Podcast Summary: ReThinking with Adam Grant

Episode: Ken Burns on Love and Grief (Part 2)

Release Date: January 13, 2026
Host: Adam Grant
Guest: Ken Burns (historian and documentary filmmaker)

Episode Overview

In Part 2 of his conversation with acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, Adam Grant explores deeply personal and philosophical terrain, focusing on themes of love, grief, loss, and the meaning of legacy. The episode features a lively "lightning round" with career and creative insights from Burns, as well as a heartfelt reflection on how grief shapes our lives and work. The discussion blends historical perspective with vulnerability, offering listeners both inspiration and comfort.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power of Presence Through Adversity

• Parenting through Divorce
  • Ken reflects on being a single father, suggesting personal challenges enhanced his presence and priorities as a parent:

    "The failure of the relationships were in fact a godsend with regard to parenting... it didn't permit the distractions of my work ... to take away from the fundamental stuff." (01:02)

  • Burns: “I'm nowhere near as good a filmmaker, I think, as I am a father.” (01:27)

2. Lightning Round: Career Reflections & Iconic Dinner Guests

• Worst Career Advice

  • Move to New York, not New Hampshire (despite his gut and creative interests); skepticism about his slow zoom technique ("No one will ever look at a Zoom that's 35 minutes on a single face... Please do it anyway.") (02:44)
  • Best advice from Robert Penn Warren:

    "Careerism is death... Careerism does presuppose that somebody else has already determined the rut you're in..." (03:29)

• Dream Dinner Party

  • Guests: Louis Armstrong, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Abigail Adams.
  • On Elizabeth Cady Stanton:

    "She's the writer... just phenomenal stylist... you can't even say a proto feminist. She's a feminist and she's anti-slavery." (04:10)

3. Documentary Ideas and Historical Fascinations

• Ken's Response to Film Ideas:
  • Lucy Stone (Suffrage Movement):

    "Terrific project. I agree... wonderful story." (05:21)

  • Supreme Court:

    "Oh, fantastic... filled with spectacularly good and spectacularly bad decisions." (06:34)

  • Future Projects Mentioned:
    • LBJ & the Great Society
    • Emancipation to Exodus (Reconstruction)
    • Barack Obama (multi-hour interviews ongoing)
    • Civil Rights, Cold War, CIA

    "If I were given a thousand years to live... I wouldn't run out of topics in American history." (07:59)

  • OSS/CIA Origin Story and Anecdote (Ho Chi Minh on Independence):

    "Within five weeks, they [Americans] have been told unequivocally by the State Department. Get away from this guy [Ho], he's a commie and we don't like commies anymore.” (08:57)

4. Reflections on Legacy and Rethinking

• Best Post-Presidency:
  • "It's obviously between Jimmy Carter and John Quincy Adams and I can't decide... John Tyler had the worst." (11:22)
• On Changing One’s Mind:
  • Letting go of the need to make others wrong; striving to “check that knee jerk necessity.”

    "The actual act of trying to check that, you fail. But trying to check that is actually what we're supposed to be doing." (11:56)

5. The Enduring Half-Life of Grief

• Ken Burns on Grief:
  • Cites the “endless half-life” of grief after losing his mother at 11:

    “That was 60 and a half years ago. And I wouldn't do what I do if she hadn't died.” (14:50)

  • “Do you agree that the half life of grief is endless? It pays dividends, it has its positive aspects to it, but at the same time it's loss. And loss is loss.” (14:50)
• Adam on Closure:
  • “Closure is a myth... If you love someone, you never let them go. I think grief seems to ebb and flow over time... but I don't think it ever fully fades.” (15:43)
• Memorable Anecdote:
  • Ken’s uncle, after losing his wife: “I want Sarah.” (16:02)
  • Ken: “I am, as I think most people are, in some ways defined much more by loss than by the good times, the gated community, seeming security and that. It's really about these moments and the decisions that you make in them.” (16:43)

6. Perspective in History and Life

• Dual Focus – Macro and Micro:
  • “There is a profound similarity between the architecture of the atom and the architecture of the solar system. Too often we focus either on the macro or the micro to the exclusion of the other.” (17:40)
  • “It's really good to... exist in the tension between the cosmic and the microscopic, the atomic.” (18:19)

7. Enthusiasm, Optimism, and Purpose

• On Criticism for Optimism and Enthusiasm:
  • "Cynicism, that's a luxury that you may possess. I do not have that ability to be cynical. I have to remain optimistic about the human condition because I'M delving into it..." (20:37)
  • Origins of enthusiasm in etymology: “God in us.” (18:40)
• On Grief as Animating Force:
  • Ken’s late father-in-law told him:

    “You wake the dead. You make Abraham Lincoln and Jackie Robinson come alive for us. Who do you think you're really waking up?” (21:40)

  • The name Lila (Ken’s mother)—from bereavement to daily joy as his granddaughter’s name:

    “So the name that was draped in black…we now say it all the time... These are the gifts.” (22:07)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Robert Penn Warren on careerism:

  “Careerism is death.” (03:29) — Ken Burns

• On optimism as a worldview:

  "Cynicism, that's a luxury that you may possess. I do not have that ability to be cynical... I have to remain optimistic about the human condition..." (20:37) — Ken Burns

• On bringing history to life out of love and grief:

  “You wake the dead. You make Abraham Lincoln and Jackie Robinson come alive for us. Who do you think you're really waking up?” (21:40) — Ken Burns’ father-in-law

• On grief’s relentless presence:

  “None of us get out of here alive. So what... is it that tends a garden, raises a child, cures a disease, does a symphony? This is the project.” (12:55) — Ken Burns

• Transformative power of love and grief:

  “Isn't that the ultimate purpose of grief?... to transform.” (22:07) — Adam Grant

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:02: Ken on parenting and single fatherhood
• 02:44: Worst career advice and Warren’s “careerism is death”
• 04:10: Dream dinner party guests (with praise for Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Abigail Adams)
• 05:21: Documentary ideas: Lucy Stone, Supreme Court
• 07:59: Ken’s current/future projects and the unending supply of history
• 11:22: Best/worst post-presidencies (Carter, Adams, Tyler)
• 11:56: Letting go of the need to make others “wrong”
• 14:50: On the “endless half-life” of grief; impact of losing his mother
• 16:02: Personal story of his uncle’s direct grief
• 17:40: Perspective/macro vs micro in life and in history
• 18:40: Optimism and etymology of “enthusiastic”
• 21:40: On making the dead “come alive” through storytelling
• 22:07: The transformation of grief through familial ties and time

Conclusion

This conversation moves seamlessly from the professional wisdom of a master storyteller to the intimate details of loss, reconciling the legacy of those we’ve loved and lost with the work we do in the present. Ken Burns and Adam Grant blend insight, wit, and vulnerability to illuminate the cyclical nature of grief, the necessity of optimism, and the joy of reconnecting with the past to enrich the present and future. Anyone navigating love, loss, or questions about meaningful work will find resonance and inspiration here.