End Times and Errands

Summary

Bewildered Podcast: "End Times and Errands"

Podcast: Bewildered
Hosts: Martha Beck ("B") & Rowan Mangan ("A")
Episode: End Times and Errands
Date: March 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging, sincere, and laugh-out-loud episode of Bewildered, Martha and Rowan explore how we navigate everyday life—the small tasks and big emotions—while the world feels increasingly chaotic and apocalyptic. They reflect on the psychological and emotional whiplash between daily routines (school runs, errands, clothing mishaps) and the existential dread of societal collapse. With trademark humor and depth, the hosts investigate how resisting societal pressures and returning to our true nature can anchor us amid turmoil, suggesting that resilience, community, and a reconnection with our senses are the keys to thriving in uncertain times.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Living Amid Chaos: The "Frontiers Person" Life

• Opening Banter: Rowan and Martha express shared feelings of overwhelm and absurdity in the face of global crises (00:01–00:45).
  • Rowan shares an anecdote about living in a rustic, wildlife-infiltrated house, using humor to highlight the sense of survival and adaptation—and the anxieties that come with it.
• Medical Comedy: Martha recounts a doctor's obsession with her "fear of falling" (05:26), exposing generational divides, personal anxieties, and making light of the aging process.
  • "Are you afraid of falling?" — Martha, imitating her doctor (06:02)
  • "You're a faller... you're 21 years old, you're a full-fledged medical doctor and you are afraid to fall!" — Martha (06:36)
• Small vs. Monumental Anxiety: Everyday mishaps, like having trouble with a bodysuit’s fasteners, become metaphors for struggling with a complex, overwhelming world (09:44–16:41).

2. Cultural Duality & Surreal Transitions

• Juggling Both Worlds: Rowan articulates the difficulty of transitioning quickly between everyday minutiae and the colossal scale of societal or global collapse (20:14–24:28).
  • "The apocalypse should be enough. Please don't ask me also to weigh in on the Parents' association and update the spreadsheet." — Rowan (23:13)
• On Exponential Change: Martha explains, with sociological context, that the pace of change is not just accelerating—it’s accelerating exponentially, likening it to a "hurricane of change" (25:57–27:18).
  • "It’s almost like a hurricane is hitting the entire human population—a hurricane of change." — Martha (27:18)

3. Entropy, Collapse, and Culture’s Shadow

• Chaos and Order: They discuss entropy as a metaphor: while everything tends toward disorder, small islands of order, beauty, and meaning can still exist (28:23–34:57).
  • "A human being can stay organized as a human being during life. It’s called a localized system of order... and then we die and it all goes back to entropy again." — Martha (29:12)
• Shadow and Shadow Work: Rowan revives the Jungian concept of the cultural "shadow"—unacknowledged darkness manifesting in the collective (27:31–31:06).
  • Humorous highlighting of how denial or avoidance of cultural issues can lead to major consequences—"sometimes it runs for president."
• Rape Culture & Colonization: Both hosts reflect on how societal exploitation, colonization, and violence are reflections of deeper cultural dysfunction (32:25–34:57).

4. The Importance of Returning to "True Nature"

• Individual vs. Culture: Martha shares research on how individuals, not cultures, generate the hope and resilience needed during collapses. She discusses how historically, after colonization, some individuals found hope by reconnecting with nature—hence, "Be-wildered" (38:38–39:47).
  • "It requires a retraction from all social influence." — Martha (38:38)
• Making Islands of Order: Rowan asks how we can practically create our own "pockets of calm" while surrounded by chaos (40:11–43:35).
• Beauty in Chaos: Martha uses fractals and Fibonacci sequences to illustrate how chaos can give rise to beauty and pattern—inviting listeners to mimic nature’s adaptive strategies (35:33–43:02).
  • "Nature brings beauty. It brings systematic patterns of beauty. They can’t be predicted because they’re never exact replicas." — Martha (41:23)

5. Integrating Compassion & Senses-Based Living

• Embodying Feelings: Both advise listeners to drop out of purely analytical, left-brain dominance and into the body—to feel, not just think, about what's happening (51:14–57:14).
  • "There are no rules out there that are man-made, that are human or left-brain originated. That will work. You have to actually, literally drop into your body." — Martha (51:31)
  • "We have to metabolize the horror. You're absolutely right. You can't deny that." — Martha (55:43)
• Practical Techniques: They introduce the idea of "opening the attention aperture," a trick for relaxing and broadening perception in times of stress, inspired by watching ants as children and neuroscience research (65:42–68:08).
  • "Soften the focus of my eyes... And when I let all things be equal in my visual field... I would see thousands of things happening." — Martha (67:03)
• Learning from Nature: Observing animals (like trackers in the wild) and allowing yourself to shake, move, rest, and process emotion as an animal might is encouraged as a form of intelligent response to trauma (70:06–72:37).
  • "When we relax, we take in more data." — Martha (69:37)

6. Building Spiral Gardens: From Inner Calm to Outward Compassion

• Compassion and Community: The circle and spiral emerge as metaphors for support systems and compassionate action—beginning with self-kindness and radiating out to community (73:00–76:09).
  • "You get circles of love, you get circles of mutual nurturance, you get circles of understanding, you get neighborhood circles, you get social circles..." — Martha (74:22)
• Yielding as Strength: Closing wisdom from the Tao Te Ching: "When two great forces confront each other, the victory will go to the one that knows how to yield." — Martha (76:41)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Do you ever get the feeling that everything totally sucks?" — Rowan (00:01)
• "We have to live our lives amidst, like, really monumentally, globally, unprecedentedly terrible things happening." — Rowan (00:08)
• "If you decide you must not do something, you get tense." — Martha (07:05)
• "The apocalypse should be enough. Please don’t ask me also to weigh in on the Parents' association and update the spreadsheet." — Rowan (23:13)
• "Change is accelerating exponentially. And the exponent of exponential change is also increasing exponentially." — Martha (25:57)
• "A human being... it’s called a localized system of order... and then we die and it all goes back to entropy again." — Martha (29:12)
• "Cultures don’t act. Individuals act." — Martha (47:31)
• "Come to your senses, like, and coming back into our body." — Rowan (57:14)
• "When we relax, we take in more data." — Martha (69:37)
• "When two great forces confront each other, the victory will go to the one that knows how to yield." — Martha (76:41)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Life Amidst Chaos / "Frontiers person" stories: 00:01–07:59
• Everyday Mishaps (bodysuit anecdote): 09:44–16:41
• Transitioning Between Scales: Small Tasks & Global Collapse: 20:07–24:28
• Acceleration of Societal Change: 25:57–27:18
• The Metaphor of Entropy and Collapse: 28:23–34:57
• The Shadow of Culture: 27:31–31:06
• Cultural Structure, Exploitation, and Systemic Analysis: 31:06–34:57
• Personal Agency Amid Collapse: 38:38–39:47
• Practicality of Building Calm Pockets: 40:11–43:35
• Beauty in Chaos (Fractals & Patterns): 41:23–43:02
• Coming to Our Senses (Practical Approach): 51:14–57:14
• Processing Trauma Like Water: 57:15–62:01
• Opening the Attention Aperture: 65:42–68:08
• Tracking, Nature, & Animal Wisdom: 70:06–72:37
• Community, Compassion, and the Spiral Garden: 73:00–76:09
• Yielding as the Way Forward / Taoist Wisdom: 76:41

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Tone & Language

• Conversational, irreverent, deeply human
• Frequent switching between earnest, vulnerable sharing and wry, self-deprecating humor
• Gentle, inviting encouragement to embrace both complexity and everyday life

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Listen For If You Missed It:

• Rowan’s failed bodysuit bathroom adventure (11:23–15:00)
• The concept of “wilder”—retreating from cultural insanity and returning to nature/instinct (38:38–39:47)
• The slow-motion “absorption” metaphor for feeling world events in your body (57:14–62:01)
• The practical “optical attention aperture” technique for calming anxiety and expanding perception (65:42–68:08)
• Reflections on resilience, community, and yielding compassionately as society unravels (73:00–76:41)

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In summary:
This episode blends comics relief and existential reflection as Martha and Rowan challenge us to get "wilder," to feel what hurts, and to rediscover island of order (and joy) by returning to our senses, our bodies, our communities, and the bottomless well of our own true natures—even as the world seems to be falling apart outside our windows.

Transcript

[A]

Marty.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Do you ever get the feeling that everything totally sucks?

[B]

It has occurred to me a few thousand times today.

[A]

Yeah. It's. It's like we have to live our lives amidst, like, really monumentally, globally, unprecedentedly terrible things happening. Right. Not just me. Right?

[B]

Oh, yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, not. Yeah, you just. Sorry. Yeah, that's good.

[A]

So. So that's what we're going to talk about today. About how do you live and do your everyday human things, like learn to put on and take off your own clothes when everything is falling apart and everything sucks in the world.

[B]

Yeah. And how being a little bit wilder can help you not only survive it, but actually stay very buoyant and float along in a very turbulent current.

[A]

Hope you join us.

[B]

Hello, the lovely peoples. This is Marty, Martha, inviting you to a free masterclass that I have made called Five Paths to youo Purpose. Probably the most common question I get from people is, how do I find my purpose? Why don't I feel that I'm on purpose? Well, it turns out there are certain things you have to do to find your purpose, and I broke them down into five and I made a little master class about it. So if you'd like to see it, just go to marthabeck.compurpose and you will be able to watch it without any charge at all. Hi, I'm Martha Beck.

[A]

And I'm Rohan Mangan. And this is another episode of Bewildered, the Poet podcast for people like us, trying to figure it out. What are you trying to figure out of late?

[B]

Aside from how to live as a frontiers person in the forest, which is basically consuming 90% of our time these days?

[A]

Frontiers person. Could you define that for me?

[B]

Yes. It's someone who lives in a house where there is no insulation and wide gaps that allow, I don't know, mice, rats, squirrels, raccoons, possibly bears, to come in and walk around in the attic above your head while you're sleeping or

[A]

not sleeping is the case.

[B]

I don't know if I mentioned this before. I put on Books on Tapes really loudly because it drowns out the sounds of the wildlife that nightly assault me. And, you know, there's the little attic right above my bed, and I have my own little apartment. It's very fun. I love my little apartment. I have like a.

[A]

She's. She's got a little artist's cabinet.

[B]

Garret. Yeah, I've got an artist Garrett. It's pretty damn good, Garrett. It's got a big art studio and a beautiful room with the piano in it. And then I've Got my little bedroom. Well, my little bedroom, the ceiling is quite low and made of just, I think, plywood. That's it.

[A]

Like they put down some plywood hessian

[B]

sacks and I swear to God, I hear things all the time. Scratching 1. One night I heard something clearly grabbed with its claws to the top of the wall and then slid down. Sometimes there's squeaking, sometimes there's like. I know that mice and rats. This is absolutely literally true. This is literally true. They sing when they're in love. They do.

[A]

This is. This is from your, like, David Attenborough

[B]

observations to the interwebs. Google mice singing when they're in love. They will play you recordings of the mice songs and it is beautiful. And. But sometimes when they're singing in the wall, I'm like, get a room, guys. And not in mine. But then one night, the skittering, the normal level of skittering seemed to be going on, which is again, I have to like drown it out with a full volume audiobook. But this time skittering went up the wall and then the plywood in the ceiling began to creak rhythmically, More or less rhythmically. And I looked up and I thought I saw the bounce of a heavy creature putting feet down and feet up. I'm pretty sure it was a raccoon, but Lila thinks it's Sasquatch. And she's young and has very like sharp, sharp senses. Sharp senses and a quick mind. So. Yeah, and that isn't even what I'm trying to figure out. That was just a lead in. But the thing I'm trying to figure out is short, so I'm going to tell it anyway.

[A]

So I really thought you just said the thing I'm trying to figure out is shorts. And I was like, well, that's nice. That's a nice concise kind of.

[B]

I gave up on those years ago. But no, of course I got a sinus infection living in this drafty zoological haven. And so I went to the doctor and they do this thing. And you've talked about it before, when you're 40 or something, they stop asking you if you're sexually active and start asking you if you've had a recent fall.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I got a doctor who would not let this go. I had a sinus infection. Like, there was no, like, limb injury involved. And she goes, so have you had any recent falls? And I was like, no. She said, but are you afraid of falling? I was like, you mean like out of an airplane? Yeah. Like, who is it?

[A]

Did you know I could see you Pivoting so smoothly into one of your Martha Beck specials. Did you know that human beings are born with just two, two fears? Loud noises and falling.

[B]

So of course I fear falling since I was born, right? And she was like, yeah, so let's talk about falling. And I was like, no, I'm not going to talk about falling. You're afraid of falling. I got really hostile inside and I was like, you're a faller. You're 21 years old, you're a full fledged medical doctor and you are afraid to fall. So it became quite antagonistic and charged the atmosphere. She was a young resident, Right. So they're like always trying to like work it on out and this falling thing. I think she must have had relatives that fall a lot or something.

[A]

I think she was projecting. I think you nailed it the first time. She was just so scared of falling herself that you walked in the door and she was like, huh, I've got this clocked. No worries. This, this one's going to say it's something else. But I'll sit there and say, sweetie, is this really about your fear of falling?

[B]

But it links back to the frontiers person problem. Because when I got home, it's like, we live in the mountains.

[A]

It fell down?

[B]

No, but it's really icy and snowy. This is. We're living through a really serious winter up in the Catskills. The snow goes on for days and days and days and you shovel it. You turn around and you can't see where you've shoveled. It's already snowed again. And then it melts and then it turns to ice. It's really dangerous. So I got so angry at this doctor that I came home and I was like, I am now gonna walk through a field of ice and snow toward my house. Eventually I hope to reach the house, but I must not fall. Well, as soon as you decide you must not do something, you get tense. Right. So I don't know, I needed to guard against falling. So I get out of the car and I like took a wide stance. Like a jockey. Yeah. And then I kind of crouched to give myself more le.

[A]

So you were like a bow legged little.

[B]

Well, that's what I used to do in martial arts. You kind of. Why not? It's a horse stance. And then I started sort of slowly waddling toward the house, but bouncing on each leg so that I would not fall.

[A]

Muttering to yourself, ha, ha, who's falling now?

[B]

Yes. Because I literally was like, if I fall down and they have to take me back to that doctor I'm going to lose status. And then I was like and I am trying to be an enlightened human being. It was just. It was. It was a debacle.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Was a debacle.

[A]

Yes, a debacle. Debacle.

[B]

So that's what I'm trying to figure out. I'm still working on it. What about you, hun?

[A]

I was gonna say that I accidentally texted someone the other day via Siri that I couldn't answer her text properly right now because I have 30 hands. Because she misheard me when I said I have dirty hands because I garden.

[B]

But like one of those Indian goddesses.

[A]

Yes. Yeah. And it's weird because it's like ironically you should be able to text more easily with 30 hands.

[B]

Oh my God. Imagine.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So much.

[A]

Not you. Cuz, you know, it's all still a bit of a struggle for you like. Like staying upright.

[B]

I don't dare text while I'm walking. I would fall. You're sure?

[A]

Um, but anyway I. That paled into insignificance in what I'm trying to figure out when I just before recording this had an. Like this is a vulnerable one.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And we haven't talked about this and you don't even know about this yet.

[B]

This is a safe place. No, it isn't. It totally isn't.

[A]

What I'm trying to figure out is

[B]

like

[A]

putting on clothes and. And so I have bought a thing and it's called a bodysuit.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I think they could do have done better with naming that just BTWs. Because everything is a bodysuit.

[B]

I know like what I'm thinking.

[A]

You wear clothes on your body.

[B]

I guess it could be a headsuit. If it's a hat, you would call it a headsuit. Gloves or hand suits. But a bodysuit pretty much is everything else. Right.

[A]

So people might not know. Probably everyone else knows what a bodysuit is.

[B]

I don't.

[A]

You do. You wear them all the time. Except you don't do them up.

[B]

I have no idea what you're talking about so.

[A]

Oh shit. Maybe this is something they don't call it in America. You in Australia it's called a bodysuit. It's a like a top. You've got a top. Say a T shirt or a tank top. Right? Yeah. You imagining, you know how you tuck things in.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

This thing tucks all the way around it goes. Right.

[B]

Unlike a leotard.

[A]

Leotard, like but bodysuit in this case.

[B]

Okay, I did not know what those were called.

[A]

You just didn't Know what they were called?

[B]

No. Sometimes I don't know the names of things and I just, like, go out anyway.

[A]

Well, what you do. Which is actually not that silly now that I think about it, given what I've just been through. You just wear them with the. The bits that are supposed to be fastened in your. Like in one's undercarriage.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You just wear them flopping about.

[B]

Can you imagine at my stage of being if I had them fastened? They fell. The carnage.

[A]

So I put on a bodysuit for this podcast.

[B]

Oh, my goodness.

[A]

Because.

[B]

Variant moment.

[A]

I mean, Marty. Because I care, okay? Because I care. I put on a bodysuit and then I went to the bathroom.

[B]

That. That combination.

[A]

I thought that it was fastened with press studs.

[B]

With what?

[A]

Press studs. Do you know what press studs are?

[B]

Snaps. Okay, they're not called press studs.

[A]

They are called press studs.

[B]

How many. How many Australians are there, really? Because I promise a lot of Americans are calling them snake naps.

[A]

Okay, I really need to take a poll. If you. If you are listening to this, please comment on whatever. I don't care, or whatever you're listening to and tell me that they're called press studs.

[B]

I had to interpolate the data because I have never heard of a press.

[A]

But you have never heard of a body suit.

[B]

I just rather. But I. I swear, I. We should ask our producers and. Snaps. Snaps. Yeah, snap. It. Snaps. Well, like that.

[A]

I tell you what. This. There are no snaps.

[B]

So what is it, Velcro or something?

[A]

What it is, it turns out, is like an elaborate system of hooks and eyes. What?

[B]

Sorry, that. And I blow the mic out.

[A]

And I didn't know.

[B]

Oh, my God, you can get pregnant from this thing.

[A]

I was standing in the bathroom.

[B]

Yeah. Just tugging on my own crotch. Yeah. Just going, like. Just thinking if I pulled a bit harder, I would open. And then it. At one point, someone came in and figured it out. So I just stood there.

[A]

And by the way, these are not commodious bathrooms. So the little door is, like, right there. And so I was standing in this very, like, small space just waiting for

[B]

her to, like, do her thing and

[A]

leave so that I could get back, like. Like rooting around in my own cellar to try and figure out how to put together basic clothing items.

[B]

You know that if we were two different lesbians than we are, that might have been considered a romantic piece of clothing. Yeah, like the romance of the hook and eye on, you know, like, unhooking a bra. Like that's a thing.

[A]

No, there's no way to make this sexy.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Because there is no one who can do a hook and eye situation without

[B]

going,

[A]

which is not a sexy sound. Like, even if you were, like, doing it for me, I wouldn't recommend. That's why you have to wait till someone else leaves. But, yeah, just like, I'm pulling as

[B]

hard as I can.

[A]

It's not the way.

[B]

No, it's not the way. It isn't. It may be what the kids are into these days.

[A]

What? I've just been handed a note.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

By our producer, Drake.

[B]

That says your bodysuit is climbing up.

[A]

It says snaps. Yes.

[B]

Ooh. The crowd goes wild.

[A]

This is the problem with America right here. Okay.

[B]

Really?

[A]

I just undermine my own point a little bit by bumping into the microphone while seated.

[B]

I'm sitting. I am basking in what you just said. That the difference between snaps and press studs is the problem with America. That's the biggest problem we have.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I just went to a simpler place in time than I've been in for years. Thank you.

[A]

So Drew used to be on my side when we fought.

[B]

Well.

[A]

And I see we've entered a new era.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

He's underlined it.

[B]

He has. Yeah. But now I think all our listeners have. And Drew, have an image of you standing in a small bathroom yanking at your own crotch like some demented pervert.

[A]

Small space. Very small space.

[B]

And making sounds that at best sound like you were having an extremely difficult bowel movement. That's it. Best.

[A]

No, no. I sounded way cooler than that while I tugged at my own groin.

[B]

But I'm quoting.

[A]

Let me just. Let me just say, worse than the tugging and tugging to no avail, is the actually trying to put it back together after this. Like, I mean, it was a yoga heavy moment.

[B]

I can only imagine.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

We need to give you a set of long underwear with a little trap door you can open in the back.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Did they even have those in Australia? I don't think they ever needed them.

[A]

The little kids pajamas with the butt. We didn't need them. What? Because we don't have.

[B]

Adults wore them, too, in America in the 19th century and so on.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Why couldn't they pull their pants down?

[B]

Because they didn't have things like press studs. I don't know. Everything was, like, held up by suspenders or whatever. And a lot of people had back flaps under their, like, evening coats or whatever.

[A]

Huh.

[B]

I think

[A]

clothes with trapdoors. Maybe they should make a comeback.

[B]

Okay. That's our new Idea.

[A]

I feel like this has been a really good way to lead into. Yes, a podcast where we're going to talk about the collapse of civilization and the end of the world as we know it.

[B]

Absolutely. Like, it's a fun way. It's a fun way to start talking about the apocalypse.

[A]

Yeah, it sure is.

[B]

Because now we know the only problem with America is that we call Prestud snaps.

[A]

Snapdragons. Snap your finger. Where could it ever be confusing?

[B]

Oh, snap.

[A]

Card game.

[B]

Should we do a podcast? Let's a substantive podcast that's not just about our private peccadillos.

[A]

I don't want to promise substance.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Hi there. I'm Ro and I'll be your podcaster for today. Do you know how to tip your podcaster? It's actually pretty easy. You can rate our pod with lots of stars, all your stars. You can review it with your best superlatives. You can even subscribe or follow Bewildered, so you'll never miss an episode. Then, of course, if you're ready to go, all in. Our paid online community is called Wilder, A Sanctuary for the Bewildered. And I can honestly say it's one of the few true sanctuaries online. You can go to wildercommunity.com to check it out. Rate, review, subscribe, join, and you all

[B]

have a great day now. So we talk a lot on the podcast about coming to our senses, which sounds like you could do it by yourself, but weirdly, it isn't.

[A]

No, you actually can't do it alone. And I think especially right now when everything out there feels very polarized and overwhelmed. Overwhelming and noisy. People really often don't have a place where they can just go and be completely themselves.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So.

[B]

And that's why we started Wilder, which is our online community. And it. It's for people who really want kindness and connection and belonging without the strident, divisive argument that seems to be everywhere these days.

[A]

Yeah. In Wilder, we explore a new theme every month to help us stay in touch with our true nature. And there are all these live events on Zoom that are so fun from like body doubling, co working, parties, meditations,

[B]

teaches meditations and classes.

[A]

Marty does Earth School, which is brilliant, and frequent meditations that we do together. And it is just a group of people who are the best. So if you've ever listened to this podcast and thought, I wish I could go deeper with this, or I wish I could talk to more people about these kinds of ideas, or Wilder is where that happens.

[B]

It really is. So if you want to come join [e-mail] we would love to see you there.

[A]

So what I want to talk about today is my own life and why it's hard.

[B]

Ah, everyone's interested in that.

[A]

It's a perennial topic on bewildered. So this is what I'm noticing, Marty.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And honestly, I do think that there will be one or two of our listeners who do relate to this a little bit right now, living on this timeline, on this planet, but especially in this country. I want to say that listeners from other countries may have, like, less of this effect, but still are still getting it right. It's so hard and surreal because the collapse of everything, the just general vibe of collapse is. It's not just that. It's an atmosphere. It's not polite enough to just be, like, ambient sound. It is coming at you all the time. And that's one thing. Like, if I were just gonna be like, wake up in the morning and it's Apocalypse Watch, and it's like, all right, let's do this. But for me, what is so difficult right now in living life is the energy it takes to transition my perspective from throughout the day, every day, from school. Run, coat, mittens, car key, move, person who wants to do something else, and then get into the car and see a news notification that makes you curl up inside because it's unprecedentedly awful.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And then drive to school and have to listen to K Pop Demon Hunters.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then you, like, get home and you have a conversation with your partner while you make coffee about, should we set up a college fund? And then you think, well, but will college even exist?

[B]

Right.

[A]

Right. And let's put to the side the American thing of having to save from college from when they're born. Education is a human. Right. Whatever. So. And then. So it's just like, I feel like I'm pulling up into, we're living through this time, and it really is that bad. And it really is that that much. Not going back to how it was. Right. It's really that. And then having to keep pulling focus back down to, oh, some, like, we've got to reserve our space in summer camp.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, for some reason, it's like the. The parenting minutiae and the work minutiae out to it. It's like, it just seems unreasonable. An unreasonable universe where it's like, the apocalypse should be enough. Please don't ask me also to weigh in on the Parents association and update the spreadsheet. Like, come on, let's be reasonable here. Yeah, it's the both. And it's the. We've talked about transitions before on this podcast and about how, especially for those of us who are maybe a little bit neurodivergent, we struggle with that. But I feel like there is something so monumental in the transitioning between

[B]

zoom

[A]

out and understand the historical moment as it truly is, and then zoom in and do tiring, boring, everyday things.

[B]

Yeah. Things that were created for a system that was assumed to be going on indefinitely and now looks to be very much in question, you know.

[A]

Oh, I don't think there's. I think in question.

[B]

Very mild. Like.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

We, we all, all three of us in our partnership have advanced degrees in social science. So we look at it and go, oh, for sure. This is what societal collapse looks like.

[A]

And it's coming at us so fast.

[B]

So fast.

[A]

And this is what's new. Like, it's been like this grinding thing for a long time. And then recently it's just the pace has sped up and sped up. And of course, we're living in the phone notification.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Kind of situation where it will not let you rest for a second. I, I was reading this email from someone who writes scripts for a news podcast, a progressive sort of news podcast recently, and he was saying every, like, trying to write those scripts out. He, he found that he needed a new word for meanwhile. He was overusing the word meanwhile because it's all happening at the same time. That's also inconsiderate of the universe. Like, give me a second.

[B]

Yeah, well, it won't.

[A]

Yeah. And so that is what I wanted to talk about today, because I just know from friends and being online that I'm not the only one who is struggling to hold this duality right now.

[B]

Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, I say incredible, but I, I believe it because all my training has told me, and I've said it so many times in my career, that change is ongoing, social change is ongoing, social change is accelerating. Social change is accelerating exponentially. And the exponent of exponential change is also increasing exponentially. Mathematically, if you know what an exponent does, that means we are basically at a point of near chaos, going into total chaos. I mean, there are things you can predict in it, but it's almost like a hurricane is hitting the entire human population. A hurricane of change. And it's taking the forms that hurricanes will take. People in powerful stations will become increasingly destructive, Destructive, separated from reality, self absorbed. They will want to continue increasing things like personal wealth, power and status at a point that is just like it's beyond any human conception how much they want. And so it's predictable. But we're just seeing it at this massive level.

[A]

And it's so interesting how, God, I remember so many years ago, it must have been 2016. I remember someone talking about shadow work and the Jungian idea of the shadow. Was it Jung?

[B]

And he.

[A]

And this was. Okay, so this was 20, early 2016. And he said, when a culture, you know, leaves its shadow on acknowledged, it comes out in weird ways and sometimes it runs for president. Right. And so. And I see what you're saying, and I see that is the, the shadow of the culture and that in all those characteristics that you describe. And it's like it's all coming to a point like our culture is like rushing at this cliff edge right now. And it is all change, but it's almost like the law of entropy. Is entropy a law? Yeah, the thing of entropy. I would, I would.

[B]

Phenomenon.

[A]

The phenomenon of entropy is that change and destruction. Destruction sounds like a value judgment. But change and collapse or disaggregation is the same thing pretty much.

[B]

And everything is always proceeding toward less organization.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But within that, certain systems, like a human being can stay organized as a human being during life. And it's called a localized system of order. But in order to do that, we have to create more disorder around us by eating and drinking. So we're disrupting the systems around us to create this localized set of ordered symptoms. And then we die and it all goes back to entropy again. So entropy is always increasing, but in that there are these little swirls of organization. And I'm bringing this all up because I think it has parallels in what we're going to be living through.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, that's actually, that's a fascinating perspective in terms of thinking about like you could just like apply a sort of historical lens suddenly to this moment and you're going that one of those brief blips where it looks like order is clumping in the swirling chaos, but all is like the second world, like after the second post World War II world order. Right. That feels to us because of when we were born.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like normal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But actually it's not. Or you could say the thing of empires tend to last 250 years.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So like boom, had little. Had a little empire moment. Now back to the swirling hurricane.

[B]

Yeah. So but at this point, the empire that we're talking about is basically global, obviously. Power and wealth centralized in the United States to a huge degree, but affecting everything and all the Players in such close communication with each other. Right.

[A]

Well. And the kind of culture that skips along the path, holding hands with capitalism, like it's the same. It's the same base really, is. Has so come to dominate the world.

[B]

It hasn't just come to dominate. I mean, I don't want to get too academic here, but basically you've got a system that has a paradox at its core. This idea that all men are created equal. But the guy who's writing all men are created equal also owns several human beings at that very moment. So it's a system that claims that everybody's going to have equality, but is economically based on the necessity that some people will be much more. More oppressed than others.

[A]

Right. So. So. And. And this is so much the way that capitalism and exploitation are. Are the same thing. Like exploitation is built into capitalism is the same way that slavery is built into. They're one in the United States.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

You know, and that's why the United States has been, I think, for the last hundred years or so, maybe, maybe a bit longer, has. Has seemed like this kind of standout example of the culture that we're. That we're all perpetuating. And it's kind of like the.

[B]

The.

[A]

The child of the moment because it's so successful.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's so successfully exploited and oppressed and raped, pillaged and destroyed in order to create a momentary.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Glimpse of. Of order.

[B]

Yeah. Locally civilized places and times. It looked really sweet, but it was always gobbling resources and impressing people and getting its hands dirty in ways that were never really brought to light. And now the people who are getting their hands dirty are doing it in plain sight without any apparent consequences. It is very troubling.

[A]

This is like we're already going into pretty dark places. So lucky. We had a big laugh about me not being able to use my own clothes earlier. I saw something the other day that said that part of what this moment is showing, and I'm trying not to use too many specifics because that just changes. So it's so fluid. But I think you can sort of think of examples that bear this out, that what we're seeing at this moment is the fact that rape culture is the same thing as colonization brought at a different, like, at a different fractal level. And that I had never thought about that in the same way. But it's. It's what we're talking about. Right. It's. It's grab the thing. Just like take the person, the country and whatever. See it for its minerals, the gratification you can take from it, the enrichment you can take from it momentarily.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That will cause damage, lasting damage.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And because you're rich and famous and they're relatively powerless, they'll just let you. That's the whole. And that is the outright, like, proclaimed intention of a lot of very significant people. So, yes, in the middle of this, we then have to, like, call the plumber and get the thing fixed and, you know, make an appointment for, I don't know, for your insurance. Not knowing whether the healthcare system is going to continue existing. So it is a best of times, worst of times, for sure. We have so many good things. We have things like a podcast that we can broadcast all over the world for very little money. Best of times in that way, worst of times in terms of looking forward toward any kind of planable stability.

[A]

Yeah. And I think. I don't know, I even think best of times, worst of times is still misrepresenting it a bit because we have amazing technology. But I also think that for those of us rich enough to be living off the spoils of this system right now,

[B]

our.

[A]

We're holding on to the convenience of a lifestyle that is. That is dying in front of our eyes. And, you know, when I said that,

[B]

I meant it's best of times for some people.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Worst of times for most people, actually.

[A]

Right. But as like, as a whole, we're in a moment where it feels like the. The ugliness of this culture that, you know, we. This. This amorphous thing called culture that we, you know, sort of problematically describe on this podcast all the time. There is this ugly crescendo happening in this moment. And I mean, moment kind of loosely defined.

[B]

And.

[A]

And I just think, okay, so everything's coming to a head with the disgusting, vile nature of nature of our culture. Like, let's have a radical return to nature at the same time. And so I feel like it's what you always talk about where, you know, as we see the dark rising, we trust that because it's a dualistic world, the light is also rising. It just doesn't look the same. It's not as, um, it's not as desperate for photo ops.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It doesn't scream yeah, I. And this is what I've been obsessed with since I got my doctorate. I've been looking at systems that collapse in the way people get. People's individual lives get impacted by it. And so now I'm looking at, like, this huge scale, but the. The things that I've seen all through my life are still true in every culture that is undergoing a radical, horrifying collapse. For example, all the cultures that colonized by the west who spread, you know, guns, germs and steel, horrible plagues that weren't even noticed in Europe, that took out like 95% of the people in the Americas after Columbus lost a pig. So there are many cultures that have gone through horrors and almost been destroyed.

[A]

And like much more recently than that as

[B]

of course, I'm just saying we don't even, we don't even think about the fact that the apocalypse has come before for such huge groups of people, hundreds of millions in the case I just mentioned. But here's the thing. I went looking for how to respond to that from a social system, and I couldn't find it in the existing world. And I remember bringing my research to my professors at Harvard and they were like, well, what's the solution? And I said, there's no solution, we're screwed. And they were like, they got very unscientific and said, no, there has to be a solution.

[A]

And in that moment, a self help author was born.

[B]

That is true. I'm going off piste, guys. So they said, go back, find, find something. And so what I found now I have a doctorate in sociology. If there is one person in a room, especially when I was in graduate school, they called it psychology. If there's two people in a room, it suddenly becomes sociology because it's about the relationship between those people. So that's why I chose sociology. The interesting thing is that to find a way to navigate what's happening now and the ways that people survive those horrors earlier is not a sociological phenomenon. It happens with. It starts with just one person in the room. It starts with whoever you are. For me, it starts with me. For you, it starts with you. And it requires a retraction from all social influence, which is.

[A]

Sorry, can you just give me more context about what you're talking about here?

[B]

Okay, so one of the things I found was that wherever European countries had colonized indigenous societies, a tremendous conflict ensued between people who are trying to hold onto their traditional beliefs and the European models that were just overrunning them with materialism and destroying all the historical beliefs and traditional wisdom and all that stuff. So a lot of people went into despair and depression. You find this in the annals of colonization that at a certain point the people trying to defend their own land gave up because it was so hopeless. But there were individuals who found hope in a different way. And the way they did it was usually by some pattern of going away into nature. Which is why Bewildered, the name of this podcast, it's a pun on be wilder. Duh.

[A]

Because Be wilder, Ed.

[B]

Be wilder, Ed.

[A]

We've been telling you for years.

[B]

Damn it. Ed, Ed.

[A]

So can I just interject and say. So is this is what we're talking about on some level, creating for ourselves the little piece of calm in the swirling hurricane, knowing that it cannot last, but in the. In that the calm can't last.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In the system of entropy. Right. That we live among. And that sort of dominates our inner life as well when we apply. So given that there are going to be insurance companies and summer camp sign ups, I think what you're leading us into and I really want to hear about is like how we can make that pocket.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Of that feels like order.

[B]

Well, and it doesn't just feel like order. I mean, sorry, this can get a little academic again, but if you. Look, entropy is one thing. Everything's proceeding toward disorder. But the way that plays out in like physical systems is something is chaos. Things go into total chaos. This is a situation where nothing can be predicted or controlled. But instead of just making like massive white noise, what happens in chaotic systems in nature is that layers of pattern disorder arise. So what happens, what you see when you go through the forest, or what you see when you walk in the mountains or look at seashells on the beach, you are seeing chaos bringing pattern disorder to the physical world. So you'll find the same Fibonacci sequence of measurements in a seashell that you do in the tree foliage that you do in the. The geology of the mountains. Or you'll see things arising that are not only seem organized, but they're beautiful, they're sumptuous. Like a fern is something that is just a mathematical pattern of something that is chaotic. But when we say the word chaos, we think of absolutely no beauty, no order at all. But actually, when it's allowed to be itself, it's. Nature brings beauty. It brings systematic patterns of beauty. They can't be predicted because they're never exact replicas. So here's the thing. We were trained to follow culture, to know what our lives would be about. When you're trying to deal with summer camp or college funds, you're trying to follow the rules of a culture that says, listen to us. This is what happens. You have a child, it must go to summer camp, it must go to college, it must. In the meantime, the reality of the entire society is a hurricane where nothing that the culture has set up is going to last. But the nature of the way creation works is that if you find a way to flow into natural patterns for yourself, you end up in systems of beauty and systems of extraordinary well being. In the middle of the hurricane, I have a thing. Yes.

[A]

Humans, even in our ways of building culture, are part of nature.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So just like the Fibonacci spirals created in the fern or the fossil or whatever it is, replicate each other, so too does rape culture and colonization. Absolutely are part of the Fibonacci spirals that are the, the when, when individual psychology of a human being turns into the sociology of the society. Right. The people en masse. And so is part of, of this process of letting ourselves be more in nature. Like what I'm, what I'm suggesting is the culture, in some ways what the culture is doing is completely in alignment with nature. It has to be.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's when we react against it in the ways you're describing and try to hold the culture to its spreadsheet. Right. Instead of seeing it as, as the twirling, you know, 30 handed Carly, sending text messages and whatever, then like that's where we're going against our true nature. That it's, it's actually in our reaction to the culture that we abandon nature.

[B]

So, you know, at the beginning of this podcast we said when we say culture, you know, it means there are all these different cultures, but we're talking about this Western European base, blah, blah, blah. So you're talking about culture replicates psychology. And it does. Individual psychology is fractaled out. But rape culture has not been the dominant human behavior. Most people, I still believe this, are not rapists. So what you have is hundreds of thousands of years, of thousands of civilizations that acted. And some of them were more warlike, some of them were more violent than others. But on the whole, they had to exist in a kind of harmony with the natural world. What you got in the European enlightenment was this belief that we are now separate and above nature and we are going to use the left hemispheres of our brains to make straight lines and right angles and shoot people. And that is what we will set up and it will last forever. We will set up all these square buildings and they will last forever. So what you get is a complete aberration. And that aberration does take the form of rape culture. But still, and this is what I found in my research long ago, most people are not rapists.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, rapists don't announce themselves always as much as they are these days. But you really don't get ahead in most small social groups if you are overtly violent, the group does not like it. It's the combination of materialism and technology, again, that allowed a few people to dominate more ferociously than had ever happened before, that we're now seeing come to a crisis state. And we've seen it before. Easter island, right. The people on Easter island cut down all the trees to make their things. And when they cut down the last tree and looked around for coconuts, it was like, oh. And then they started to eat each other. And then they.

[A]

And not everything's important.

[B]

Yes, it is.

[A]

So I just want to clarify. I was not equating when I was saying rape culture, because I was quoting something that I'd read online. I was not equating that as the culture by any. By any means. I was meaning. Meaning in a very small sea way of. Of characterizing this particular strange moment that we're living through.

[B]

I would say that the culture that dominates our lives and that set up most of these systems is very closely aligned to rape culture.

[A]

And I guess it's just. I mean, it's like what Michael was saying all those years ago about we, you know, we don't acknowledge our shadow and we don't integrate it, and it ends up being the president. And it's sort of like that's where. That's where we find ourselves.

[B]

So. And you have brought me right to the point that I reached 30 years ago, which is, ah, I need to integrate this. The culture needs to integrate its shadow. But cultures don't act. Individuals act. And those people who survived the devastation of their cultures, traditional cultures, found a way to get outside of their culture and start to integrate their own shadows. I talk endlessly about Nelson Mandela. He was a fiery young activist, brilliant, idealistic. But when he went to prison for 27 years, he changed into something completely different. He changed into something transcendent. He rose above. I call it the emergent way of thinking. It was neither a traditional way of thinking nor a European modern way of thinking. It was something so individual and so integrated. And his friends and fellow prisoners at Robben island talked about how he was constantly working on himself. He learned Afrikaans.

[A]

I just. I've got a lot of. I've got a lot of. I'm just working on myself a lot right now. Sorry, guys, I can't. I can't come out to the yard today. I'm just.

[B]

But he really did.

[A]

I'm working on myself. I think he decided, I'm on a journey. I'm on my journey.

[B]

Yeah. He wore, like, paisley shirts and stuff. No, it's not right to even joke about it. It was a horrific situation. But he did. He learned the language of apartheid. He learned the Afrikaans language, and his fellow captives were like, what are you doing? And when he got out, he took some of the guards, and they were, like, in places of honor at his inauguration as president. Like, he had so integrated his own shadows that he could genuinely love across these horrific ideological gulfs and this horrendous rape culture, which it really was all over Africa and certainly in the apartheid years. And that process of integrating the shadow is the way you can get your child to camp and grieve another horror that has happened and not feel torn to pieces by it. Yeah.

[A]

So I feel like you've really just reached the point that I reached 65 years ago in my own thinking, Martha. That's very good. Very good. So why don't we come back in a minute and talk about how to come to our senses?

[B]

Oh, that would be nice.

[A]

So, Mighty Moo, we got to come to our senses. I mean, that just convention alone dictates that eventually we gotta come to them.

[B]

Culture comes to consensus, and the consensus is weird.

[A]

The consensus is batshit crazy.

[B]

Yes, it is.

[A]

So let's look elsewhere.

[B]

Yeah, let's come to our census. For sure. For sure. Now more than ever.

[A]

Yeah. So I feel like, like our audience, I'm in this place of constantly trying to metabolize awful news while trying to go about my everyday life. And I wonder if there's a way that we can frame up how to be in your senses in this highly unnatural situation, you know, where we do still have to do life and we are still in this moment of bombardment.

[B]

Yeah. Well, I love that you. I mean, the come to your senses thing is really literal because the first thing I learned this, that. Because I've had a few times when my life blew up, and in a very small, localized way, I thought, you know, doom and gloom had come. And what I've learned is that the first thing you do if you stay in the cultural mode of you have to use your calculating brain and figure this out logistically and do the pros and cons and do this sensibly and go to a life coach. People, when they hear that, they think someone's gonna give me the rules. And there are no rules out there that are man made, that are human or left brain originated. That will work. You have to actually literally drop into Your body. When you, like, you're trying to do the morning thing with the kid, you get in the car, you hear the horrible news on the radio or whatever it is. There's a natural inclination to tense, like, physically tense. You said something about it makes you want to throw up. Like it has a physiological effect. A long time ago, I read, like, when I was 10, I read this science fiction book by Robert Heinlein, and it had a great premise. These earthlings, astronauts, they'd found a way to pass through wormholes and land on habitable planets all over the multiverse. But they never knew anything about the place where they would land. So all these people had to be trained to go to places where literally nothing could be anticipated.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And they had a really interesting training regimen. And the first thing they were told is, do not assume that this planet will work like Earth.

[A]

So you're just, like, touching down on a new planet, and this is your training program for what to do when you get there?

[B]

Yeah. And the first thing is, don't expect anything to be the way you expect it. So when I get in the car and I see the bad news, it's because I expected things to be the way they were when I was 20. Oh, this is not the way the American political system is supposed to be working, but it is. So it's my resistance. There's the horror of what's happening, and then there's the outrage of, this isn't the way it's supposed to be. Right. And that, too, is a cultural assumption. But if I walk out into the world going, it's reached the point where every day is a different planet. And if I walk out expecting any kind of continuity to be my shelter, my thing to hang on to, I'm going to be very scared all the time because all the structures are shaking. But if I go out every day thinking, okay, I've been trained to adapt to any situation I may encounter. I will not expect tomorrow to look like yesterday, and we can talk more about that. But if I go out in that basic frame of mind where I'm loose, I'm relaxed, I will adapt more than anything else. I will observe what's around me very, very closely before I make big decisions. I am primarily an observer of the planet that I walk out on today, and I expect it to give me things I don't expect. It's just like that, as a very first step to tell ourselves. It has helped me so much because I would go into outrage. I would spend days and days raging against reality.

[A]

Yeah, I think there's something. I guess I want to quibble a tiny bit. I don't think it's necessarily that we react against the news notification because it's not how we expect things to be. I think that a big part of this moment is how much abject cruelty we're exposed to. And so I think what you're saying about being loose in it, I just want to add that being loose includes allowing yourself to hurt appropriately when things. When you are forced to witness.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Injustice and cruelty.

[B]

Yeah. And that's why I said there's the horror itself, but then there's the resistance to the horror. So the horror, you have to metabolize the horror. You're absolutely right. You can't deny that. You can't say it's not real. If you have. If the abundance of evidence of your senses tells you that it's real, you have to allow that to be reality. But then when you say what I'm saying I used to spend weeks in outrage is just like, it must not be this way. It must go back to the way it was before. And the horses are out of the barn and the barn is on fire. It is not going to be the way it was before. What's it going to be like? I do not know. So the whole thing you said about internalizing the shadow, when something like that hits you, it's like going onto the new planet and seeing something that is truly horrifying or terrifying or dealing with a real impact that is devastating. And you have to be able to drop the expectation that things will go well and also embrace your natural nature's reaction to horrible things, which is, you know, Elizabeth Kubler Ross spelled it out in Our Reaction to Death. It is this process of initial denial. Like, I can't believe this is happening. I don't want this to happen. And you're watching it, so you're like, there's denial, then there's. It's kind of this random blend of anger, resistance, bargaining.

[A]

But that's all a very. A very left hemisphere, like, conceptual way. And we're talking about coming to our senses, like, and coming back into our body. And I feel like bargaining. Denial. All right, yeah, maybe. But in this moment, for me, my thing is, I just think of those slow motion videos that you see on social media or on YouTube or whatever where, like, something's dropped into water and just slow motion, see the water, like, move to absorb the impact of the thing that's being dropped or, or some other, like those ultra Slow mo things of something hitting something and it has to. To like. Yeah, you know, ricochet. And I feel like I have to go through that multiple times a day.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I just want to say, like, It's really hard to be alive in this time and doing these things.

[B]

It is.

[A]

And, and I want us to like, be able to come together with our listeners in saying that. Yeah, we're having to do something that is really messed up.

[B]

Oh, my God, it's unprecedented. And when I use the labels and stuff, that's an academic way of saying so. How I experience is I hear a piece of news that is ungodly horrifying. The first response is nausea for me. Usually the second one is an absolute drop off a cliff into despair. Then there's a period of numbness, then there's rage. And all of this is going on as I have to get the oil checked. But I have found that you can get your oil checked while that is happening to you if you allow it. Sorry, I was using the academic language. It is visceral. And if you try to keep it in your left hemisphere brain and analyze your way through it, you're not going to do it. You have to be in your body and you have to allow it to impact. So, you know, in collisions, drivers who are drunk often survive because they're not braced. And the people who are sober who are clenching, they sustain much more serious injuries. Because when it's exactly like you just said, the slow motion thing of somebody being hit, but it's water is completely relaxed about something being shot into it.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

And we're. We're 70% water. And so emotionally, psychologically, the whole. What I've been calling integrating the shadow is the process of nausea, despair, rage, hopelessness, crying, going out and marching in the streets. Like, give your emotions a place to go. If you feel like something that you want to take an action, go take it. But always be relaxed and allowing your body, mind to have the experience of actually living in the reality of it instead of trying to brace it all away and analyze it. That has its place too. But the whole thing is we're only taught to use the left hemisphere of the brain. When you bring in the right, the right doesn't exclude the left. So you're in a whole brain perceptual situation that includes all your kinesthetics, your movement and all five senses. And when those are engaged, you can absorb that and learn from it and grow from it and tolerate it. And that like a person who's drunk and loose in an accident, who walks away. You're gonna get injured sometimes anyway. I mean, it's. I'm not saying this is any kind of insurance against harm. I'm just saying it's a way for us to go through the day looking at harm, drinking heavily and drinking heavily. That's right.

[A]

So, all right, so let's come back to our metaphor, okay. Every day in this reality that most of us are living right now. And. And I want to say the obvious, which is we're living in immense levels of privilege to even be having this shitty time where my news notifications freak me out, like, because they're not about me. Right? So, like, yeah, stating. Yeah, well, yeah, like, I. I definitely want to acknowledge that. And given that that privilege is. Is absolutely there. Every day we wake up and it's an. And we're. We've been landed on a new planet, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Every day is a new planet. So we land, we observe. Right? That's the first part of our training.

[B]

And we feel you observe. And then you let what you observe impact you at a physical, emotional level. You do not hold it at bay except when it becomes so overwhelming that you can't function at all. And I've gone through a couple of those in the last few months. And at that point, I use something that one psychologist calls denial with a little D. I say, okay, that's the news. I'm not going to follow this breaking story because I've just read 87 posts about some horrible thing that happened with new details in everything on the Internet. Right. I am overwhelmed, and I'm not actually going to be able to put on my clothes. So what I'm going to do, welcome to my world. Yes. I don't even try with the hook and eyes.

[A]

No, no, you've gone back to loincloths.

[B]

But I remember really recently I was watching something develop and it was so, so, so, like, utterly beyond horrifying. And after reading hundreds and hundreds of posts for a couple of hours, I said, I'm going to do something that looks so not responsible from the point of view of, like, controlling the world. I'm going to go watch videos of animals, like, doing funny, hilarious things. I'm not going to deny that this awful thing is happening. But I'm also not going to deny that somewhere in Idaho a golden retriever tried to get six tennis balls in his mouth. And that is also true. And I know that we're trained. The brain has a negativity bias. If it bleeds, it leads. That's good. We need to be aware. But it can pull us along with the algorithms and stuff. It can pull us into this incessant observation only of the most horrifying. That's not real. That's not presence.

[A]

That's actually not. I would argue, in a way, in the way we're talking about it, not semantically, but the observation we're talking about is not fixation. Right? Because if you have landed on a new planet, you don't know how it works there. Like, you don't know how its physics works. You don't know what's alive here or what it might be a blob, or it might be a robot, or it might be a friendly lion, or it might be the Tin Man.

[B]

It actually was in some cases. Anyway. Go on. Wow.

[A]

So what you're doing in observing is almost just being the water or the crash test dummy or whatever, right? Like, let me observe. Because we're talking about our senses and not our brains or not even our eyes specifically. And so it's like, I'm gonna be. When I'm caught behind, between a rock and a hard place. Let me be water.

[B]

Let me be water. Yeah.

[A]

So we have to. We have to sit or stand or kind of levitate on our new planet that we've landed on and see what happens to our bodies, right? And if they have to move because they're trying to let.

[B]

Oh, shaking. I shake like a leaf. And I let it happen because that's one of the things your body needs to do.

[A]

I'm still, like, deep in the physics of another planet metaphor. And also slightly my water getting pierced by a rock that fell from above. So I'm like, I might have to move as also.

[B]

You have 30 hands.

[A]

I've got 30 hands.

[B]

Didn't see that coming.

[A]

Cool planet, though.

[B]

Okay, so, yeah, so.

[A]

So we're there on the planet, and we're just letting the planet speak to us and tell us about itself. And that's. And the planet is each day that we face at the moment, right?

[B]

And there's something that you can do. And I do it all the time now, and we've been teaching it when we did our retreat in Costa Rica. It's weirdly effective and there's a ton of research on it. But when I was a little kid, I used to watch. I used to like to watch ants on the ground. And I don't know if you ever did this, but if you watch one ant, you'll just see that one ant movie. Have you ever done this?

[A]

Yeah, the way that they, like, they greet sometimes. They greet? Is that what you're going to talk about?

[B]

The way I greet? No, no, that's not quite, though. I was obsessed with watching them greet each other.

[A]

Yeah, me too. But what I would talk to about this. No, We've got so much in common. We should date.

[B]

Oh, my God, you're right. I thought you'd never say that. Okay, so I would watch the one ant, and then there was something I did with my eyes. And I knew if I did this with my eyes that I would suddenly see hundreds of ants and I would be able to see how they were coordinated with each other. And I didn't realize what I was doing. But it's called opening the optical attention aperture. Now I give it the left hemisphere words because I feel that that buys us legitimacy.

[A]

It's fine. I just really thought when you said I didn't know what I was doing, but what I was doing was drugs.

[B]

Oh, there was that, too. No, there wasn't. And I do it all the time now. I literally do this thing because I've read so much brain research on it.

[A]

So tell me what it is again, because I interrupted you and you can

[B]

do it right now. It will sound so weird, like such a weird response to something horrible on the news. The very first thing I do is I take a really deep breath and I let myself tremble if I need to, because that's normal reaction and it helps the hormones move through you, the fight or flight hormones, because if they get stuck in there, you'll be miserable for all day. So let yourself shake, let yourself cry, let yourself throw up. But then I literally soften the focus of my eyes. So I'll look at something like, I don't know, a flower in a vase on the table. And I'll look at the flower and then I'll just start looking at the whole room. And the flower is there, but it's equal. And that's like the little ant. I would just see the one ant. And when I let all things be equal in my visual field, I would see thousands of things happening. So that's how these astronauts were trained. Because you can't go to a planet and see, oh, here comes a tiny fuzzy blob. I'm going to focus on that forever. And meanwhile, some great carnivorous thing comes and pounces you from behind. Right.

[A]

That's the unfriendly lion.

[B]

Yeah. So they were trained to watch softly. And that's what I don't think we know how to do. When such horrible hard things are happening. We think that watching softly is an act of weakness, but what it is is an act of intelligence. Deep, deep intelligence that makes the whole brain come online. Whereas that pointed left hemisphere thing isolates your visual field. In fact, there's one case where this kid who'd been in foster care was so traumatized he couldn't read. And it's because his aperture wouldn't open enough to see a whole word. He could only see one letter at a time. So they had to teach him to breathe and relax. And then his eye gaze opened and he could see a word and then a sentence and then a page. So these astronauts would go. And their absolute explicit instruction, fictional astronauts, Fictional astronauts was relax, relax, relax. And that's the last thing we think of doing when there are horrors coming.

[A]

And yet that is what it turns out that that's what every NASA like the first thing when they train real astronauts.

[B]

Really?

[A]

That's all it says. It just says, relax. This is fine. It's not that hard. You'll figure it out. They did it on Apollo 13. Yeah, you know, fine, you'll be fine.

[B]

There's nothing more you need to know.

[A]

Make sure you've got a paperclip.

[B]

Probably took biology, don't worry about it, it's fine. But you know, the thing is that when we relax, we think more intelligently. When we relax, we take in more data. It's that whole thing about the cognitive brain processing 40 bits of information per second and the entire aperture of perception processing 11 million bits of information per second. You need that 11 million bits per second in an unknown, unknowable environment, which is also dangerous and frightening.

[A]

Yeah. And that includes like, that's not just about see more things, widen your visual field. It's about what does that breeze on my shoulder mean?

[B]

What?

[A]

It means that my, my house is not very, very watertight.

[B]

There's a raccoon in the ceiling.

[A]

You know, like we talk about with, with the trackers that we meet in South Africa, like it's every sense is, is, is listening.

[B]

Yeah. If you go out with one of those unbelievable like world class trackers in, in the African wilderness, they walk with such relaxed. They look almost like they're sort of strolling, almost idle. And they are watching everything. They are seeing thousands of things that I would never know were there.

[A]

And we're saying seeing, but it's all the senses together.

[B]

Yeah. It's actually more ears than eyes because you can hear things that you can't see in the brush. And Everything. But it's also smell and, and intuition.

[A]

Well, it's almost like, like part of what, you know, the left hemisphere separates things, right? And it's like our left hemisphere dominant culture goes this sense and this sense. And sometimes you look and sometimes you hear. But actually, you know, maybe so much of it, what turns, like what we call intuition just turns out to be the ability to synthesize all our senses at one time, you know, and it

[B]

changes the functioning of your brain to a place where it's less anxious and more relaxed. That's what I wrote a whole book about it. So now when I get the bad news, I vomit, I shake, I cry. And then I.

[A]

It's so fun at parties.

[B]

And then I literally say, breathe and relax. Drop into your body. Open the aperture of your attention. Everything you see, everything you hear, everything you smell, every. The texture of the air on your skin soften enough to feel it all. And then a kind of. Kind of calm comes in. And when I've been in nature and I've seen animals, like get attacked by predators, they get away, if they get away, they shake, they make sure they're all right, and then you can see them go and. And suddenly. And then they're just. Their ears come up like antelope I'm thinking of. And their eyes go soft and they're just present again as if the horror had never happened. Because that's how they're going to be ready if it comes again. That is not a stupid way to react. That is the most intelligent way to react, to relax and drop in.

[A]

So, Mari, it strikes me that one thing that we can do, once we've achieved that level of relaxation, that incredibly bio intelligent state, is instead of bringing up our resistance to what we're seeing happening, we can bring up the. What the natural feelings would be if these terrible events were happening in the room. By which I mean the compassion.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

The goodwill, the kindness, like these sort of contra cultural right now. Yeah, kind of things, but very human, very natural things. And like build our own little island of. Of order within the. The larger system of entropy. And make our garden, you know, a place and talk to our plants and talk to our neighbors, you know?

[B]

Yeah. I think what you're talking about, you know, the left brain and, and our dominant culture separate everything and like focus like relentlessly on individuation and individual achievement. And everything's in lines. There are lines of authority, there are lines you wait in. There are lines you follow. There are guidelines. Right. But when you drop away from that and you allow yourself to sink into your body. What happens is the right hemisphere comes online, is that the right hemisphere connects. And so what happens to people in a rape culture who are following the lines, who are coloring inside the lines, is they. They either become tyrants or victims. But people who are living outside the lines, people who are wilder, they naturally extend compassion to each other. And if there's a rapist there, you'll know it pretty soon. But most people are not rapists. And if you're in that soft, relaxed thing, you can connect with people very quickly, and people start sharing resources. And what emerges in the sort of natural fractal form are our circles. So you get circles of love, you get circles of mutual nurturance, you get circles of understanding, you get neighborhood circles, you get social circles, you get circles of the seasons, circles of life patterns.

[A]

The spiral medicine garden that you're going to build.

[B]

Exactly. And I mean, it's so interesting that that is such a strong image for me because I'm no gardener, but I just have this overwhelming desire to build a spiral garden. Spirals are one of the most beautiful basic forms in chaos theory, and they just replicate gorgeously throughout nature. And then, yeah, you're right, it's more spiral than circle, actually, because it all starts to get bigger and more connected the more people drop into their original nature. And I almost think that when this linear left hemisphere culture is so violently out of whack, it actually gives a lot of people the incentive they need to say, I will investigate my kids college fund, but when she gets home from kindergarten, I'm going out to sled with her in the snow because I need to be in my life. And I know that when I'm called to go out in March or run for office or whatever it is, I will. But in the meantime, I'm gonna stay here now.

[A]

And as like that, you show yourself the compassion that you want to show the world, you show your kid the compassion and the people immediately around you. That's the first turn of the spiral. And then as that feeds goodness back into you and nurtures you back, then you can step out and start taking those actions that will change the larger picture. But only if we can do it from a beginning that is not stressed out, exhausted, under resourced, overwhelmed. Right?

[B]

Yeah. When we're in the present moment and we're relaxed, we are fluid. And that means we can adapt even to incredibly difficult, unprecedented circumstances. And I love this line in the Chinese book the Tao Te Ching, which says when two great forces confront each other. The victory will go to the one that knows how to yield. So that's what nature will help us do.

[A]

That's the sneaky way. And that's how we Stay wild. We hope you're enjoying Bewildered. If you're in the USA and want to be notified when a new episode comes comes out, text the word wild to 570-873-0144. We're also on Instagram. Our handle is Bewildered podcast. You can follow us to get updates, hear funny snippets and outtakes, and chat with other fans of the show. Bewildered is produced by Scott Forster with support from the Brilliant team at mbi. And remember, if you're having fun, please rate and review and stay wild.