← How to Be a Better Human
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- [00:00]
Sarah Kay
Bombas makes the most comfortable socks, underwear and T shirts.
- [00:04]
Chris Duffy
Bombas are so absurdly comfortable you may throw out all your other clothes.
- [00:08]
Sarah Kay
Sorry, do we legally have to say that?
- [00:10]
Chris Duffy
No, this is just how I talk. And I really love my Bombas.
- [00:13]
Sarah Kay
They do feel that good. And they do good too. One item purchased equals one item donated.
- [00:18]
Chris Duffy
To feel good and do good, go to bombas.com acast and use code Acast for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M B-A-Com acast and use code acast at checkout. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Ah, really? Thanks Capital One bank guy. What's in your wallet? Term supply see capitalone.com bank capital1na member.
- [00:55]
Sarah Kay
FDIC I don't know about you, but the number one thing I look forward to when I return from traveling is a good night's sleep in my own bed. That has never been more true than it is now that I have a Sleep number Smart bed. I get so sore after traveling on planes, but after literally one night in my Sleep number smart bed, my body feels restored, rested and relaxed. The fact that my bed actually listens to my body and adjusts to my needs to keep me sleeping soundly all the way through the night is worth it alone. Not to mention, my husband and I never need to argue over firmness because we can each dial in our own Sleep number setting. Why choose a Sleep Number Smart bed? So you can choose your ideal comfort on either side. And now for a limited time, Sleep number Smart beds start at $849. Price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii. Exclusively at a Sleep Number store near you. See store or sleepnumber.com for details.
- [01:52]
Chris Duffy
You are listening to how to Be a Better Human. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and before we get started with today's episode, I have a favor to ask you. Everyone on this show works really hard to put together these episodes and I'm so excited that that hard work has been recognized in a nomination for a Webby Award for the best advice and how to podcast. You know, people always say it's an honor to just be nominated and that's true. We are really honored to be nominated. But I also can't lie. I really want to win. Getting an award like this would be a major opportunity for us and for the show. It would be a chance for us to promote the show, to reach new listeners, and to give the folks who work behind the scenes on this podcast some much needed and much deserved recognition. So it would mean a lot to me if you went to vote.webbyawards.com that's vote.webbyawards.Com and voted for how to Be a Better Human in the Best Advice and How to Podcast category. Voting is only open till April 17, so there's not much time. Please vote now. And once again, that is vote.webbyawards.com and we are in the Podcast category under the Best Advice and How to Show. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now onto today's episode, we have got the poet Sarah Kay talking about how to enrich your everyday life with poetry. Sarah is one of my all time favorite artists and she's also one of my all time favorite people. I had the great privilege of knowing her since college and it's such a gift to have seen her work over these years and to just know someone as talented as she is. We are re releasing this conversation that Sarah and I had back in 2021 today for a couple reasons. One is I think it's a fantastic conversation. I think it's one of the best episodes we've ever done and I think that it really speaks to this moment even though we recorded it several years ago. Another reason though, is because Sarah's new collection of poems, which is called A Little Daylight Left, was just published this month. A Little Daylight Left is such a beautiful collection of poems and I really hope that you will check it out. And to give you a taste of how great it is and how great Sarah is, here is a new poem from Sarah. This is from the new collection, and this is Sarah performing in front of a live audience in New York City at the venue Caveat Miles from any.
- [04:02]
Sarah Kay
Shoreline, I frequently miss entire days caught in my brain's spiderwebs. But if I happen to look up in time to notice that the darkness still has a little daylight left to swallow, I will ivy up the fire escape to catch whatever embers of the day are still slow dying behind New Jersey. And last week, through the fog of my loneliness, I realized the living room was slippery pink, which I knew meant a light show must be on display. So with a quickness I reserved for emergencies, I scampered to the roof and sure enough, an explosion of upside down clementine cotton candy cloud wisps was tie dying the Hudson river neon. And I swear I am not a lightweight, but I was color drunk immediately dizzy with gasp and skyward reaching, hoping my fingers might find a bell I could ring that would summon all of New York City to look up and west. But there was no bell and no one to call, just my own astonishment, still willing to answer after the first ring. How predictable. One good sunset and I release my nihilism like rose petals behind a bridal gown. Look, I have married my cynicism and renewed my vows, but it didn't stop the streetlights from coming on at the exact moment I passed beneath them when nobody else was in the park to see it, like the whole city was winking. And yes, I blushed the way I do whenever someone beautiful flirts with me. I haven't stopped thinking about death. I am just wringing every last jaw drop from the tissue between heartbreaks. On a long run outside the city, along a highway and miles from any shoreline, I found a starfish alone on the asphalt, an unsolvable mystery with no witness to corroborate. And there I was again, wandering the streets of Bewilderville, population one. What else could I possibly do but swing wide the doors of my delight to this patron saint of unbelonging, fragile and whole and so far from home. If you too have been the one nobody asked to dance. I have a starfish I'd love to introduce you to, and I don't have any proof, but one time the wind or my ancestors or unseasonal warmth carried three hawks to my kitchen windowsill to rattle my coffin to cocoon. And two of them left, but one of them stayed, eyed me through the glass like a promise or a dare. So lately I am trying to pick up when the universe calls.
- [07:29]
Chris Duffy
Okay, we're going to be right back with more from poet Sarah Kay in just a moment. This episode of how to Be a Better Human is brought to you by Wild Grain. I love to cook. I love to bake. Most of all I love to eat. And the one thing that holds me back from making delicious things like fresh pastries or fresh bread or fresh pasta is it is so much time, such a mess. Which is why Wild Grain has blown my mind. They are a bake from frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, pastries and pastas. They sent me frozen croissants, they sent me frozen chocolate croissants. They sent me fresh pasta. And they sent me sourdough bread and biscuits. I tried them all. Every single one was unbelievably Delicious. And all of them. This is the part that I couldn't believe having made these things from scratch. All of them go straight from the freezer to the oven and in 25 minutes or less you are eating food that is so spectacular you can't believe you didn't get it at like a high end bakery. And their boxes are fully customizable so you can get the classic variety. You can get gluten free, you can get 100% vegan plant based options. If you are ready to bring your favorite carbs right to your doorstep, check out Wild Grain and build your own box. Right now and for a limited time, Wild Grain is offering our listeners 30% off their first box. Plus and this is the best signup bonus I've ever heard of. I wish every product worked like this. Plus free croissants in every box. Just go to wildgrain.com human to start your subscription. That's wildgrain.com human or use promo code Human at checkout. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know, we talk a lot about being better humans on this show, but sometimes that can feel overwhelming. How do you actually do that? And for me, the biggest answer has been therapy. Therapy has helped me to understand myself, to understand my reactions, my patterns, and to be able to change them if they're not serving me anymore. Now I go to in person therapy. I've loved my therapist, I love the relationship that we've built. But I also understand that in person therapy might not be right for everyone. It can be expensive, it can be hard to find a therapist who has availability. But that is why if you're having those issues, BetterHelp could be a great option for you. It's entirely online. They can save you up to 50% compared to traditional in person sessions. They're the world's largest online therapy platform. They have over 30,000 credentialed therapists and professional support through them can be both accessible and convenient. And whether you're dealing with stress or working through a big decision, or whether you just want to improve yourself, BetterHelp can help you find the support you need. Your well being is worth it. Visit betterhelp.comhuman to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelph. E l-p.com human.
- [10:22]
Sarah Kay
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- [10:43]
As it is delicious.
- [10:44]
Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [10:57]
Chris Duffy
We're back. We're here with Sarah Kay, an incredible poet who I also am glad to say is one of my very good friends.
- [11:04]
Sarah Kay
My name is Sarah Kay. I am a poet and an educator from New York City.
- [11:09]
Chris Duffy
Great. And now can you do one where you choose a different name?
- [11:11]
Sarah Kay
Oh, yeah, of course. Hello, my name is Chris Duffy, and I am a standup comedian and New Yorker masquerading as a Los Angeleno.
- [11:20]
Chris Duffy
Okay, thank you so much. I'm so glad to have you here. Why don't we do the most stereotypical question first, which is, how did you get involved in poetry in the first place?
- [11:30]
Sarah Kay
Well, how did I get involved in poetry in the very first place is when I was a kid, I used to run around the house and ask my mom. And by ask, I really mean, like, demand. I would be like, poem, and I would make my mother write it down for me. So if I'm feeling particularly cheeky, sometimes I will say that I've been writing poems since before I could write because.
- [12:00]
Chris Duffy
So when you said a poem, you were like, I'm dictating a poem.
- [12:02]
Sarah Kay
You write this down.
- [12:03]
Chris Duffy
It wasn't like, you give me a poem.
- [12:05]
Sarah Kay
No, correct. I was like, is anyone. Quick, someone take this down. Yeah, mark this down for later. But I would say actually that my real origin of my relationship to poems is that when I was in elementary school, kids we didn't go to the cafeteria until middle school. And so from kindergarten through fourth grade, everyone either brought their lunch to school with them or the school provided lunch. And so every single day for those years, my parents took turns writing a little poem on a piece of, like, neon colored paper that they would fold and put in my lunchbox. And so neither of them are poets. I don't think either of them would consider themselves writers. And now looking back, it seems like a little too neat of an origin story because it seems like they were planting seeds for a future poet. But I assure you it was not that. It was just one of many ways that they demonstrated to me that I was loved. But basically what it did is it made it so that my relationship to poems was that poems became something that was dependable, like clockwork. I knew I could expect it every day. But it was also a surprise. It was also a gift. It was intimate. It was A secret. It was this sign of care from someone who loved me enough to craft it. And so I think that's really what started my relationship to poems, is what I call the lunchbox poems.
- [13:34]
Chris Duffy
Well, that also gets into one of the other things I wanted to ask you about, which is how do you incorporate wordplay and poetry into your day to day life?
- [13:43]
Sarah Kay
You know, all kinds of different ways, which, frankly, I don't explicitly think about until someone thoughtful like you asks me to. But I would say, like, for example, when I was in college, I every single year would make valentines for all of my pals on Valentine's Day and I would write each of them a personalized limerick. And, like, I feel like everything about me screams like, the kid who brought Valentine's for everybody in class.
- [14:14]
Chris Duffy
Like, that seems like you have big valentine limerick energy. For sure.
- [14:18]
Sarah Kay
Really big valentine limerick energy.
- [14:20]
Chris Duffy
So as a person who knows you, I also know, like, you love to do a Halloween costume that's a wordplay. I feel like you're someone who cherishes when you find like a funny phrase or a pun or something really, that is playing with language. You are like, I gotta share this with people. And you start sending it around, take a photo or whatever it is you document.
- [14:39]
Sarah Kay
Yeah, I mean, it's maybe an affliction.
- [14:44]
Chris Duffy
Oh, it's certainly a disease. There's no doubt about it.
- [14:48]
Sarah Kay
I know that there are so many people who have less positive responses to puns specifically, but I just find them so delightful. And the Halloween thing happened because many years ago, I had a dream. Like a full. Like, I was asleep, had a full actual dream. And in the dream, I was late to the Halloween Day parade in New York City, which I try to go to every year. And in my dream I was like, oh, no, I don't have a costume. Like, what am I going to do? And so in the dream, I, like, went to my closet. I pulled out this hardcore leather jacket and a collar with spikes on it, I think. And I found a blank white T shirt. And I wrote this elaborate trigonometry equation. And the answer to the equation would have been like, cosine X, like C O, S X. But instead of putting in the answer, I put like a blank line X. And so my costume was that I was a rebel without a cause. And when I woke up from the dream.
- [15:57]
Chris Duffy
This doesn't translate to audio, but I'm shaking my head furiously. How dare you. What wordplay atrocity that is.
- [16:05]
Sarah Kay
When I woke up from the dream, like, my first thought was, like, you gotta be kidding me. My subconscious could have been working on, like, we have real serious issues. Like, you could have been solving climate change, and instead you were out here like, ooh, you know what, though? What about this trigonometry pun? Like, that's what we were working on in the depths of our sleep. But then, of course, I was like, well, I have the opportunity to make my literal dreams come true. Why would I not do this? And so I had to do it. And now it's become a tradition of terrible pun costumes that I can't outrun.
- [16:42]
Chris Duffy
What kind of advice do you give people on how they can incorporate wordplay into their lives? Like this. Like, how do you get. How do you get your brain to start working on that while you're sleeping?
- [16:51]
Sarah Kay
It really has to do with habits of observation and giving yourself the opportunity to relish in your own delight. So, like, I am genuinely delighted many times a day by the smallest elements of my life, by the most mundane details. But I think most people, when they experience delight, they experience it in the moment, and then it flies through their hands and they're on to the next moment. And so the poetry work, I think, is when a moment of delight happens to. Instead of letting it fly away as fast as it usually does, to just pin it just for long enough to ask yourself, like, what about this is delightful to me? And what about this? Could I maybe try to find a way to share whether that's in the form of a poem or by snapping a photograph or whatever? Like, I think that's where that comes from.
- [17:49]
Chris Duffy
How do you technically keep track of the words or phrases or things that delight you? Do you have a notebook? Is it an app in your phone? What are you doing?
- [17:56]
Sarah Kay
Yeah, you can't see it, but I'm holding it up. I have a little notebook that I keep nearby at all times. I would say that this notebook is incredibly unpoetic. I don't do any poetry writing for the most part in this notebook. It's much more record keeping. And it is really about those moments where something happens and I can see it's gonna fly away really fast. And so I just jot it down, really, just to keep. To note it for later. And then when it is later, and I'm like, you know what? Today is a writing day. I need to get some writing done. Then I crack open this notebook, and I have these little. You know, I think of them as. As Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs. Back to moments where I was genuinely struck by something And I can look at them and go, yeah, that was a really wild thing. Or, oh, man, look at how I've jotted this same thing down three times. It's clearly something that's sticking with me. Or, you know, allowing that notebook to show me what my brain has been snagging on recently so that when I have time to really meditate on it or to really dig into it, that I have clues. Because I think so many people want to write and then sit down in front of a blank screen or a blank piece of paper and are like, okay, world, inspire me now. And honestly, that is very hard to do it that way, I think. So this is a little trick of just marking down these little delights and curiosities so that when I have the writing time, I have these little breadcrumbs to return to.
- [19:25]
Chris Duffy
Do you have any sort of writing practice or routine where you go back through those ideas and sort them out into actual writing, or is it less formulaic and more like you just go back if you feel inspired?
- [19:36]
Sarah Kay
I think a little bit of both. I think sometimes whatever has been floating around in my brain shows up strongly enough and pulls me to the desk. And sometimes I have to be intentional about making writing time. I also think that so much of my joy in connection with poetry is the writing and is the sharing of my own work, but is also just being around other people that love poetry. And so just getting to talk about poetry and analyze text and discuss it with folks who also are passionate about poetry in and of itself gets my enthusiasm engine running. And so that also, I think, really helps significantly in pushing me in my own process, too. And also, I think with an art form like poetry, sometimes people assume that that is a very solitary art form, which it can be, certainly. And like, when I'm keeping my notebook, that's something I do for myself, by myself. But at least in my case, I didn't fall in love with poetry in a textbook or a classroom. I fell in love with poetry in a dive bar. And it was because that space was where poetry felt communal and urgent that it really captivated me. And so that continues to be an element of poetry that I really respond to, is the ability to be in community with other people and to share poetry with other people, my own and others. I mean, very few things make me as alive, make me feel as alive as when I read a poem by someone else, and I go, oh, my God, I needed this poem right now. Like, they found language for a thing that I couldn't find language for. And they did it. And I have it in my hands. Can you believe this? And that feeling is just like, you know, plugging my soul into an amplifier or something. Right?
- [21:40]
Chris Duffy
As an educator, what's your favorite exercise for getting people who don't think of themselves as poets into writing poetry?
- [21:48]
Sarah Kay
I would say that one thing that I'm always thinking about is trying to lower the stakes around both poetry writing and also performing, because those are two things that I think people have a tendency to really raise the stakes for themselves. And so, you know, I usually like to start workshops with asking folks to write some kind of list because a list as a form is much more accessible, I think, immediately, or at least much more familiar to people. People write lists all day long in their life, and so being tasked with a list doesn't feel as terrifying as being tasked with a poem, I think. So in my TED talk, I mentioned writing 10 Things I Know to be true. And that is a list that I genuinely return to quite often. And it's exciting to see what I know to be true today that suddenly changes the next time I write that list. And what are things that I know to be true that continue to be true to me for years down the line? It's like a kind of amazing self diagnostic, actually. So that's one that I recommend to a lot of people. That one's pretty broad. Sometimes people like having more limitation or more specifics. So another one I sometimes like is Things I should have learned by now.
- [23:23]
Chris Duffy
Oh, I like that too.
- [23:25]
Sarah Kay
Is a list I really enjoy. Of course there's, you know, ye old reasons you should date me.
- [23:31]
Chris Duffy
Okay. Ye olde reasons you should date me. I love that list.
- [23:35]
Sarah Kay
Reasons you should not date me. You know, these are just some. The point is to allow yourself the opportunity to take a peek at what you already have going on in your brain without worrying that it's not poetic enough or deep enough or good enough or worthy of poetry. Any of these lists that give you opportunities to see which of these seeds want to turn into poems is a great place to start.
- [24:11]
Chris Duffy
Okay, we're going to give you all a little break for those seeds to start germinating. And while you do that, we are going to do some ads and then we will be right back. Hey folks, it's Marc Maron from wtf. It's spring, a time of renewal, of rebirth, of reintroducing yourself to your fitness goals. And peloton has what you need to get started. You can take a variety of on demand and live classes that last anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. There are thousands of peloton members whose lives were changed by taking charge of their fitness routines. Now you can be one of them. Spring into action right now. Find your push. Find your power. With peloton@1peloton.com the old adage goes, it.
- [25:04]
Sarah Kay
Isn'T what you say, it's how you say it. Because to truly make an impact, you need to set an example. You need to take the lead. You need to adapt to whatever comes your way. And when you're that driven, you drive an equally determined vehicle, the Range Rover Sport. Blending power, poise and performance, it was designed to make an impact with a dynamic drive, refined comfort and innovations like cabin air purification and active noise cancellation, the Range Rover Sport is built to be as uncompromising as you. Explore Range Rover Sport@range Rover.com USSport I don't know about you, but the number one thing I look forward to when I return from traveling is a good night's sleep in my own bed. That has never been more true than it is now that I have a Sleep Number Smart bed. I get so sore after traveling on planes, but after literally one night in my Sleep Number Smart bed, my body feels restored, rested and relaxed. The fact that my bed actually listens to my body and adjusts to my needs to keep me sleeping soundly all the way through the is worth it alone. Not to mention, my husband and I never need to argue over firmness because we can each dial in our own Sleep Number setting. Why choose a Sleep Number smart bed? So you can choose your ideal comfort on either side. And now for a limited time, Sleep number Smart beds start at $849. Price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii. Exclusively at a Sleep Number store near you See store or sleepnumber.com for detail.
- [26:34]
Chris Duffy
We're back with poet Sarah Kay. One thing that I heard you say a long time ago, and I actually can't remember if you said this to me personally or if this was something that you said more publicly but you talked about.
- [26:45]
Sarah Kay
Was it Chris Duffy, you're the funniest man alive. No, I think I said that publicly. Yeah, that was definitely in public.
- [26:52]
Chris Duffy
It was. Chris, you have to stop what you're doing. Stop right now. Rethink your life. Well, no, something that I heard you say that you try and go through your life with your arms open, like to catch whatever comes your way rather than with your arms crossed across your chest in a way that makes you look cool. That is the sign of being cool is blocking things when you try and have your hands open to catch. And I think about that so often. I think about that so much, that idea. And I was just wondering if you could talk about that a little bit more and then I want to discuss it with you. But like, what do you mean by that, by having your hands open?
- [27:27]
Sarah Kay
I think that. So the specific instance that I think you were talking about, if I remember correctly, it was a long time ago that I gave that talk, but I think I was talking specifically about the sort of terrifying. The terrifying experience of being a teenager, specifically. And the messaging that teenagers receive about how to be earnest, to be vulnerable, to be. To admit to feeling anything is weakness and will be used against you. And therefore to refuse to let anything affect you or to show that anything has affected you is the. The safer path, basically. And so to that, that it's a. It's a mode of protection to move through the world being unaffected or to appear to be unaffected at least. And a lot of what I do in my work with young people is to try and both tell them and also show them hopefully the benefits of the risk that to risk being vulnerable and to risk being earnest and to risk having the world affect you is scary and also worth it. And I think perhaps what is missing from that conversation or what is missing from that initial comment, as you remember, it is just an acknowledgment that people who do walk through the world with their arms crossed, metaphorically, that is not a character flaw that is often a result of learning how to survive and that their circumstances has necessitated that kind of self protection. And so it is also the case that I don't just want to encourage people to be open and vulnerable willy nilly and subject themselves to danger or anything else. I want to be part of the world building that makes it safe for everyone to be able to walk through the world that way.
- [30:00]
Chris Duffy
I was going to ask for people who are aspiring poets and writers, but I also think it applies to you now too, which is how can people get better at writing and using language? What do you do when you have this desire to be somewhere and you're not quite there yet? How do you get better?
- [30:14]
Sarah Kay
I think reading is a huge part of it. I think anything that you want to be good at, it helps to know what is possible or what has been possible thus far. And being able to have access to as many examples as you can get your eyeballs on just opens more and more doors, I think in my experience. So reading and reading and reading helps not even Necessarily reading in the specific genre that you're writing in. So it doesn't mean that if you want to be a poet, you should only be reading poetry. But I think just seeing the way that people use language, craft narrative, accomplish an argument, so much has been done and made for us to feast on that. I think it would be silly to not spend a lot of time soaking in all of that good, good writing. So that is the first one. Perhaps not a particularly controversial tip.
- [31:32]
Chris Duffy
It's so true. I mean, if you read someone's writing and then you read something fascinating, whatever it is, then you go, oh, well, that is a trick that people can use. I had never even thought that you could do that.
- [31:43]
Sarah Kay
Absolutely.
- [31:44]
Chris Duffy
Whether it's, you can write the transcript of a phone call and that can be your dialogue, or you can write a voicemail. It can be text messages. It can be writing without verbs. I mean, just all of the things that you see happen, and you think, oh, that is expanding the realm of what's even possible in my brain.
- [32:00]
Sarah Kay
Absolutely. And then the other thing that I think is helpful, and this doesn't work all the time, and it doesn't work for everybody, but when I am wearing my educator hat, I try to think a lot about orienting my work away from product and towards process. So by that, I mean, I never want to be grading a student on a poem, because who am I to determine the arbitrary goodness or badness of this poem? That is unhelpful to me. What I can do is ask this student to learn how to give feedback and how to take feedback, learn how to attempt several drafts, learn how to collaborate with another student, learn how to take risks in performance, learn how to work on the skills that are going to serve them beyond just this one single poem in their process as a writer and as a performer or a person who says words right. So because I think that when we focus too much on the product, it turns it into something that feels failable and that has the risk of really damaging someone's relationship to poetry, frankly. So because I think that way when I'm thinking about my students, I would also say, can we have that kind of compassion for ourselves as writers?
- [33:44]
Chris Duffy
Yeah, it's interesting. When I'm writing scripts, if I'm working on a TV project, one of the things that I always think is that the point is not to write one perfect script. That's impossible. The point is to get to draft 10 as quickly as I can. And sometimes that requires a very bad draft one, so that draft two can be a little bit better, and then draft ten will inevitably be better than one or two ever. It could be. And I think about the same thing. Right. Like, one of the things that I love about podcasting is that it's just inherently iterative. Like, it comes out every week. And so by the end of a year, I listen back and I like this episode better than the other episodes, hopefully. Right. Fingers crossed. You know, But I think just by doing it and making it not about each one being perfect, you inherently get better. And I think the people. And I'm including myself in this, but people who focus on making sure that the one thing they put out is as good as it could possibly be, they often end up never putting out anything at all because it's kind of impossible to make one thing be as good as it could ever possibly be.
- [34:44]
Sarah Kay
Yeah. Or another way of thinking about that is because, like, let me not sit here and pretend that I'm not that. And, like, let me not point fingers when I should be pointing them at myself. Like, I'm absolutely somebody who is a perfectionist. Or if not a perfectionist, than just, you know, very product oriented sometimes and trying to work on that.
- [35:07]
Chris Duffy
Yes, absolutely. I think that when you think about it less as a product, because if it's a product, then you finish it one time, it's done. And it doesn't matter if you're still curious or have more to say. But if you think about it as process, well, you want to get to the bottom of this hole that you're digging, and you want to see what is the treasure that's buried down there.
- [35:25]
Sarah Kay
Exactly. And sometimes you find something and you're like, amazing. Wait, is there more down there? And you keep going. That happens too. I mean, I'll be wr Poems about my little brother for as long as the two of us are on this earth. Right. So I have written one poem, and I'm not like, well, figured him out.
- [35:44]
Chris Duffy
Yep. Locked him up. Phil, you're done. We're coming to the end of this interview. So what is one idea or book or movie or piece of music that has made you a better human? What's one thing?
- [35:58]
Sarah Kay
Yeah. I knew this question was coming, and I still didn't prepare thoroughly enough for it. One idea that has made me a better human is when I realized that I could love someone and think about them all the time and care about them and be invested in their life. And they can't know that unless I show it to them. And this was important, especially when I was traveling all the time because I was physically far away from pretty much everyone in my life and I was so sure that it was obvious that I missed everyone. But no one knows that that's happening in my brain. And so I think figuring out that I needed to find small ways to demonstrate that and it didn't require a lot. You know, that's a text message, that's a silly photo, that's a package in the mail, whatever it is. But I think just the putting two and two together to say, like, yeah, you just carrying in your head is not the same thing as you expressing it in a tangible way that someone else can experience it. I think that really helped make me a better friend and a better person.
- [37:23]
Chris Duffy
That's beautiful and so, so important and true. Well, Sarah, I always love talking to you. It's always just such an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for being on the show and thanks for sharing your work and your wisdom with us.
- [37:36]
Sarah Kay
Thanks for having me.
- [37:42]
Chris Duffy
That is it for today's episode. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and this has been how to Be a Better Human. Thanks so much to our guests for this episode. Sarah K. On the TED side this show is brought to you by Abhimanyudas, who's penning an ode Daniela Balarezzo, who's writing a haiku Frederika Elizabeth Yosefov, who is scripting a sonnet Ann Powers, who's crafting a limerick and Kara Newman, who's vibing on a villanelle from PRX Productions. How to Be a Better Human is brought to you by the allegorical Jocelyn Gonzalez, the rhetorical Pedro Rafael Rosado and the literal Sandra Lopez. Thanks to you for listening. If you enjoyed our show, please share this episode with a friend and leave us a positive review. We really appreciate it and it makes a big difference. Thanks so much. Have a great week. Hey, guys, it's Corey from Surviving Reality. Don't miss Hulu's new original series, Got to Get Out. It's a reality competition series hosted by Simu Liu, where nine celebrities are locked in a mansion with 11 reality TV rookies all scheming on how to escape the estate and take home a million bucks. Got to get out is stacked with reality royalty, including Spencer Pratt from the Hills, Kim Zolciak Biermann and Cynthia Bailey from Real Housewives, Omarosa from the Apprentice, Susan Knowles and Demi Burnett from the Bachelor, and more. All episodes of Got to Get out are now streaming on Hulu. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One Bank Guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Aw, really? Thanks, Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com Capital One NA Member FDIC.
- [39:40]
Sarah Kay
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