're constantly told what you said was so important about compel, chase, chase, more, more, faster. Now, you miss that deeper underbelly, that sense of lasting beauty that comes from a deeper well. And it's...
1:42:12
it runs on a different channel. You know, that river runs very, very differently. It's harder to access, but there's something in, in that going deeper. That's very, very important. And it's a rebellion in a time of like instant gratification and that surface level, um,
1:42:32
That gratification or that filtered, curated thing that we're just seeing. We're spending so much time on our screens and that flatness, I think, is also a metaphor. What's beneath? Also, because when you don't tap into what's beneath for you, that's where the emptiness starts to get big.
1:42:51
And if you're only reflecting back what's in it for you, I think that's when life gets really small, really, really small. And when you feel that expansiveness of the world around you and that there's so much out there, that smallness, I think, ironically...
1:43:08
is where we can let go of all those petty concerns or rivalries or jealousies. Carl Sagan talks about this, and that everyone we've ever loved and anyone that's ever lived is on this pale blue dot that we call home. And we are in this mysterious ball floating in the darkness, in the vastness.
1:43:31
And on the one hand, we can't possibly be alone in all this. But on the other hand, in our solar system so far, we are alone. We are all we've got. So that utopic vision, I think, has something to do with that. We're all we've got. We better hope it's enough. And we have to turn to each other.
1:43:47
And like when the astronauts go, you know, and they're looking beyond our atmosphere and they all just say, Earth is so beautiful. We are so beautiful. And then they saw when Artemis came up and saw that green shimmering aurora borealis around the curling edge of our planet. That's our home. That's us.
1:44:07
Just like all of our petty jealousies and rivalries and the Instagram filters are us, that big pale blue dot floating in the darkness is also us. So we have to kind of choose the type of beauty that we celebrate. And that's hard. I also think one of the things that's really hard is that systems are hard to dismantle and we live within them. So how are we finding that joy while also building something new as a balance to think about?
1:44:31
Hmm. Which reminds me, harkens back to the 3.5% thing of how can we band together as people who do different sets of people who envision differently, honoring that they have the power to sing a song or create a space or create a circle. I'm seeing a lot of like people coming together more.
1:44:50
and or trying to reclaim in-person connection. I think that will be so important in the coming days is to really find the beauty in the messiness of it. And that's such a gift. And so something that has continued to weave through this conversation is that you are writing a book. Do you feel called? No pressure if you do not feel called, but to share anything about what you're working on or where your heart is really calling you in terms of your writing and your
1:45:20
take that out so I am working on a new book
1:45:27
And much, much more to be announced soon. Perfect. But I will say that it is, and it will be announced, so that will all be available. And I will be so excited to hear what people think because it is very, very different than my last work. Yes, very, very different. And I did very much, I mean, you use the words feel called to, which I think is right. But it's almost as if...
1:45:54
Once I started writing it, I couldn't stop. Wow. And yeah, that feeling that, you know, as a writer, that there is something that you are kind of been hiding from or thinking about or that has been there for a very, very long time that you finally feel like you can...
1:46:16
that you can put on the page. So I've been working on this, in a way, a version of this. I was looking back at my notes. I mean, I started trying to write this book many, many years ago. And it's finally time. So it's very, very different and very resonant with a lot of what we discussed today. And it was very different. And I think that it's very much a book of
1:46:40
the moment that we are in and things that it's almost like it's, I'm, I'm writing the book that I felt I needed and the things that I needed at the time. And that's, that's what it is. And I will be very excited to share more. And it's, it's something that I hope that I,
1:47:05
everyone will see themselves in because that is ultimately what we're looking for, right? To belong and to be seen. And I think we are living in a moment where people are, we're all really searching and struggling and trying to figure out.
1:47:22
how we can move forward and what that looks like. And that idea of reaching for each other across the darkness. And there's also at the same time what we discussed today, there's so many other people across time and space that have done this, mostly unseen, unacknowledged, unrecognized. And so when you feel that you can't make it through, that you won't survive, whatever has happened in your life,
1:47:49
that, you know, you can't take another step. Maybe you can, you know, and maybe you're lost, but maybe the forest knows where you are. I just thought that exact thought. Oh my goodness, it's so stunning. It's staying with all of us. Wow, oh my word. There's something about also like taking something into the body and like the feeling of these words that, you know,
1:48:15
moving something within you again and again. I also feel like we're losing sight of the importance of like repetition and the importance of like memory, even memorizing poems. People don't do that as much or memorizing words or thinking that this is meaningful enough to keep, but I guess with music they do. But anyways, side point, we are wishing you all the creative, just magic and beauty and kindness to yourself in this process. It sounds like you are...
1:48:42
birthing such a resonant and important work. And I love what you're sharing about how it took time. It almost reminds me of like sediments building and then eventually becoming, you know, like, yes, it's incredible also how...
1:48:57
We are living in all these different time cycles and there is this natural cycle of a work growing within you, within your body, within your being, within your story, and then being ready to cross that frontier of your unseen world to our shared seen world. So I'm just celebrating that you're on this journey. So excited to read this work. I'll be reading all your work from now on. It's such a gift to receive. And something that's just moving through me as we're doing this is...
1:49:26
There's so much magic that you've shared. And it's funny because when I used to watch podcasts, I'd be like, oh, but you didn't comment on, they said this and you didn't comment on this. And I would assume the worst, like they're not listening or they don't care about the person and the humility, the hubris of thinking there's like the perfect listener.
1:49:43
But then also the softening and humidity of, wow, like we're all just trying to like put our shirt on and go to work and do our best. I go home slightly different. But I'm really recognizing that moment of like a full circle moment. So there's so many magic. There's so many magical things you've shared. There is a topic that I would love to understand more of your thoughts on is like this.
1:50:03
Like the relationship to spirituality and in this time, where does reconnection with or connection to the unseen or the divine or something more or something else come into this picture for you, for your work? Yes, I was actually going to circle back to something you said, but you basically just asked the question. You intuitively brought it up, which is so much of life is so mysterious. And...
1:50:31
That's everything from the human mind, this incredible, magnificent human brain. We know so little about it. We don't know exactly why we sleep, why we dream. We don't know exactly how we store memories when we go to explore things.
1:50:48
the moon and eventually Mars, distant planets, we don't know who else is out there or where they are or what their life form is like. We, and in science and poetry and our lives, you know, you ever like take a shower, wake up one day and you're like,
1:51:06
Oh my gosh, I've been trying to figure that out for my whole life and it just came to me. Oh my word. Our lives are so mysterious. And so in terms of spirituality and faith, it's just, you know, and even in science itself, like black matter makes up most of our universe. We don't know what that substance is. And that mystery can be a source of, you know, devastating fear, but also a catalyst for...
1:51:33
Like you just said, that humility and a sense of awe and wonder. And that faith is a little bit newer to me. I have been searching for it for a very long time. Wow.
1:51:54
That sense of not being alone, whatever it is you might believe in, that comes from so many ancient traditions, whatever the school of thought. You know, there's a lot of studies too on it doesn't matter who you pray to, it matters that you pray. And reaching back across time and space. And I think we all pray in different ways. Some people pray cooking food for others. Yeah.
1:52:22
Some people pray in the library or in books or, of course, you know, in these different houses and buildings and places that we've built to talk to each other, to talk to, you know, that higher power, whatever it is for you.
1:52:40
And I think that, I mean, I wrote a chapter in my book about it because it's this very seemingly oppositional force to something like science, but I don't think so. I think life is endlessly mysterious. And I think that in...
1:52:59
In connecting with that part of ourselves that is beyond our thinking. I mean, we talk about beauty or thinking or intelligence. One of the most powerful and difficult things in like, whether it's praying or mindfulness or meditation is that there is something beyond your thoughts and your thinking that makes you who you are. I can relate to hiding behind my thinking.
1:53:30
identified by my own thoughts and whether that's a cultural upbringing and a focus on a certain type of intelligence or whether...
1:53:40
Living in that space allowed me to hide from my deepest pain. Oh, yeah. You know, I can really relate to identifying. So like many people identifying so closely with thoughts or ruminating thoughts. And this idea that there is something beyond thinking that makes you who you are, which I mentioned also ironically in the book about artificial intelligence.
1:54:01
And that's such a powerful idea that all of these things we're trying to build and these trillion dollar businesses that we're building around this concept. And yet, that's not who we are. And the fact that we don't exactly know what's beyond that reach is the same answer for, well, why would we continue to go to the moon? Why would we do that?
1:54:28
Because I think that we are explorers, whether it's distant planets of our own, you know, what's inside us. Like when you asked that first question about...
1:54:42
about the soul. I don't know what's beyond our thinking that makes us who we are, but I do know that there is something beyond thinking that makes us who we are. And that also, you know, regarding so many things you said today, a lot of our thoughts aren't even our own. Something that
1:55:00
a caregiver said or a teacher said or someone that bullied you, you know, and then you take on that thinking. And that can be the beauty, but also the danger of these Gen AI tools. They say something and you take that on as who you are. And I always say, one of the things I say, say to myself and say to others, it's really hard to find your own voice in the crowd these days.
1:55:26
We live in a very noisy world. And I always say, you know, having too much information is as dangerous as having too little. And it's very noisy. The algorithm, social media, going online, Gen AI, there's so many voices. And to try to figure out which is ours is really, really difficult.
1:55:43
And it requires this thing that's always been very hard for me, which is you've got to trust yourself. And you have to have that compassion for yourself that you have. And you've got to bet on yourself. And learning that voice can be hard when it's noisy. And that spirituality also that that voice is a conversation. I think one of the other dangers that we see online is that...
1:56:03
I teach this class in the UK, actually, where I started on how to have better conversations. I love that topic. And just conversations are everything, you know, as a person that's been living in Italy for a long time, you know, for example. And just conversation, just talking, you know, because conversation, I always say, is like, there's what you say.
1:56:26
That's not conversation. There's what I say back. That's not conversation. There's that thing in the middle that we make. That's a conversation. And spirituality is similar. We're having this conversation with ourselves, whatever it is, whoever we're talking to. We're talking to those that are loved ones that are gone or a higher power or connecting with something outside of what we can see. That having that connective tissue is...
1:56:49
I think is so important because it does that thing that no machine could ever do. But no traditional education could do it either to see something that's not visible to the human eye. But that's also how we got to the moon. Someone once had to make a telescope, look through the telescope, make the calculations and say, you know what? Could we go there? Mm-hmm.
1:57:17
I mean, just imagine what that would have taken, what belief, what faith. And of course, the irony is that's a scientist. That's what a scientist does. And I love this Artemis mission because it shows what these, I mean, they were poets in a sense. They're these competent, cooperative people working as a team across different backgrounds. And it all started with someone with a telescope and then Katherine Johnson. Oh, can we get to the moon? Oh, we're already there. Wow.
1:57:46
And paper. That is so extraordinary. How can you not believe in something that we can't see? And so whether it's science, no matter what you're doing, I think it's very, very powerful to think about that. And it's something that I've certainly worked on is having that connective tissue beyond what I can see. And I think that that struggle also is part of the beauty. And
1:58:10
that you could never tap into with a machine. However, the great irony of that is that I do believe that we are acting with these tech companies and these machines in a bit of a pseudo-religious cult-esque way. Because there's a difference between spirituality and faith, right? And then certain things that have
1:58:29
Captured our attention for more selfish gains. And so it's something I think about a lot. And it's a really ancient idea. I think that we've lost a lot of that wisdom, perhaps, in modern society. And it's a question I grapple with. And I find myself...
1:58:49
believing and then I'm not sure. And then I go around again. But I think grasping for the control over the familiar is very, very human. But it's beyond our thinking and it's beyond what we can see. And it's in that forest. I talk about in my book, talk also about Dr. Jane Goodall. And
1:59:12
you know my my idea basically is that i don't think life is about getting out of the forest it's about finding our way in and it's a map right within within deeper and deeper within and so again there's no easy answers but there's something about that that i think is what makes us who we are i feel like this this also ties back to what you said about
1:59:38
if it weren't powerful, you said that I know it's powerful because they're afraid of it. And I also think about colonialism, language and spirit were like two things that the colonizer insisted on like imposing their faith on people and their language on people. And so I think about how these other ways of relating to reality, like seeing spirits in the trees or connecting to this like multi-
2:00:04
just different ways of viewing the world is very powerful. And I think there's like a potency. And I like to see that some people are trying to reclaim a form of spirituality that isn't necessarily, I think religion can be really beautiful if it's applied in like loving ways. But then also these other forms of, that were also demonized, like paganism was demonized and all these different forms of, um,
2:00:27
of traditional divinations and practices. And I love what you said that like with trans people, with all of these forms of existing that are so beautiful and creative and part of that ever evolving flow of who we could be and who we are, an ancient flow is that you can see in the response to it almost like the potency itself. I think that's one of the messages I'm,
2:00:48
I'm definitely taking from what you're saying. So I love that you're reaching for something while holding on to the mystery that you don't fully know. It's a reaching, but there's never like a grasping. And I think David White, like the conversational nature of reality or the invitational nature of reality like that he speaks about really connects to this like constant, as we said, living the question. So it also fascinates me that it's all the things we've been taught
2:01:15
are weak or are wrong that we are being invited to reclaim by this AI age because they are uniquely us. So it's like, we're not machines. We can believe, we can have faith, we can be uncertain, we can be mysterious. And yet it's like interesting that we're being invited to like reclaim the actual, like some of the core tenants of the human we can love, you know, so well. I want to just check in with anything that was like a thread that you would like to
2:01:45
go back to as we shift to our closing part of this conversation, because I know you shared so much. And I know you're also a lover of conversations. And I always care so much about what felt unheard, you know, by someone. And so I'm curious if there's things that you really felt called to express that you felt were not heard or met that you would like to just go back to or just emphasize for the listener or viewer.
2:02:08
You asked so many incredible, thoughtful questions. I feel so seen and heard. I hope you do too. Thank you. Yes. No, it was like a very beautiful adventure, all of this for me. And we tapped into so much that matters to me and just kind of always circling back to this
2:02:31
the same threads really that, you know, I mean, Carl Sagan says it like, there is this vastness and then we find each other through love. And that's what we've got. You know, we have each other and that's how we find each other. And every adventure is some version of that story. And one thing that you said, I think that's important that I think about, you know, you said, and people are always asking me this and asking each other. And this is an age where people are really asking, you know, well, what,
2:02:59
what makes us human, which is the central question of my work. But I would say something that perhaps is a little bit radical. What else is new? Me bringing up a radical idea. That, you know, we focus a lot on, well, what makes us unique? And it's okay to not be the only beings in the universe. Mm-hmm.
2:03:26
And it's okay to celebrate our humanity and to be human without worrying if something else is also creative. And we see that a lot in the human rights space. Well, if I give rights, and it's just the history of human rights. Well, if we give rights to this group, what's going to happen to us? First of all, when we widen that crucible of humanity, we all learn to treat each other better. Mm-hmm.
2:03:52
But, you know, that expansiveness honors us all. And wanting to feel better than someone is a void that will never be filled.
2:04:07
by being, you know, excluding rights or opportunities or access to another group. And so I think that this search for, you know, endless optimization in this sense is dangerous.
2:04:23
I mean, I'm going to go so far as to say I have some deep concerns about the longevity concept of living forever versus living this moment. Yes. In all its imperfect, messy, vulnerable glory right now. Mm-hmm. People that you love are here right now. You are here right now. Mm-hmm.
2:04:48
And Mary Oliver, that one precious life, as we start to expand more and more, I am concerned about that focus. And it's a focus that also can be very exclusive to, well, what about...
2:05:02
basic dignity and rights for everyone, being able to put on that clean shirt. There's so much power and magic in that. And of course, like wanting, you know, I mean, medicine and health and all these incredible ways that we've been able to live longer and live healthier are so important and so incredible and so needed. And we rely on them for the lives that we live. And at the same time, you know, I think that
2:05:29
this precious commodity of our attention and our presence right here. And the people that we have in front of us right here, in the end, that's who we've got. And I think that there is so much unexplored beauty in that very, very human, vulnerable messiness. And to worry a little bit less about maybe what makes us unique and to learn a little bit more about like,
2:05:58
the songs that whales sing to each other and the ways that bees communicate or the incredible magic of all the pigeons throughout New York City. That teaches us something about ourselves. And it's okay that there are other forms of intelligence. And instead of being afraid, we can learn more about, like you just says, intuition, emotional intelligence. Yeah.
2:06:20
Because neurodivergence has so much to teach us. And honoring that prismatic diversity, I think, can expand our horizons. Ironically, I also think it's how we get more imaginative, creative, and build more beautiful things. But I think that they're, you know, the only...
2:06:40
You know, the only magic we really know is real is what we have right here. And it's everywhere if we learn how to look. And I think that it's, you know, this is like this simple, but the hardest thing to do is to stay right here. Mm-hmm.
2:06:58
Because the thing that makes us incredible as humans is we are time travelers. We can build skyscrapers and think about the future and we also ruminate on the past. It's where we get our history books. It's where we can build these magnificent inventions. And so I think that that is what makes us human. That's the paradox of who we are.
2:07:20
but the only thing we're really sure of is how can I love fiercely in this moment as best I can. And that's all we've got, but I think it might be enough. Wow. Thank you so much, Flynn. That was so incredible. The unifying message of reverence for all of life, reverence for the magic that all of this is, the whales, the trees, the birds, the air itself. We can learn so much from everything all around us.
2:07:49
part of all of all that is around us, you know, that we are one with that oneness concept is so difficult to really wrap our minds around. And like you said, it's like, I don't think with this one brain I can fully capture, you know, or capture, yeah, the magic and the mystery of what, what is unfolding, but we can,
2:08:06
choose to live in reverence, to not look away from heartbreak, but let that heartbreak open us up to compassion, to helping that one person, to never underestimating our ability to be part of the shade that future generations will bask under, as well as the inheritance that we have received. So there's just so much wisdom and magic that someone will take away from this conversation.
2:08:31
and take with them in their body and their being. If there's one thing that someone takes away from this whole unfolding or from your work, what would you like that to be? Oh,
2:08:44
I mean, it's such a great honor to have anyone. All I ever wanted to be was a writer. Really? And all I ever wanted to be was a writer. Well, a soccer player and a writer. Amazing. Which I was and a writer. And I, so it's such an honor to think about that. And, you know, I do write so that,
2:09:02
you know, someone might hold the book against their chest in the middle of the night and feel seen, which is what I've always wanted, what everyone's always wanted. And so to have that sense of endless curiosity about ourselves and others, and that we are this, you know, we are this ever unfolding, evolving, mysterious, connected, interdependent,
2:09:26
community of creatures that are here on this earth for this very, very fragile life.
2:09:35
short time on a dying planet. And I only hope that people feel an endless curiosity for the joy they might find and the love that they might have in their lives and the things they might do and the dreams they might have and the broken dreams that might turn into something else. And to simply feel that we all have a voice and that we all belong and that, you know,
2:10:05
That's this very precious, very fleeting thing and that we're all here together. And so it's just, you know, a sense of like love and gratitude and endless kind of passion and compassion for all of us here. And so my only hope is that people feel like a little candle in the darkness and a little less alone. That's all I ever wanted to feel. Yeah.
2:10:29
Oh my word, you've given us that. That was stunning. That was so poetic. Meet you in the stars, the way you end the book and the acknowledgements are also so beautiful. And the stardust and the cosmic magic and the feeling that all these people's love is infused in this work that you made is just so incredible.
2:10:45
You read the acknowledgments. That's the best part of any book. Isn't it the best? Oh my goodness. I'm obsessed. I'm like, wow, this is so wonderful. I love this. I love that you seem to have laughed a lot, that there was just a lot of like love that I felt infused. I love the acknowledgments. I'm like, I'm reading the book just so I can have the satisfaction of also reading the acknowledgments because I have a best friend who's like such a creative partner to me. And I know that his energy is like infused in anything that I make. And so I'm always curious, like who loved this person?
2:11:15
such that they could make this work and who supported them and who was the early readers of the book. And the way you spoke about your parents, I just think it's so beautiful. And also now is a time when I think there's a lot of critique of parents. So I love when parents are like championed or something because it is really hard to be a parent. But anyways, I'm so grateful. I have like five final quick questions to just ask you. My brain is basming. Okay.
2:11:42
Wait, sorry. Okay, so we have a closing ritual. It should take just a few minutes. And it's just one sentence for each question. And then we will wrap and we'll share where people can find you. Okay. Perfect. Okay, so if my inner child walked through that door, I would say to her. This is very emotional for me. I think about her a lot. I mean, I would say I love you. And everything's going to be okay. And you're never alone. That's right.
2:12:12
We could heal the planet by... I mean, treasuring it is the very lifeblood that makes everything else possible. There's nothing else possible without this planet we all share. So by coming together and treasuring it, like it's our only fragile dying home. Well, I think we underestimate and overestimate... Yeah.
2:12:38
We overestimate what we can do individually and the power of the individual. You know, that lone wolf concept of individual achievement. And we underestimate the power of us coming together and simply being there for each other. And the care and the incredible great things that can come from taking care of each other. And only if you feel cold to share, but one fear I had to overcome to be sitting here today is...
2:13:07
Back to the mystery, you know, I'm feeling such joy being part of this conversation and I didn't know what to expect. So that fear of the unknown or what might happen being seen is always the deepest fear. Yeah.
2:13:23
the deepest fear and our deepest hope oh my word Audrey Lord have you read the transformation Audrey Lord how have we not Audrey Lord oh my word yes wow always always read Audrey Lord yes always read Bell Hooks yes wow Return to Love yes
2:13:40
Oh, yes. Okay, we could go on and on and on. Oh my word, yes. And Audre Lorde has this incredible, incredible essay, The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action. And she says that our greatest fear is exactly what we crave the most, which is being seen. And it's just, that essay literally is the only reason I'm here. Really? Yes, it's like such a part of my creative lineage of like,
2:14:02
what allowed me to believe that my voice was worth sharing, was just reading that essay again and again and really receiving the wisdom that like being afraid doesn't make what you have to say any less worth saying. Yeah, she's so incredible.
2:14:20
I just want to say one thing I was watching an Alice Walker interview who said something related, which is about asking about being a writer. And it was about, well, I'm a writer because I want to go to the silence and understand why the silence is there.
2:14:39
And that also is what made me think. And it also makes me think about voices that are silenced and going to the silence and what's there, which is similar to going to the forest and what's there and what's beyond our thinking. And going into that silence and like you said, believing that your voice should silence.
2:14:59
be a part of this and giving you that. And that's like you said, the lineage of what she was speaking to you when she said, go, you know, go forth and do this work. Yes. And so, you know, it's, as we said, we're never alone because someone is speaking to us. We just have to get still and listen.
2:15:19
Oh my God. I love that. I'm going to receive more of Alice Walker's wisdom. Now it's an opening door. I love that. I write so I can know where the silence, go to where the silences are. That's so stunning. Ooh, okay. And then you've answered this, but my last question is, my work is devoted to? Well, my work is devoted to you. It's to like anyone that I have the great honor and privilege of speaking to. It's to women. It's to all people. It's to...
2:15:48
It's to the people that aren't yet here. It's to our children's children and to the people that were here and that the entire, you know, natural world that we share our home with. And then to everyone who came before and who sacrificed. My grandpa wanted to be a writer, but that was never an option. He worked three jobs and had many, many mouths to feed. And he was a writer. Wow.
2:16:08
I write for him. I write for him because that's all he ever wanted to do. Oh my God. And he never had that opportunity and that great, great gift. And so since I was five years old, I have been keeping journals and wanting to be a writer. And so I write for you and I write for everyone who isn't yet here. And it's like great privilege of my life. So, you know, it's a conversation. And so that's who I write for.
2:16:36
oh my word that's so sweet oh I write for my grandpa oh my goodness wow oh my word and how we can reach back and reach forward and that's reminds me of the I think it's an indigenous wisdom of like the seven generations yes oh my word like wow oh my gosh okay he's in the room with us isn't it so incredible how many people are with us in this room but
2:16:59
Oh, it's wonderful. Thank you so much, Flynn. Where can people find you? Where can they stay in touch with your incredible self? Well, speaking of the internet, anywhere online, Flynn Coleman across socials. And I actually am going to be debuting a brand new website. So FlynnColeman.com or FlynnColeman.community or across socials or through your website. So I'm very easy to find online through anything Flynn Coleman and
2:17:26
I would look forward to hearing from anyone. Yay. Okay, perfect. Well, we'll link to Flynn's Instagram and website below and we can all witness the launch. And it's going to be so cool when your book comes out because we got a little bit of a window into your heart and consciousness going into this work. Thank you so much for the work that you do on behalf of all the people that you have touched and that have changed you as Octavia Butler has beautifully said. Oh my goodness. All that you touch, you change. All that you change. Yes. Oh my goodness. One of my favorite all time. So beautiful.
2:17:56
Such a gift. I'm so grateful. And I'm feeling just in awe. And I also hold that. I also had this fear coming in of the unknown. And I'm so proud of us for the bravery of stepping into the unknown and being willing to go beyond right or wrong, find each other on the other side of that together here. It's been such a gift. And I'm sending all the love to you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm sending all the love right back. This was such a joy. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Bye-bye. Enjoy. Go well.
2:18:25
My darling, my love, my soul sibling, thank you for stepping into the soul salon. If you are still hearing or watching this, we are soul siblings. We are resonating on the same frequency. And so something you may struggle with that I struggle with is the fear of being seen. You know that visibility is involved in you living your creative purpose and being in your power.
2:18:46
serving the collective through your gifts through your magic through your medicine in order to do that you know you need to be more seen than you are allowing yourself to be right now i have a gift just for you heart made for us on this frequency
2:19:03
And it is a free ebook called the soulful visibility guide that is soulful visibility. Like we don't just want to be seen. We want to be felt. We want to be heard. We want to move and be moved. So I do have a free gift for you. And all you need to do is go to my website. I understood.com and there you will be able to input your email address and receive this directly to your inbox. And.
2:19:27
This is such a juicy and delicious guide. And I change the free offering every few months. So, you know, get it while you can. All the links are in the show notes. So thank you so much. I love you. And I will see you on the next Soul Session. Okay. I love you. Bye.