How taking a second look can change your everything

Summary

TED Radio Hour: How Taking a Second Look Can Change Your Everything

Host: Manoush Zomorodi | Release Date: June 27, 2025

In the episode titled "How Taking a Second Look Can Change Your Everything," host Manoush Zomorodi delves into the transformative power of re-examining familiar concepts, objects, and stories. Through a series of compelling narratives and insightful interviews, the episode highlights how a fresh perspective can lead to innovation, deeper understanding, and personal growth. Below is a detailed summary of the key segments featured in this episode.

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1. Agnieszka Pilat and Her Robot Dog, Basha

Timestamp: 01:26 – 06:27

Artist Agnieszka Pilat introduces listeners to Basha, a sophisticated robotic dog developed by Boston Dynamics, priced at around $200,000. Unlike traditional pets, Basha embodies the intersection of art, technology, and societal perceptions.

• Humanizing Technology: Agnieszka shares her experience of walking Basha in public, revealing how people's reactions range from curiosity to fear. She notes, “People will ask questions, how fast can it run?” (02:18) highlighting the blend of fascination and apprehension towards advanced robotics.

• Artistic Exploration: Trained as a classical portrait artist, Agnieszka transitioned to painting technology after moving to San Francisco in 2013. She remarks, “If Andy Warhol were alive, his Marilyn Monroe would be robot Basha” (04:22), emphasizing her vision of portraying modern technological icons.

• Human-Robot Relationship: The segment explores the emotional connections humans form with robots. Despite knowing Basha’s capabilities, Agnieszka admits, “I found Basha strangely cute” (03:52), illustrating the innate human tendency to attribute emotions to lifelike machines.

• Future of Robotics: Agnieszka advocates for proactive engagement with technology, comparing it to parenting AI. “We are parenting these new technologies... we have to be almost helicopter parenting and teaching and passing on these positive values” (11:55), she asserts, stressing the importance of guiding technological advancements ethically.

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2. Franziska Troutman and Glass Half Full: Recycling for Coastal Restoration

Timestamp: 15:34 – 24:50

Franziska Troutman, CEO and co-founder of Glass Half Full, shares her innovative approach to recycling glass to combat coastal erosion in Louisiana.

• Problem Identification: Faced with Louisiana’s severe coastal erosion and inefficient glass recycling systems, Franziska sought a sustainable solution. “We thought there had to be a better way, something to do about the glass recycling issue in Louisiana” (16:34), she explains.

• Innovative Solution: The company transforms recycled glass into sand, a critical material for both construction and coastal restoration. Franziska details the process, “Glass comes from sand. We found this machine that could turn glass back into sand” (20:02), highlighting the cyclical nature of their recycling method.

• Community Engagement: By setting up collection bins and involving the community, Glass Half Full fostered local participation. Franziska observes, “people are hugely excited to recycle their glass” (21:25), demonstrating the positive reception of their initiative.

• Challenges and Growth: Despite initial skepticism and logistical hurdles, Franziska’s perseverance led to significant scaling. “Last year we did about 4 million pounds of glass, and we are aiming to triple that this year at least” (23:07), she shares, showcasing the company’s rapid growth and impact.

• Environmental Impact: The recycled sand is utilized in coastal restoration projects, addressing both waste management and land preservation. Franziska emphasizes, “We wanted to see if we could use it for coastal restoration” (22:11), underscoring the dual benefits of their approach.

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3. Tavares Straughan and the Encyclopedia of Invisibility

Timestamp: 26:04 – 45:48

Artist Tavares Straughan introduces his ambitious project, the Encyclopedia of Invisibility, a 3,000-page leather-bound book cataloging forgotten stories and figures who have been erased from mainstream history.

• Recognition of Hidden Histories: Tavares recounts his childhood in the Bahamas, where access to comprehensive knowledge was limited. “I know more about Napoleon and Christopher Columbus than I do about, for example, the River Nile or Marcus Garvey” (27:34), he reflects, highlighting the gaps in historical education.

• Creation of the Encyclopedia: Motivated to preserve untold stories, Tavares spent twelve years compiling over 17,000 entries. “There are an infinite amount of lost stories to be told” (32:49), he affirms, emphasizing the importance of recognizing diverse contributions.

• Honoring Unsung Heroes: A significant entry is dedicated to Robert Henry Lawrence, the first Black astronaut who tragically died before his mission. Tavares describes the process of honoring Lawrence by launching a gold satellite named Enoch into space, symbolizing his legacy. “After four years of rigorous testing, planning and sculpting, a satellite was produced in honor of Robert” (38:00).

• Art as a Tool for Change: Tavares believes art plays a crucial role in interrogating and reshaping societal narratives. “Artists are really good at systems and thinking about systems” (40:03), he states, advocating for the continued support of artistic endeavors to foster critical thinking and societal progress.

• Future Endeavors: His upcoming exhibition, "The Day Tomorrow Began," aims to explore the complexities of heroism and the nuanced legacies of historical figures. “There's a deep level of complexity with the idea of a hero... What do we do when our heroes are not perfect?” (41:12), Tavares muses, inviting audiences to engage with multifaceted historical narratives.

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4. Mike Posner’s Journey to Happiness Through Walking

Timestamp: 45:48 – 52:47

Musician Mike Posner shares his profound personal transformation achieved by undertaking a 3,000-mile walk across the United States.

• Quest for Happiness: Struggling with depression and the superficial pursuit of fame, Mike sought genuine happiness. “I was very effective at getting people to like me... but the happiness that dad wanted for me, it just wasn't there” (46:18).

• Embarking on the Journey: Defying industry expectations, Mike began his cross-country walk to find purpose and fulfillment. “All great ideas are crazy” (48:36), he quotes, illustrating his readiness to embrace unconventional paths.

• Overcoming Adversity: The journey was fraught with challenges, including severe foot pain and a life-threatening rattlesnake bite. “I had to call 911 and I asked dispatch, am I going to die?” (49:20), Mike recounts, emphasizing the physical and emotional hurdles he faced.

• Life Lessons Learned:

  • Lesson 1: Not all crazy ideas are great, but all great ideas are crazy.
  • Lesson 2: Step one is take one step, underscoring the importance of beginning despite fears.
  • Lesson 3: When it comes to things I care about, my reasons to quit are always excuses in disguise, highlighting resilience.
  • Lesson 4: True happiness comes from growth, reflecting on personal development through struggle.
  • Lesson 5: Don't wait, inspired by his late father’s unfulfilled wish to see him achieve his biggest dream.

• Achieving Fulfillment: After six months and nearly 3,000 miles, Mike found genuine happiness in completing his walk. “While I was in that water and unfamiliar emotion washed over me, that was happiness” (52:47), he shares, encapsulating the culmination of his transformative journey.

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Conclusion

Through the stories of Agnieszka Pilat, Franziska Troutman, Tavares Straughan, and Mike Posner, this episode of TED Radio Hour illustrates how taking a second look—whether at technology, environmental issues, historical narratives, or personal goals—can lead to profound change and innovation. Each guest embodies the essence of reconsidering the familiar to uncover new possibilities, inspiring listeners to adopt a similar approach in their own lives.

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Notable Quotes:

• Agnieszka Pilat: “We are parenting these new technologies... we have to be almost helicopter parenting and teaching and passing on these positive values” (11:55).

• Franziska Troutman: “We thought that was a shame. We thought that there had to be a better way, something to do about the glass recycling issue in Louisiana” (16:34).

• Tavares Straughan: “Artists are trained to investigate things at a very, very high level. And I think that is a very important skill to the future of human survival” (44:53).

• Mike Posner: “True happiness comes from growth” (52:47).

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This episode underscores the value of curiosity, perseverance, and critical thinking in driving meaningful change, encouraging listeners to look beyond the surface and reimagine what is possible.

Transcript

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[Minouche Zamorodi]

This is the TED Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks.

[Mike Posner]

Our job now is to dream big.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Delivered at TED Conferences to bring about the future we want to see around the world. To understand who we are. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you. You just don't know what you're going to find challenge you.

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We truly have to ask ourselves, like.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Why is it noteworthy and even change you? I literally feel like I'm a different person.

[Franziska Troutman]

Yes.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading from TED and npr. I'm Minouche Zamorodi. On the show today, double takes ideas that dare us to take a second look. The other day I went for a walk in my neighborhood with a new friend and her dog.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

Her name is Basha. You could call her Basha.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Hi, Basha.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

So sometimes little kids first gonna have a moment of hesitation, but then curiosity wins and they're always gonna see it.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

This is artist Agnieszka Pilat. And as we strolled with her dog Basha, we turned a lot of heads.

[Tavares Straughan]

What the hell is that?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Oh, my God.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

This is Basia. She's hanging out with us because Basia.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Is not just any dog. She's a robot dog who came from the company Boston Dynamics and cost around $200,000.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

Yeah, you can touch her. Just don't put your fingers in the joint.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Oh, yeah.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

No.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Do people ever get scared?

[Agnieszka Pilat]

Small kids sometimes are a little uneasy for a second. People will ask questions, how fast can it run?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Okay. Or what's the answer?

[Agnieszka Pilat]

I don't know because it's like it's not a running dog for me.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Okay. Right. The factory name for these four legged robots is Spot. They can run up to 11 miles per hour and were built to enter dangerous places like collapsed buildings and to help patrol areas. Maybe you've seen the video of one monitoring President Trump's Mar A Lago residents or the reports of them assisting New York City police with a raid. Critics say they are simply tools of a burgeoning surveillance state. But as an artist, Agnieszka Says people's response to Baja shows it's more complicated than that.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

It's a Russia test. You saw this a little bit, right? How different people arrive differently. It tells you a lot about the person, how they react towards Baa, which I think is kind of cool.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

This is literally the route that I take my dog on every single day. And she doesn't listen to me like Asha, listen like Ashna.

[Tavares Straughan]

Yeah, there you go.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

Another advantage of a robo dog. What is that?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Basha robot dog. Do you want to.

[Franziska Troutman]

Oh, man.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Basha can be trained to move autonomously, but today, engineer Glenn Gartner and his son Devin were operating Basha with a remote control. During our walk, she confused many humans and real dogs too.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

She doesn't have a smell, so dogs really are very confused about the no smell, because it kind of looks like a dog, walks like a dog, but doesn't smell like a dog, which is a big problem.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

I'm a tech reporter, and I've been reporting on digital privacy for over a decade. And yet I found Basha strangely cute despite knowing what she could be capable of. Yeah, okay, Good girl.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

You.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Wait, why am I talking like this to her? I sound ridiculous. Agnieszka was trained as a classical portrait artist. But in 2013, she moved to San Francisco and began painting portraits of technology, which eventually led her to Basha.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

I wanted to paint a portrait of a celebrity of today. And so 2018, I met Basha and I thought, okay, if Andy Warhol were alive, his Marilyn Monroe would be robot Basha. So that's how I first encountered the robot.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

After seeing her portraits of Basha, the engineers at Boston Dynamics came up with another idea.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

They're like, well, you can't just paint a portrait. You have to play with the robot. You have to teach the robot how to paint. So it was actually initiated by engineers at Boston Dynamics.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Today, Basia helps Agnieszka explore that tension between humans and technology. The two do exhibits together, even painting together, but she's a tool to you. She is not a sentient being and not a substitute for a real mammal in your house. She's something completely different.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

She is. She's a different species on her own, but she's not the vacuum cleaner. So she's more than that. But. Yes, but I mean, I understand technology. She's not self aware. She doesn't have self awareness. And yeah, she doesn't have some weird emerging behaviors.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

And yet you feel like you're nurturing her in some way too.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

Yes, yes. But in a sense, it's like if you had a doll you know, we get attached to. And you were talking to Basha. I mean, everyone speaks to her.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

I couldn't help it. But I think part of it is the way that she moves is so fluid and smooth and animalistic that you want to be respectful to her in some ways, or to show compassion.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

And so this is interesting. So it goes to the core of robotics. We start assigning to them abilities and maybe even feelings. Actually, it's really. A lot of it is just really engineering. It's going to be interesting to see if actually AI will enable robotics to come out of its cage, so to speak.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

By taking Basia out in public, Agnieszka hopes that the spectacle of this robot dog sparks people's curiosity, not just their fear.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

As an artist, we are obligated to ask questions and to highlight the big changes that's coming.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

What can we learn from those who manage to provoke us to look and then look again? Why should we reconsider something we think we already understand? Today on the show, we double takes ideas from speakers who want us to go beyond a cursory glance. How they're pushing people to look at technology, history, and even recycling with fresh eyes. As an artist, Agnieszka Pilat knows that some might assume she fears AI and its potential threat to her livelihood. So she loves surprising them with the story behind her techno optimism.

[Tavares Straughan]

Growing up in communist Poland, I was subjected to Soviet propaganda most of my life.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Here she is on the TED stage.

[Tavares Straughan]

So this might be kind of strange to say, but today I am a propaganda artist and I work for the machine. How did this happen? Well, let me take you back to my childhood in communist Poland, where crumbling factories were were my playground. I didn't have access to modern technology. We didn't have a car, a telephone. We had a radio that played the music of Chopin day and night. But some stations my parents didn't like me to hear.

[Robert Henry Lawrence]

The Iron Curtain remains a reality.

[Tavares Straughan]

I remember one evening, my brother and I could hear a strange broadcast from behind a closed door.

[Robert Henry Lawrence]

But an iron Curtain cannot stop the transmission of radio waves which pass overhead.

[Tavares Straughan]

It was only many years later when I realized that was an illegal station, Radio Free Europe. But back then, as a little girl, I could see my parents come out of that room, changed with a sentiment in their eyes than was unknown to me till then. It was hope. That old crackly radio was my first encounter with the miracle of technology. And while this story might seem sad to me, it's really beautiful. Portraiture always tells stories of the privileged class in middle Ages, the subject were kings and queens. With the birth of capitalism, Dutch merchants commissioned portraits to indicate their growing influence. Warhol's celebrity portraits were a brilliant commentary on the growing power of pop icons in 20th century America. So likewise, as a portrait painter, I decided to paint the power brokers of our time. Intelligent machine.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

So when I first came to Silicon Valley from Poland, my grand idea was, I want to work for the machine. I want to be the court painter for the machine, for technology. And I started painting portraits of old machines, kind of thinking of them as they are royal portraits because this is the royalty of America.

[Tavares Straughan]

The first thing I consider when painting as a portrait painter is the age of my subject. So when looking at Basia, I ask myself, in robot years, how old is she? Basha was different from all my previous machine subjects, like vintage airplane parts or lunar space models painted in my studio on a World War II aircraft career. They had history, they had personality. Basha's personality wasn't formed yet. Now she was like a child, teenager maybe at most still growing up, receiving frequent firmware upgrades. You see, every time I take Basia for a walk, we meet people in person who are curious. They stop us, they take videos, they ask questions. There is a genuine sense of excitement. But as soon as these videos are posted online, mean comments appear accusing us of surveillance robots taking over. People actually threaten to smash Basha into pieces, throw her into a river in person. If someone doesn't like us, they just cross the street. But on the Internet, these fears grow into threats and insults, spreading across social media and the search engines.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

I think the main beauty of robotics is that it forces people to interact with technology in real life, and we're much better in real life as human beings. As soon as someone will post a video online, mean comments are going to pour in.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Part of me is proud of people for saying, watch out for surveillance. Like, there was a point where I think people were very naive about technology and didn't think about these things. So part of me thinks, good, I'm glad that they're asking questions. Do you think there's something dangerous about it?

[Agnieszka Pilat]

I think technology has been unfairly targeted. I think it's even more urgent to engage with technology because there's not going to be a moratorium. No robots, no AI. We have to engage actively. That's the only thing we can do, like with children. So I think about my work as kindergarten. We are parenting these new technologies. We are parenting AI. It's a kindergarten, and we have to be almost helicopter parenting and teaching and passing on these positive values because otherwise we are in big trouble.

[Tavares Straughan]

In current form, AI is like a young child watching, mimicking the world for the first time in its own unique way. Basia has a physical body puts her in place and in time. But many AI models, they live in the cloud, disembodied. At Universal, they don't have just one teacher or one parent. Such an AI is a global child with the whole of human civilization parenting it. We have to nurture this young prodigy artificial intelligence. That's what technology is to me. It's hope for a better future. That's why I am a propaganda artist and I work for the machine.

[Agnieszka Pilat]

Thank you.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

That was artist Agnieszka Pilat. You can see her full [e-mail] and check out the video of my day with [e-mail] on the show today, Double Takes. I'm Minouche Zomorodi and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. Be right back.

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[Minouche Zamorodi]

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[Minouche Zamorodi]

This message is from Spectrum Business. From independently owned storefronts just open for business to established professional services run from large offices, Spectrum is committed to delivering connectivity solutions for any size business. Create a plan made for your business with fast, reliable Internet, TV packages, phone, mobile services and more, all backed by the Spectrum commitment. From one employee to thousands, Spectrum keeps your business connected. Learn [e-mail] Business it's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Anoush Zamorodi. On the show today, double takes. Inspiring ideas that come from taking a second look at something, sometimes something very small. For Franziska Trautman, it was a glass of wine.

[Franziska Troutman]

We were actually sharing a bottle of wine. Admittedly fair, it was a Two buck Chuck from Trader Joe's.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Those were college days back in 2020. Franziska and her boyfriend were students at Tulane University in New Orleans.

[Franziska Troutman]

And after we finished that bottle, you know, we often had nights like this where we were, you know, having a little drink, talking about life and what we wanted to do, and we were like, hold on, this bottle is going to end up in a landfill. Because Louisiana had virtually no glass recycling.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Oh, really? Even in the places where they do recycle, right?

[Franziska Troutman]

Yeah. So, like, for example, New Orleans has curbside recycling, but you cannot put glass in your curbside bin.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Louisiana also does not have a bottle deposit program, so no getting nickels or dimes back for returns. And in theory, glass is infinitely recyclable. But many recyclers there consider glass a nuisance.

[Franziska Troutman]

Glass is super heavy. It breaks. And so in those cases, it's hard to separate from other recyclables. And we thought that was a shame. We thought that there had to be a better way, something to do about the glass recycling issue in Louisiana. And so we kind of started Googling.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Like, where to recycle glass or how. Like, what did you want to know?

[Franziska Troutman]

Yeah, all of the above. We really wanted to know anything and everything about recycling, about glass. I think the first thing we found online was that it wouldn't be viable for us to collect the glass and send it to someone else to process or recycle. Texas was the closest option, which was like five to six hours away, depending on where in Texas it is. And so we did some back of the napkin math on that and realized that that would never work economically. So, yeah, then we knew the next step was like, okay, we have to do something. We have to process the glass into something that can be used locally.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

As a kid growing up in southern Louisiana, recycling wasn't much on Franziska's mind, But the joys of nature were.

[Franziska Troutman]

Yeah, I actually grew up on a bayou. You know, when it rains, you run outside to play in the mud. When it's hot in the summer, you jump in said bayou and have no care in the world about gators.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

In Louisiana, though, there is always a sense that nature is in jeopardy.

[Franziska Troutman]

You're always, unfortunately, familiar with the coastal erosion crisis. It feels like one day we'll just be washed away or flooded and, you know, never see our homes. That kind of scary.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

And big Louisiana loses up to 35 square miles of land every year, an area larger than Manhattan. And so when she got to college and had that moment looking at the bottle she wondered, instead of the landfill, could this glass go to the shore? Could it help restore the land?

[Narrator]

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, how in the world would two college kids ever be able to make a dent in these problems?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Franziska Troutman picks up the story from the TED stage.

[Narrator]

And that would be valid. Plenty of people told us the exact same thing, but we didn't listen. Because we knew that no matter how small of an impact we made, it would be worth felt like we could alleviate two problems with one solution. Convert the otherwise landfilled glass back into sand and use it in restoration projects across the state. Easy, right? But we didn't listen to the haters, which is actually why we named our company Glass Half Full. But that glass half empty mindset might actually be one of the biggest threats we face today. Dread, doom, and gloom tend to get us nowhere. Whereas hope combined with action can be one of the most powerful tools to enact change.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

So instead of being like, okay, we're gonna find a way to recycle glass to be more glass, you were like, let's find a way to use glass that is productive in a very different way. Remind us of the relationship, if you would, between glass and sand.

[Franziska Troutman]

Yeah, so glass comes from sand. And we found this machine that could turn glass back into sand. And sand is something we use, you know, every day in various materials. And it has to be mined to be used in glass bottle manufacturing, but also in concrete and buildings, and also our phones and things like toothpaste. And so when we realized we could turn glass back into sand, then we knew that we could use the sand for something locally, even if it wasn't coastal restoration. Because I knew that it would take some research to figure that out. We could use it in construction, we could use it in landscaping, you know, things that sand are used for. It felt like, why don't we do that?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

So still, college students, Francisca and her friends jumped into action. They set up shop in a fraternity house and raised money to buy their first glass crushing machine.

[Franziska Troutman]

It was like the size of a tween, like a 12 year old. And it has this long skinny neck on it. So you put the bottle in the top, it falls down that chute, and then it meets the hammer mill. And then at the bottom, there's a bucket, and that's where the sand comes out.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Then they set up collection bins all around town and found out that people were hugely excited to recycle their glass.

[Franziska Troutman]

So we would swap out the full ones for empty ones and then bring all the glass to the back of the frat house, that was where it.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

All got turned back into sand.

[Franziska Troutman]

Just like 10 people in this backyard. We have some music bumping and, like, some people are sorting through the glass, some people are taking caps off. There's one person crushing, and the rest of us are, like, hand sifting the material. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. We're, like, trying to make it fun, you know, we're begging our friends to come help us crush glass. And basically we did that till nighttime and even past that, and then went home, went to bed and did it.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Again and again and again. And when they weren't crushing glass, they were scheming about what to do with the sand they were left with.

[Franziska Troutman]

The goal was to figure out if we could use it for coastal restoration. But we also knew that we couldn't just go dump it on beaches and be, like, done. You know, there had to be some research involved. So I brought that to a lot of my professors, and we ended up applying for a National Science foundation grant to do that research.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

What they found is they could use biodegradable sandbags and plant native grasses to build back the marshes to restore the land. That convinced many Louisianans to pay a bit to join their recycling program. Now Francisca has a business and does it full time.

[Franziska Troutman]

We outgrew the smaller spaces pretty quickly. So By August of 2020, we had moved into a 40,000 square foot facility. Just the hopper itself is, like two stories tall.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Wow.

[Franziska Troutman]

Last year we did about 4 million pounds of glass, and we are aiming to triple that this year at least.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

I mean, how many beer bottles are we talking?

[Franziska Troutman]

So a beer bottle is half a pound. So £4 million would be 8 million beer bottles.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Wow.

[Franziska Troutman]

The loud part is definitely the bottles. Like the bottles being dumped from a dump truck that's really loud. And then scooping the bottles from, like, the ground into the hopper. And we create three main products. One is the sand for coastal restoration, but we also now create flint and amber cullet. So cullet is the raw material to make new bottles.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

And what's been the reaction? Like, to me, I'm like, this is amazing. This makes total sense. But I know that's never as simple as it sounds. Who are the people who have take issue with you? Like, what are some of your challenges?

[Franziska Troutman]

I will say overall, people are extremely supportive and really do love our idea and love what we're trying to do. So some of the main complaints I get, at least in Louisiana, are people who think I'm trying to solve all of coastal erosion in Louisiana. I get comments like, we don't have nearly enough glass bottles to solve our coastal erosion issue. And I'm like, duh, I'm not trying to solve our entire coastal erosion issue. I don't think that's possible for one solution or one person. I think it's going to take so many different solutions and so many different people getting involved to solve this huge issue.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

And let's say someone's like, all right, but I don't know, how do I get into that mindset that you were in where you looked at something and thought, you know what, we can do something with this instead of just throwing it away? How do you sort of coach people to have that creative approach?

[Franziska Troutman]

I think I'm still learning how to truly get people to think that way. But the best method that I think I've found, showing people is like, show by doing. We were always sharing our struggles, what we needed help with and what was going wrong. And I think people saw that and felt more compelled to help.

[Narrator]

The key was that we simply started and we kept going somewhere. The belief that we as individuals could enact change trumped our doubts. And for us, finding a way to help with a problem much, much bigger than us meant taking that first step. And in our case, it was a step in the sand in an eroding but once magnificent swamp. Thank y' all.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

That's Franziska Troutman. She is the CEO and co founder of Glass Half Full. You can see her full [e-mail] on the show today. Double takes people compelling us to take a look at something we think we understand.

[Tavares Straughan]

Ralph Ellison, who wrote the Invisible man, sums it up quite nicely. I think he says, sometimes invisibility is a refusal to see. It's not that the information is not there. It's more about training ourselves to be conscious of the things that we're not necessarily paying attention to.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

This is artist Tavares Straughan. And he was first introduced to this idea when he was a child growing up in the Bahamas.

[Tavares Straughan]

We have a big family. There's over 60 plus grandkids.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

60 plus?

[Tavares Straughan]

Yep. My grandmother and grandfather had 13 kids. So when we were all together, was a big group of people.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

When he was around 10 years old, his grandfather came home with a set of encyclopedias.

[Tavares Straughan]

And it was a big deal, as you would imagine, because all of a sudden all these little kids had access to all this knowledge. So imagine the pomp and circumstance of having these encyclopedias arrive at the house And I remember first looking at them thinking, how absurd is this process of collecting this much information and trying to share it with the general population?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

That's what went through your mind as a kid?

[Tavares Straughan]

I thought it was very odd. I thought there was a certain level of hubris in the process. And I realized that immediately they weren't the kind of stories that reflected the environment that we were in. So I know more about Napoleon and Christopher Columbus than I do about, for example, you know, the River Nile or Marcus Garvey or any kind of African origin. And at the time, I think the population of the Bahamas was probably 90% black. And so all we were being fed was material that was being scripted for a primarily European audience. And so I think the question always was, where are we? Who are the people who are in this community? Are we located anywhere else and represented anywhere else?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

I mean, that's incredibly astute for a young kid. I think I probably would have thought, like, whoa, I can hold the world's knowledge between my two hands. But that is not what you thought.

[Tavares Straughan]

You know, I feel like that level of skepticism, healthy skepticism, that is, was what pushed me towards the arts in the first place.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

As an adult, Tavares took that skepticism to art school in the U.S. he also started traveling the globe searching for.

[Tavares Straughan]

Lost stories and trying to understand what a society does with all the information that is not recorded in Not a part of the Zeitgeist, if you will.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

And as a grad student, he came across a name he'd never heard before, Matthew Henson.

[Tavares Straughan]

Matthew Henson was one of, or if not the first, to make it to the North Pole. And he traveled in 1909 with Robert Perry.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

I had never heard of Matthew Henson, and I'm guessing that most people listening also have not heard of Matthew Henson. Can you tell us about him?

[Tavares Straughan]

Yeah. Matthew Henson. He worked as a Deccan with Admiral Perry for many, many years. As a teenager, traveled throughout Central and South America. Admiral Robert Perry was an explorer himself in his own right. And they had just spent so many years together. And then the race to the poles began. And for context, this race was like going to space, making it to the north pole back in 1909. So this was a big deal, if you know what I mean. And I think one of the things that really turned the tide was Tencent became one of the more trusted explorers on the team, if you will. His mushing skills, his navigational skills, his ability to withstand the freezing temperatures, all those things mixed together. And also his kind of social prowess, his ability to navigate the indigenous folks that he was interacting with. And in 1909, they made a trek to the pole and successfully arrived at the pole. And this was a big deal. And for the most part, Henson's story was more or less left as a kind of shadow to the main story of Perry.

[Robert Henry Lawrence]

Now, this son of a sharecropper had managed over seven Arctic expeditions, yet his massive, massive contributions became lost to history. And I ain't really cool with that.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Here's Tavares Strahan on the TED stage.

[Robert Henry Lawrence]

So years later, I decided to make my own encyclopedia. It's called the Encyclopedia of Invisibility.

[Tavares Straughan]

This is a.

[Robert Henry Lawrence]

3,000 page leather bound book that has over 17,000 entries. Now, the first entry that I wrote was on, you guys may have guessed it, the explorer of Matthew Henson. From there I thought, who and what else should be included in these pages? I would make list after list of things that were excluded from history and research them. At first it was just me alone, then I needed an assistant, and then I needed an entire team. And together we would comb the globe looking for people, places, and things that were mostly untold. So let's look at this entry on Robert Smalls. Now, the great Robert Smalls freed himself from slavery, overtook a bunch of Confederate ships, freed a whole bunch of slaves from those ships, and then majestically marched on to become one of the first black congressmen in the United States. Then there's an entry on rhinoceros. Did any of you know there was a woolly rhinoceros? No. Then there's an entry on Sister Rosetta Tharp. Sister Rosetta Tharpe is the mother of all rock and roll. Then there's an entry on the great John Edmonstone, the man that taught a very young Charles Darwin the art of taxidermy and a whole lot more. Now, after 12 years, a limited edition of this encyclopedia was published as an artwork occupying these territories between sculpture, book and installation. And this experience truly convinced me that there are an infinite amount of lost stories to be told.

[Tavares Straughan]

The encyclopedia is a very large. It's black to blue leather with gold accoutrement and gilding. And it's very much channeling this, like, 17th century notion of the book. And I'm really playing with that, using that language of authority, of knowledge. And these entries kind of feel very similar to what you would visually look at in a traditional encyclopedia, except they include the kinds of things that you might not learn at school.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

When we come back, the missing story that Tavares Strahan found while training as a cosmonaut in Russia on the show today, Double Takes. I'm Manoush Zamarodi and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. We'll be right back.

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[Minouche Zamorodi]

This message comes from NPR sponsor Informatica. Everybody's ready for AI except your data. Informatica offers the only end to end AI powered platform that connects, manages and unifies your data across virtually any multi cloud hybrid environment. Informatica accelerates your AI readiness and scale at a pace that allows you to pay for only what you use without compromise. Get your Data ready for [e-mail] AI Informatica where data and AI come to life on NPR's wildcard podcast. Michelle Obama says she's reinventing herself. I don't know if my ambition has ever fully been able to actualize itself. I think I'm now at a stage in my life where all my choices are mine. I'm Rachel Martin. Listen to Wildcard for a conversation about balancing family and personal growth with Michelle Obama. It's the TED Radio Hour from npr. I'm Minouche Zamorodi. On the show today, double takes. What happens when we take a second look? We were just talking to artist Tavares Straughan, creator of the 3,000 page Encyclopedia of Invisibility. This is a book full of forgotten stories that he believes deserve their place in the history books. There's another entry that I would love you to tell us about. Robert Henry Lawrence. How did you find out about him?

[Tavares Straughan]

I think I'd just come back from space training in Star City, Russia.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Wait, I'm sorry, you can't just start a sentence like that. What Rewind.

[Tavares Straughan]

Yeah. So when I'd come back from the Arctic on one of my first expeditions, I started to think about space. And in a parallel way, I wanted to get the kids in my neighborhood to think about exploration. And so one of the things that I was thinking about was, how do I do that? And one of the ways to do it is to go train to be an astronaut, or, depending on where you are, a cosmonaut. And so I spent many, many months over a couple of years doing this training.

[Franziska Troutman]

Wow.

[Tavares Straughan]

Back and forth to Russia, and then the story of Robert Henry Lawrence started to emerge as the first kind of black astronaut who was supposed to go to space and then wasn't able to make it because he had died in a training exercise when the plane that he was on exploded.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Had you heard that story previously?

[Tavares Straughan]

I hadn't, no. I think I learned about Robert Lawrence from one of the astronauts, actually, that I was working with in Russia.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

So you added Robert Lawrence to the encyclopedia, but you also created an unusual piece of art.

[Tavares Straughan]

Yeah. I think the big question in my head was, seriously, is there a way to get this guy who died so tragically into space?

[Robert Henry Lawrence]

So step one was to find someone who died with a rocket and who has rockets. The head of SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell. And then I had to figure out who was going to be as interested in these lost stories as I was the head of SpaceX, Gwen Shotwell. We were introduced by the LA County Museum, and after four years of rigorous testing, planning and sculpting, a satellite was produced in honor of Robert. Now, this satellite was made of gold, and it was important for me to have this satellite follow an ancient Egyptian tradition of storytelling by imbuing the essence of a person into a container. Now, this satellite was called Enoch, after the story of a mythological character whose.

[Tavares Straughan]

Walk with the gods was so close.

[Robert Henry Lawrence]

That he never, ever died. On November 30, 2018, Enoch blasted into space in the belly of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into orbit. Almost 50 years after his passing, the legacy of Robert Henry Lawrence is celebrated amongst the stars.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

So SpaceX is, of course, owned by Elon Musk, who was working with the Trump administration to roll back numerous DEI initiatives. And, for example, the Pentagon also is removing names of black, gay and Native American veterans from various places. And I guess, you know, it's confusing. We finally got to a point where as a society, we have started to acknowledge that there are many stories that had not been told. And we are taking another look and bringing them to light. In some places, Obviously not all. And now it feels, though, at least in the United States, that we're not going to be adding to those stories. In fact, we might be taking them away. What are your thoughts on that?

[Tavares Straughan]

Where I go with that immediately is I think about what's the purpose of art and artists, And I think what artists are really, really good at is they're really good at systems and thinking about systems. You know, if you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, once we've achieved food, water, and shelter, I think there's art. Right. And I think it is the thing that will save us. Obviously, I'm biased, but I think it's the thing that will save us. And so where I'm going with all of this is there has been a long, long history of artists interrogating systems. I'm a part of that tradition, and that tradition will never stop. So I feel very much empowered as an artist, more today than I was yesterday. Because if the question is, what do we do next? I think the answer is we continue to support artists in the work that they're doing to interrogate these systems to bring about change.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

What are you working on next? I'm a little trepidatious to ask, really. Are you launching yourself somewhere or tell me what you're thinking about.

[Tavares Straughan]

The thing that I'm working on now is an exhibition entitled the Day Tomorrow Began. It's an immersive work that features a kind of several dialogues regarding the idea of the hero, how societies create heroes, and the monument that we leave behind.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

It seems like you are someone who is a believer in heroes, maybe unsung heroes, as they're called.

[Tavares Straughan]

You know, I think that there's a deep level of complexity with the idea of a hero, because I think a hero denotes a certain level of expectation, of perfection. And I think what we're learning is what happens when our heroes are not perfect. What do we do? How do we think about that? Right. And I'm really interested in that.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

I'm trying to square that with the idea of Henson and Lawrence and turning them into famous figures as they should have been two kids.

[Mike Posner]

And.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

And is that not part of what you're doing, is raising these people up, who were left behind, whose stories weren't told, giving them sort of heroic status for kids so that they have something to aspire to?

[Tavares Straughan]

One of the most powerful things about criticism is the critic has to be careful not to become the thing that they're criticizing. And I think being an artist is always a little bit of A dangerous game of understanding the balance of the kind of the curiosity or the problem that you're trying to solve and kind of reconciling that with the reality. Right?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Yeah.

[Tavares Straughan]

So a good example of that is the first successful and only slave revolution in this hemisphere was the one in Haiti. And King Henry Christoph, who I love in particular, was a part of the movement that basically eradicated France from Haiti. But one of the things that he did as a convention of his scenario, as an ex slave who became a leader, was he became king. Right. So this guy who's a hero of mine, in a way recreated the problem to some degree that he was eradicating. And I'm interested in that. I think that's fascinating, and I accept that as a part of the story also. And I think there's a certain colonial quality to the way that we've told stories over the past hundred years that I think doesn't allow for that layer of complexity. We want to tell the black and white story, and most stories are just not that way. And so how do we captivate an audience with a story? By still being reflective of the future of storytelling, which I think is about being able to make space for the complexity of this person who got rid of Napoleon's army in Haiti and made this place free. And actually not just that inspired the freedom of the folks in the Americas. Like, this is a big deal. So to have someone who is this central figure, you look at him closely and you're like, wait a minute. Why would you want to be a king when we just got rid of the king? Is something that I think we all should take a look at.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

So this episode that we're including our conversation in, we're calling it double takes. Thinking that you know something and then realizing when you look again that you know nothing. Am I accurate in thinking that that's what you're doing? You're asking people to look again, reconsider their preconceived ideas?

[Tavares Straughan]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's oftentimes shocking that these stories that are sitting in plain sight just elude so many of us. And I think the notion of being an artist is synonymous with critical thinking. You couldn't be an artist without being able to think critically. The most important skill as we move into the future with technology and AI is for humans to be able to process critically what they're seeing, how they're seeing it and why they're seeing it. So the level of skepticism that I expressed to you at the beginning of this conversation, when I was a kid I still have today, but I now just call it critical thinking. Artists are trained to investigate things at a very, very high level. And I think that is a very important skill to the future of human survival.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

That's artist Tavares Straughan. You can see his full [e-mail] we want to end our show about double takes with a story from a man who decided to take a second look at what success was bringing him. This is musician Mike Posner.

[Mike Posner]

Some of you may recognize me from that song I Took a Pill in Ibiza. But I'm not the same person I was when I wrote that.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

For Mike, everything changed when he decided to take a step back by ironically, taking a very, very long walk.

[Mike Posner]

I want to tell you about the time that I tried to walk 3,000 miles all the way across the United States of America and the five life lessons that I learned.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Mike Posner continues from the TED stage in 2024.

[Mike Posner]

But way before I tried to walk across America. My story begins with my father. My dad used to always tell me when I was little, Mike, there's two things that are most important to me. I want you to be healthy. I want you to be happy. Now, the healthy part, that came easy to me, but the happiness, I struggle with that. I was kind of a shy and depressed kid, and I thought if I could get everyone to like me, you know, maybe I would be happier. And so I set about trying to get everyone to like me. And I'll let you guys in on a little secret. I was very effective at getting people to like me. In fact, by the time I was 22, I had become famous. I would walk on the stages and people forget about, like, they would scream for me. I would take my shirt off at the concert, they'd scream even louder. I'd go back backstage, they tell me how great I was, but I get to the hotel and I'd be alone. And the happiness that dad wanted for me, it just wasn't there. I tried everything. Therapy, meditation, self help books and retreats. Nothing worked. And so, out of options, I decided to chase after the happiness that dad wanted for me in one last way, in a way that had been stuck in my head for many years, I decided to walk across America. Now, very quickly, the people I worked with in the music industry gave me the feedback that this is a career ending decision. That's when I learned life lesson number one. Not all crazy ideas are great, but all great ideas are crazy. And so I made the decision. But still, these Negative thoughts kept coming up in my head. Thoughts like, what if I really hurt myself permanently from doing this walk? What if I fail? What if I don't make it across? And like, I fail in front of everyone. But on April 15, 2019, I stood off the coast of New Jersey and I took a step. And when I took that step, all the fears and doubts about what made might happen if I chose to do this, they disappeared because I was doing it. And that's when I learned the second lesson. Step one is take one step. I walked across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I walked across Ohio, where I developed blistering foot pain. It was worse than I thought it would be. But I kept going. Before I knew it, I'd been walking for over three months. I could just see the Rocky Mountains on the horizon when.

[Franziska Troutman]

Ow.

[Mike Posner]

Pain shot up my left leg. And then I heard a sound that I didn't want to hear. A poisonous rattlesnake had just sunk its fangs into my left leg. I called 911 and I asked dispatch, am I going to die? And the voice on the other end of the phone said, I don't know, sir. I spent three nights in the icu. My leg swelled to the size of an elephant trunk. I went from walking 24 miles every day to not being able to walk to the bathroom. But after a lot of PT and great medical care, I got better. It's not had a decision to make. I could either a return to my life of fame and luxury and Uber eats and unhappiness, or I could be go back to the sweltering heat, go back to the blistering foot pain. Go back to the sides of the roads where the cars almost hit me every single day. This past sucked and it hurt a lot. But it taught me lesson number three. When it comes to things I care about, my reasons to quit are always excuses in disguise. And so I went back to the exact spot that that darn snake bit me. And I took a step and I kept taking steps until I walked up and over the Rocky Mountains. I kept taking steps until I walked across Navajo Nation. I kept taking steps until I walked across Arizona. I kept taking steps until I walked across Nevada. I kept taking steps until I walked across the Mojave Desert. I kept taking steps until the Hollywood sign was on my right. And after six months and three days, 2,851 miles, 5.7 million steps, I dove face first into the Pacific Ocean. And while I was in that water and unfamiliar emotion washed over me, and that was happiness. That's when I learned lesson number four, true happiness comes from growth. So now I had the health, I had the happiness buying up my dad. Two years before I started walking across America, my dad was diagnosed with glioblastoma as a form of brain cancer. And on January 11, 2017, my dad passed away. And I want to be real with you today. I had the idea and the inspiration to walk across America way before my dad got sick. But every time spring rolled around, I would say, next year, next year. And as a result of me saying next year, my dad never got to see me achieve my biggest dream, my biggest accomplishment, and he never got to see me truly happy. Lesson number five, don't wait.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Thank you. That was musician Mike Posner. You can watch his full talk and [e-mail] this song's for dad. Thank you so much for listening to the show. This episode was produced by Rachel Faulkner White, Katie Monteleone, Kai McNamee, Matthew Cloutier and Fiona Guerin. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes James Delahusy and Harsha Nahada. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Our audio engineers were Simon Jensen, Jimmy Keeley, and Tiffany Vera Castro. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Roxanne Hylash, Alejandra Salazar, and Daniela Balarezzo. I'm Minouche Zamorodi, and you've been listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr.

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