Transcripts For CSPAN2 The New Better Off 20161227

I guess when we planned this we were not looking at the calendar of things. Courtney emailed and sent should we do this and have a book launch to talk about the new better off in this unsettling political landscape. Because of what happened this weekend how unsettled we are, its important that we sit together and talk about things that matter to us. I was sitting down this morning thinking about how to introduce her. You can read all of her credentials. She looks at what is so wife giving and eliminatin illuminat. She is in her full message every week. I wrote down how i want to introduce courtney and im so glad shes here because i love her. Ou [laughter] she is a journalist, but she is a new journalist and is one of the people that is modeling and innovating and incubating new forms of journalism for the 21st century. All of the institutions right now in the early 21st century things that made sense and seems to be were even ten years ago doesnt make sense anymore. One of the things we arenalists, discouraged about are these his typical apocalyptic analyses of whats going t to happen in the next four years and what its going to be in for the end of civilization. These are people who didnt seef a what was right in front of them for the last 18 months. And that kind of hysteria talking journalism work in common life and that isnt just a service to the common life, but where some humility is called for. So we want to pull back to aa ll long lens. Ii would like to sometimes think about if people are looking at our moment in time what are they going to say is really important that was happening right now. Its going to be 100 years from now this shaped the world. It might be the fact that its 70 degrees and sunny in november and minnesota and all the things that that implies. It may be that millions of human beings as we speak in this warm room are making their way across europe how is that going to shape the world emerges . In all of the years i have been inspired by this story. So she says and imagine sixth century rome. It didnt carry a headline that says benedict writes the rules because there is this crazy guy over here that i think in his lifetime there were 12eople. Communities of 12 people. Its not a great successfulbody venture startup. Yet a thousand years later what this person set in motion kept n kept the western literature alive and we dont know whats happening right now in our world that is planting those invisibles that are setting that in motion. However, i suspect the kind of people that courtney writes about in her book and probably everybody here are part of spending somspinning some of th. And i find i take hope andac delight even in all of my research and the journalists i dont know what is happening thats going to save us and that means we have to continue with what we are doing and what we feel called to. We have to shine a light on Everything Else thats good work, so thats why we are here tonight i want to read a little bit to start give you a flavor of why i said. What happened in the world is resoundingly no. So this is from the first chapter, the introduction. What you will find i hope is that being mature to be sure living in america at this messy moment can break your heart, but it doesnt have to break your spirit. Living in america is so interesting, so up for grabs. Its also disintegrating and reconstituting it recalibratingn to make the communities and systems and policies that cradles of life. Its up to us to reject the narratives of success instead of offering the new ones in the creative communities it is up to us to reclaim the best of what w the previous generations did that made the country so unique and beautiful as well as to own up to the destructive legacies that we are part of to expose them to the light and figure out how to fix them. Its up to us to be humble, toto be brave, to be accountable toto our own dreams, no one else. Its up to us to be iconoclast iconoclastic, to be together, to stay awake. Its a wonderful book. Its an important book. And i think one thing that ive been so admiring of as thet prot launch date, youre not just promoting the book. It is a conversation piece, a conversation starter. Youre taking it into the communities and companies and building Something Like a movement or contributing to thei kind of movement that is wantinh to form. Im trying to languish with people half and also things that are actually created in a world they may underestimate the power of. So, seeing that power and acknowledging it you are all doing similar stuff, so there is something greater here than just your prioritizing in a small way that you think is insignificant. Its actually what is going to save us all to the earlier points that you are making. So that has been gratifying to feel the book is playing a role in acknowledging this important work which i think is often poor peoples work and one of the things im very clear about is those that are creating the community often have less money, and so this is something that turns the tables about what we think. How do you explain that connection of not having as much money being better at creating the community . It makes us think about how vulnerable we really are because we can buy our way out of a trump president or to speak at this moment, its like when you find out donald trump is president its not going to matter how much is in your bank account. You are vulnerable to this government and the way that it governs like every other person in the three other socioeconomic bracket. So i think that while fools us into thinking we can buy our wa out of suffering. But what is it that not having money or not having too much money, how does that create a condition where you get a better community. You have to look to people around you and it makes you happier and healthier and there is a real freedom in the Mental Wellness and vulnerability andi. Everything from the immigrant women my friend was telling you about the needed to clean house but they all had a kid. Each would take care of the kids while the other one cleaned they could do it fast. So the low income people haveen. The necessity [inaudible] i think that the core idea you are pursuing to try to trace all of the connotations is the idea of calling, which is not i kind of think the 20th century at least in this country we kind of complicated with jobs and title. As you are pointing out, its not at all just about what you do, but about who you are and how you will do it. And also it is a portal thing. How would you talk about how this works with its ecosystem of implications to change their careers in our lives, what does that mean to you how we defines that and work with you . We would start to tackle this by tracing my own relationship of calling which is invocation, i grew up thinking my dad had important job because he was a lawyer and came to realize that everything i do now is basically an mirror up with my mom did, and she was kind of ten different things, none of which made a lot of sense on paper and all of which had a great influence on the community. Film festival, social worker, the mom with the condoms in the closet and everyone could goener there. Before i even knew that was the word. It was like a community organizer. So i grabbed thinking i should have a path like my dad if i want to be an important person in the world i should go to law school. And it turns out, my way of being important in the world is to do exactly what my mom did. I happen to be a writer so that gets magnified on a larger scale than it did for her. When we look at the way the future work is happening so much of it to me that looks many of our mothers who we thought to not have real jobs. Its interesting reclaiming and this is for a lot of men to a think wanting to have jobs more like their mothers. Its not just about women. As work becomes decentralized theres a big risk which we have theres a safety net and all these questions we have to answer. On a one by one basis we have more room for flexibility and f for people to show up as parents and workers. To me that points to the fact that its not like you get one vocation. Maybe there people who are completely singleminded but thats not really anybody i know. You vocation as a worker and is apparent and neighbor and citizen. I think a lot of us are saying what is our calling as a citizen. It its not like you put all the others to one side. And i think all those worlds are blending much more. Which from my perspective is a good thing. I feel like its important to keep reiterating their Big Questions around all of this. Its a privilege to be a freelancers and to afford Health Insurance and know that thee bottom is not going to drop outt of the are not going to get one page great. This is all relative to our capacity to imagine a new social system and a new social safetynet. Having said that, the blending of those worlds, my best work and paid work is often with friends and collaborators. I think thats a very new way of living. The sense sense that you have your colleagues in boston is very high arc or. Your friends would be totally separate. Yes, and even the phrase, work, life, balance it makes no sense to me. I dont feel weird about work with my friends. Even our relationship, youre my mentor, youre my mentor, myfroi friend, i also right for your website and just like none that feels weird to me. I can see for older generations theres a bit of separation between the people who collaborate with professionally and your friends. I see that all breaking down. Its breaking down and it is messy. Th it is challenging. Traditional organization hie hierarchies. So then what are the boundaries were figuring this out on the fly. F i will work with my partner. Talk about andres and the complexity. For me, that makes the work allw the richer. Whether its my husband john might collaborate with her one of my dearestch friends, i know her in such a real textured way. Our capacity to create excellent work resin that knowing and whether i need to call her outer supporter in certain ways. I think it it makes it harder but more excellent that make sense. K im just thinking about how if it feels like im thinking about black lives matter and how social movements are social entrepreneurs are often clusters of friends. And black lives matters a itself came from three women. Communicating with woman one another and look what it is brought. Theres so much these days for an entrepreneur early in friendship out of friendship. I think friendship is shifting. I think there are things that it write about in the book that i would love to read about. Is if you like my favorite people are people who seem so masterful at friendship. Some is like a new skill. T theres something about the way in which people are thinking about friends and creating friends and working and i feel like it is a bit different. Friendship is something to cultivate. I love that. Im thinking about your daughter, just want to tell recent college graduates, dont worry about your resume. Worry about your friends. Do you have amazing, interesting friends . Then youll be okay. I dont be okay. I dont mean that youre just can be okay after hours, i mean your work will be better because you have amazing friends. Well have more opportunities gives you have amazing friends your age. You dont even have to network with the intimidating older person, i mean mean hers should do that too. Ding its not about finding out whos the most elite person in my field and how do i befriend them, to your friends grow up and grow up and become those people. Ting i guess it dangerous and elected generalize about people but feel like the new generations, not organically are doing that. That theyre doing that better. Friendship is changing any see new generations valley when it differently. I have certainly experienced the and i feel amazed at the younger people that im in touch with in the early 20s and what theyre thinking about whether supporting one another. And their abundance of things, of course people have their jealousies and competition but there seems to be a very g generous around how people of their friends. I see see these young women marrying their friends on facebook, and theyre not queer and theyre not in a romantic relationship but they want to say this is my dearest friend. Like theyre getting tattoos like how much people are committed to being friends. Something you do and you and ive talked about it across generational friendship. I think i told you one of the t most one of the pieces of advice ive been grateful for his advice had friends in their 70s and 80s. Even when its in my 20s. One of those older friends has now said to me she said, advice had younger friends. For some reason when im screwing up up that was in a concept. I see you and you talk about this i see you in a robust web also of mentors and women, especially women but probably not just women of other generations. Of this dear mentor of minenh from college, have a lot of people in their 80s friends and women friends of all ages. I love my elder woman friends. Ive also learned so much more women friends were ten years older. Ie i think theres something aboutm being able to see yourself in the near future that has felt so important to me. Especially as a mother and a neo mother. Been able to see my friends have six or seven yearolds. That is been so important for me. You said the language of work, life balance makes less sense in the way new generations are navigating like. I see that too, but i think you point to the challenge for your generation, new challenge for your generation another switches the Life Technology balance. We are all in uncharted territory with this. These devices and their beautiful and terrified landed in the middle of our lives. Your background in describing the ground to so many people of your generation are walking. About securing that out making that humane. I feel like theres a chapter on attention in the book and when i was thinking about what is something generally should only do not have been written ten or 20 years agori about how were created the good life. That just feel so central. It was not even on anybodys horizon. Not central to your capacity to create robust healthy relationships. Not to mention your own individual Mental Health is how do you relate your device and how do you think think about when youre online and offline. Nothing theres any easy answers. A funny thing is that younger people probably have figured this out more because theyve grown up with it. So i thought i was going to interview some teenagers about it and i was talking to my nextdoor neighbor and said tell me about your phone when youre having an important deep h conversation as a friend, what present is a phone place. She said we never dont look at her phones. When is like no. Not only does this ruin my counterintuitive thing is going to do, this is so frightening to me. So im really worried about that in general. Will our kids, my kids like any generation. Your daughter remember said she was on facebook. But there plenty keep peoples peoples kids are doing that. I do see these kids working with this, but they are not equipped at those ages, theyre not about self control and selfdiscipline. And we are not. Plus the parents modeling. What worries me is that mostt of the models that i think at this very moment were wrestling with as we get out of our adolescent face of technology is about abstinence. Well have a texture bot so every 24 hours world look into into each others eyes and for the other six days will talk to each other like this. I feel like were trying to understand the nuances, and some is like were treating it like alcohol or drug, what either do it full bore. Lc what has addictive it works addictive things in our brains. Like our kids may 21yearold said the beat goes, she said said you know you just got ite j jolted dopamine. I want to read a paragraph from the new better off. I was not not looking you in thn ice. Explain what boredom brilliant challenges. This is a radio show that basic clay challenge people. That new challenges challenges everyday like delete your favorite app off your phone. Dont use facebook for a day, etc. So through these have bejeweled challenges eventual challenges reconstitute peoples capacity to be somewhere and be board let their minds wander and do that non distributivee thinking. To b so take your own boredom brilliant challenge. Take a walk without looking at your cell phone, notice weirdho little stuff, have random thoughts, witness. Lose track of time. The people the way they deserve to be loved, which is to say without a cell phone obstructing your adoration. Ultimately our attention which is fine it is spent one small seemingly monday choice at a time. Ensure that your tiny choices reflect your grand ambitions for how people experience you and how you experience the world. Its all youve really got. Im going to maybe ask one more question and the will opene it up and see whats on your mind and then bring it back again. The stuff effort equation. Talk about that its another new balancing. So the stuff effort equation i think was my language that i came with it. Please let me to be plagiarizing anyone on that. Its just this idea that weve come to understand that consumers has a major cause not just environmentally but in terms of our psychic and emotional energy. The the more stuff we have more have to organize it and repair it, and get new stuff and the old stuff is out of fashion. Av its an endless cycle. So long with the ways in which identity is decentralizing faster and faster, maybe the way we use to buy stuff to symboliz who we were is changing. And that all of us are, we hope were thinking about stuff in a different way terms of wanting to get rid of it and not consume as much in the first place and share. Ns i profiled this interestinged T Organization called which is trying to make it so you give away your old stuff and get these dollars which allow you to buy other people stuff. Its this cycle. Way patagonia is basically telling people dont buy new stuff. T ofm which is, that is a deep shifting capitalism. One one can argue that theyre trying to sell more coat somehow in some big brother way. But i think theyre genuinely interested in what is it mean to be a company that doesnt make new stuff. But makes new systems. How does how does that humanize the maker lives better . Im very interested in that. The word, enough. Reflect on that. Its a very important word to me on many different levels. Its important to the sense of i felt growing up, i was born the last day of 79 so mike the eldest millennial. Millennial elder. I felt like i was raised with the sense of bigness, like i was very important and what was i going to do in the world. This is also about being raised from white and privilege. Its also like the 20thi century takes save the world. Student. So ive done a lot of spiritual work in my life rescaling my expectations, not only about my own impact on the world but about where i want to spend my energy and time. How much more interested in having an incredible local network of community of friends and being famous. Or recalibrating that to think about enough in a different way. Enough attention, enough stuff. And admitting that its all finite which is something that you think was have kids is hard not to realize. Your own mortality and theres is inyourface. If like having children may me wake up and be like doc, its all going to ende so this is all ive got. I have to do the best i can with every moment. Before i had kids it felt hard to wrap my head around the enough. Its not really word we cultivate a relationship with culturally. I think we associate with laurie expectations. Ration this is the first generation of kids were not thought to be better off than the parents. And theres a sadness around that. Oh youre youre not going to be up to for the big house o have the fancy job. And have and i wanted to say, im not not sure all that is making people happy. You can be sad for this next generation we can look at ways in which there may be realizingg that the big stuff, the big house and fancy job didnt create wellbeing anyway. Maybe its not so said to have a smaller life however we define small. Maybe its not so said to spend a lot of time investing in a Smaller Community of people. Maybe that is the root of wellbeing and we have to return to that some degree. I think over the years ive heard a lot of even before we use the term the one you lot ofr younger people one of the words theyve used is what they see and their parents generation of people who are running the world now is a loneliness. That that they do not want for themselves. Would you talk a little bit about you and john made a decision to move into ad Cohousing Community. I was your first daughter bornrn as a knife had two children born into this. S. That is also, on one hand its an old model but were reinventing it. So its a a new model again. Theres another language you have about the lost art of neighborliness. So what have you gotten out of this and what are you learning about the lost art of neighborliness . I dont even know where to start about what ive got now to live in a cohousing. If you not familiar is that we are group of about 25 people in 12 units while have our own homes and people go home and have but we alsos share and eating area, kitchen, garden, kids playroom, bike shed and toolshed. We together on thursday nights and sunday nights. And then beyond that we have this informal commitment to what we call radical hospitality. We are there for people in that neighborhood but also for each other. As ive lived there for about four years now, it gets more complex as these relationships deepen. But it continues to move me to know and what it means to live in particular getting back into an intergenerational community. Last night when i was morning and grieving and trying to figure out about the election i sent out an email saying should we gather, which we do . Some myself, my 3yearold daughter and my 78yearold neighbor Louise Louise and i ended up walking to the park to join this vigil. E were walking down the sidewalk and the reason my are talking about the carrots they planted in the garden earlier and how excited maia is about them growing. My is about to trick her every ten steps because she is this toddler. Im with them thinking, this is what matters. The fact that i get to live with these incredible human beings, on the scale that teaches me about the bats mess. Louise is teaching me that life is long and fast. Shes been through so much. And shes devastated to but in a way that can hold that devastation in the light of such vastness. Shes reminded me of that. Shes been enriched by 3yearold that has energy that is overwhelming but invigorating. That is what its been for me, constant thing of being in generational friendship and service to each other. And in particular having kids. Wo i have two mothers, one who lives next door and one across the street who i dont have any control group to compare to but positive have made my journey of motherhood just so much easier. Because i can run into them in the courtyard and say is this diaper rash going to kill my baby . Like no. It is giving me the perspective that they have teenagers there like all you want to do is get away from your kids and all i want my kids to come talk to me. And so i can say okay take a deep breath and enjoy this w d moment. And it gives me that perspective you say that i think depending on the Nuclear Family to meet all your needs is unhealthy. And i agree with that, dont dont think weve really done i the critique of the Nuclear Family that we will. Its kind of unraveling. Ive always heard from people who have lived, because it youre not held by anything larger and have no one to work out the relationship except these few people you love so much. Advisor advisor from people who live in cohousing arrangements that their peoplets in the community they work out their issues with, like they have the guy who drives them crazy. Y. Theyre not as driven crazy as their husband. Because you have these different people who transfer these onto. A very fast analysis of cohousing on whos given a better marriage. E. I think thats very true. Very r and just postelection im thinking about who are we a conversation with. I live in this Interfaith Community which was founded as a Christian Community is important to me because i grew up in colorado springs, colorado. It. It gave me a bad taste of christianity, very hateful, narrow sense of who was an accessible person. My High School Newspaper when i was a teenager got shut down because we wrote about what i was like to be queer, questioning questioning kid and publish a suicide hotline. So thats what i experienced in christianity when i was young. Its been a deeply redemptive thing who are so loving. We do disagree about some things. Thats an important practice for me beyond the Nuclear Family piece. Im forced to do the work of having conversations of people who i disagree with. Especially if you on the coast but their people to work out pathologies but its hard to be one person all the time. So to have have other people that my husband can bump into and expresses grief over theon or ex election or express frustration that im not fully responsible to be the midwife of his emotional life like so many wives are. Thats really important. And vice versa. We know what happened smallserv often in women in service of mens emotional lives. Nt don again, i dont have a controlled controlled group. I only know what im experiencing. I feel given having grown up not in a Cohousing Community that iu have a sense that this is healthier in so many ways. Healtr the other thing is the first generation of kids who did grow up in cohousing its been about a 25 Year Movement they are now 25 it is so interesting to talko to them. Did you talk to them for their book . Now for the book but a piece in New York Times i did. Was fascinating the way they talked about, they said parts of the sox, but their capacity to understand what its like to have conflict and work through, their way of relating to adults in particular, i think its professional advantage them because theyre having conversation with adults were not their parents. Ow they rely on anson uncles and have a broader sense of who they would relate to and talk to. There more fluid. I think its really good fororih kids. Im going to read another passage in the will open up. To mind if i read this . I think its interesting to have somebody else read your words. D. When i was in crisis about c the election yesterday, myy sisterinlaw who is maybe here may be keeping her baby quiet, she texted me a sentence of mild own book and i didnt recognize it was mine i cannot believe ind wrote that actually getting a lot of salads thinking like i have said something that might be useful. This is about what makes a house a home. Of course the key feature of this completely unrealistic American Dream that came out of the g. I. Bill in this very unusual moment in history. Her for a few generations if you are the right color and in the a right class things to get better and better. The laws of of physics were defeated for some, for little while. Part of that is owning a home. H. And with the white picket fence and then of course homeownership has been at the center of the trauma of the century. A lot of the pain and the devastation that fueled a lot of the surprising things about the selection. Heres what he said. A d doesnt make a house a home. The people who gather their due. The best ones i know i know are not owneroccupied, they are joy occupied. There are places known as comfortable engaging dinner parties where people linger so long at the table that theyn never at all the remaining food and refill each others wineglasses without asking. There places where you feel safe to be vulnerable and where you can heal from physical and emotional problems. There places that inspire their habitants to express their history and personality, perhaps with the close line of books strewn across living. A shelf lined with old photographs, a train set, closet door painted with favorite rap lyrics. These are the things that make us home, that make an existenced alike. P its the size of our psyches not or storage space. That determines the amount of accumulation that is healthy is what matters is the amount ofden time have to appreciate what we possess. Time that is inherently limited when we have to work so hard to earn the money to acquire those possessions. To ha we are wise to have less and giveaway mode. To pursue experiences over objects and memories over status symbols. We are wise to let go of the century old mythology that would have us believe that we havent made it until we bought it. Whether it is a designer bag or suburban home. The new better off mindset is vested in pursuing the most permanent pleasures which the nw strangely turned out to be the fleeting experiences we have in the intangible stories we tell about them. So lets open it for a few minutes if anybody wants to be in conversation with courtney. V have a question. Youre the most generous comments. I think it is an honor to meet you finally. My question is, i come from the people who elected donald trump. I am like the black sheep of the family, my family, my husband is the black sheep of the family. We moved away for five years, w came back, coming back has been brutal. C so much so that we are in the process of moving back out west, where we were. So much so that my husbands family is now completely divided and we are on the out. To the point that myto the p motherinlaw and fatherinlaw had a 60th anniversary and the two of us to not get invited. So that is how far the gap is. And i thought if i just studied enough if i just read enough or if i read courtneys column in parkers columns enough i would just look at myself and saidf okay, you were this hardcore evangelical was right wrong, black, white. But if you learn this you can change this. It started to watch my religion become republican. And i grew up a republican. But i didnt ever think god was one. So i guess my question if it is a question is, how do you get what you know and what you have taught me because courtney is taught me a ton and krista you have taught me a lot as well. How do we get this message of compassion and community to a populace that really doesnt want to hear it . I dont know, im just ive been broken in a million pieces over the selection. To the men now have permission to call me names when i walked on street . There permission to grab me without asking . Not that im as hot as, whatever. They probably are going to be grabbing me, i get i get that. Dont underestimate your hotness. Think to. [laughter] to hear that honey . Mac. But her parents were all dressed in red, white, blue and like were voting for kids future. They live in a huge mansion, that more money than they will ever need in five lifetimes. In her grandmas like i went by the grand canyon i suffered ten minutes i was like wow i did that. And i said who does that . Who drives by the grand canyon. Like a total unconsciousness. Sn. So maybe the next book will be how do we do that, i dont know. We have to figure it out. We dont have an option. Because they just told us they dont care about us, they really dont. When your own family is willing to let you go because you are so , youre one of those liberal people that steal all their money, i dont know what to do. I dont even know how to beho right now. Thats a lot, sorry. I dont want to give you any trite responses because of the pretty deeply, its a personal deep suffering that youre experiencing in your family. Ingu theres no i will say that youre in very good company for your black sheep. I know other other amazing black sheets and this will groom and all over who is similarly loan and theirsimi families. Think of all the black sheep is one big herd. Of brave people. I would offer you on one hands and i try to write a column on it tomorrow. , so i h my friday columnist so i have to produce something. But ive been thinking about belonging nice reading tether discipline books which i read in my will have a total tantrum and on the been through the book like whats the answer. Its not wait to read thesell books. The way [applause] but i did read something called positive discipline that set at the root of all tantrums is a quest for belonging insignificance. Only those two things. T for be belonging insignificance. So ive been thinking about that weirdly essay been trying toto process the election. What is it about the way we vote which is about our own relationship to that. Is alienated as you feel from your family, something about how they relate to their own belonging insignificance feels like its at the root of why theyre making the choices theyre making and rejecting you in a way that feels personal but its really about their relationship to that. Th i think thats a greatt analogy because, the way we structure our political dialo dialogue, political speech, political formats and media echoes those things, and thats was being covered it is infantile. I mean its like actually appeals to our most primitive brains. It is infantile. It actually draws fourth our worst instincts. As part of why we get polarized, it creates these conditions for that so i think thats a great analogy. Y. Its a question while living. Yesterday you wrote on twitter about progressives a organizing but not being poisonous in doing so. Patronizing searcher thinkini of. Patronizing too. And i was thinking a lot about how i have advocated for things they believe to be right, justice, and and equity and how it times its been poisonous in patronizing and it distance us from the belonging and the connection and i wanted to hear more about that. Thank you, im surprised people even read twitter come im tweeting off in my own little black hole. One of the things i tweetedyestr yesterday was that i feel like in these days and weeks aftereke the election it is on progressives to check their own patronizing intellectualism. I speaking in large part to myself, to my peers also. I feel like part of what is happened in this country is that those of us who say that we value social justice have intellectualized it in this wayy that makes it very alienating for people, the language we use, our whole posture around is this elite and not saying anything other seven say, but im feeling it viscerally beasties this elite distancing, know it all snobbery. And so no wonder a lot of people are not hearing our message in the way that we think they should be hearing it. On the other hand i took a walk with my brother and sisterinlaw today were talking about this paradox of hot only hold, were talking about whiteness especially. How do we hold that we dont want to be these kind of intellectual patronizing people and or these sort of like sassy compassionate like anything is good. If you voted for trump like i can understand thats where youre coming from. F how do we know that what we neee to be thinking about but we also need to just call people on their stuff and just say their basic ways in which we cannot have the president of the United States someone who says the things he is said about muslim people come about black people, women, its just wrong. So there has to be this some ground we stand on holding our humility and not going into this intellectual place but have this deep held values. Values, especially white people calling other white people out on that in some ineffective way. I have not figured that out yet. That is what were hashing outha as were going around the lake. I am hungry to learn how to do that better. I dont if you have thoughts about that . Mentor me live krista. No pressure. Again, we we have to find new ways to approach each other and so theres this culture of what we talk about and how we talk about it that by its very nature pits us against each other. It actually welcomes what is acl inflammatory and how we distinguish herself against others. It actually is very cerebral for people who dont even think theyre cerebral. So about positions. And abstractions. The other is such an abstraction in all of this. Bstraction and whoever the other is that were talking about whether it is rust belt workers were lgbt or immigrants or africanamericans, so people in inner cities and objectified in abstract. I think if we want to engage inn a different we have toto completely pull back from what weve been talking about just create a new, lets just meet each other. Ruby sales set right here and said. Thank you so much for that interview, that interview, everybody, everybody few havent listened to it you have to listen to it. E have to mso much to me. And everybody who listen to it feels like it was a spiritual moment for them. Which all of your shows haveto gotten to some degree or another but i think that show in particular was a huge gift. And she is one of the things she said is that a talking about white people with other white people is a more fashionable for white people, what are you doing about these white people in pain . Is it more fashionable to care about black people than white people . Theyre the wrong kind white people. But focusing on the pain. The question she learn to ask in the Civil Rights Movement opens up new possibilities if you can get into the space but to say where does it hurt. You also cant start there because you have to establish trust to ask of someone that and expect an honest answer. How do we just find new ways to walk towards each other. Its a process. This is now our work. It is a longterm project. If we really care about relieving our common life. Its a longterm project, yet i feel very impatient, why people have had a long time to think about our own history of enslavement and discrimination. And we havent thought about it as much as we need to. And theres something about reimagining whiteness itself. What is it mean to be a white person with a deep social justice heart but not spend all my time trying to be the good white person in the room which i think is the first step. Theres all these versions of what i think we need to do and all of them are very fumbling and very anemic. Im grappling with what is a way to feel the kind of depth in spiritual drive of like a dorothy day whose birthday was a couple of days ago. What would dorothy day say about whiteness . Maybe she did say something, i havent read. But im really craving that. And i think a a lot of people out ov the election are craving more. I just interviewed last week who wrote a great piece. And we talked about whiteness. Itll be on the air at some point. Was very uncomfortable. She sat in the middle and she a said this is mortifying. And it is. Ow com theres a show coming up next week with isabel when she wrote she really does something that feels important to me that we take seriously what were learn about our brains and bodies. There is a color line in our heads, she said the heart is the last frontier. We have changed i lot of laws with good intention. We have thought about it. Because we didnt actually understand that we walk around, all of us, our minds are different seeking machines. We havent been aware of that. We once thought about it and ha. Intentions, we havent actuallya created the structures that goha along with the intentions. And we have knowledge now to work differently with ourselves. Also getting back to friendship again, stupid is i have black friends, but friendship for me has been the place where interracial friendship interfaith friendship has been the place where this feels most alive. I feel closest to what im trying to talk about. Which is i have a dear friend and oakland whose incredible working on this idea of families, but i can have a very real conversation and say i dont want to be in a room with white people proving that theyre good white people. And she said thats your job. I need you and theyre talking about even if you hated. That friendship that friendship isng worse like i can wrestle withhwa it. I think theres something in the power friendship in this momento the reason which may be our families are going to be divided and alienated but what about her friendships. Families actually the hardest to make progress. Its an irony but in those most intimate spaces are probably the last that we can break open. We should close this down and then youll sign some books. Oks. Wonder how you would think about your book. In understanding the vocation is your to finding it is something thats constantly going to beth evolving, but right now youre vocation and calling at this moment. I want to say that you are such an interesting example of what were talking about with vocation. You are a journalist that you created this thing where some people dont even recognize as journalism. Even though it is. So for me here model of that it feels like you have search for this corehi understanding of what your gift is and then you applied to the world over and over again and i create in the spaces. Im so grateful for your model. What am i thinking these days . I know him obsessed with storytelling and solutions. I keep gravitating toward that but im interested in limitations of storytelling which is another book orward conversation. I think my gift is this pattern keeping an emotional, keeping intellectual coupling. Its how i see the world. I dont need need to be articulate about it. As i walk around a very interested in connecting dots and trying to say somethingtryia about broader patterns and trends in moments, trends not in the super surface see dumb way. But the deeper rumblings which is like this election. I felt like a conversation under it is what is success to people and what do we actually want from one another and from our leaders . So i think that is my gift, this pattern keeping. Connecting and then i can use words prettying well. I have excessively read and written my whole life. Thats usually how it gets outd into the world. And what are the other parts of your vocation . How to talk about how that fits together with the other things . Also is a human and a person inn relationships. My life is the material which im using to connect those dots which is inherently limited so that i have blind spots but its also really rich. So the fact that im a mother, thats making it in the column all the time whether i like it or not. That is what im experiencing all the time. T thats where some of my deepest challenges and i hope useful epiphanies are coming through. Its just anywhere when i can be the person in the room whose pattern keeping me and listenine insane people and trying to do that again from his emotional intellectual place. Which i feel committed to in part because of the conversation were having about patronizing intellectualism. As so easy to write that way especially if youre writing an oped to just go into your head and spit stuff out. I really try to pause especiall, because i want to honor the space and not go the easy places intellectually and try to bring my confusion my vulnerability and my spiritual quest to thatso as a post always sounded like someone who has the perfect preppy thing to say. That feels safe to say. Im constantly creating community which to bring back to my mom was her legacy. I have a womens group in oakland that meets once a month. We hang out and have potluck and drinks and everywhere ago ind accidentally create these awesome communities which through the writing of this book i understood it was a skill, and i thought this is what people do and i thought oh no this is maybe something im most proud of. And i want to honor that. As we finish i mark this passage just to the end of the book i think it may be. I cant read my writing. Size thinking, maybe stop here commiserate good. In truth, the village is not just defined by architecture but by mentality. If you want to live like this with other people in a not move somewhere special. You need only be intentional about asking them to embrace interdependence with you and ritualized that commitment. We also often fantasize about the village router spontaneously is a frequent reciprocity will appear in the cracks of our overscheduled lives. We move so fast we dont see one another well enough to know where the needs are and when. We struggle to ask for help. Rather than wishing for Intentional Community we have to doggedly pursue it, make it concrete, make concrete, make a shared google calendar, just make it real, even if you feel earnestly vulnerable. Creating communities like these records shares space and time and a genuine commitment to slowing down listening to those around you and listening to yourself. Thats where rediscovery of the local comes. Noh in. Our encounters with other people on the go can only add up to so much. Rose are encounters of those who live near us can be deeply satisfying. It may may not ernest frequent flyer miles but it earns us to be from a place even when it is complicated, and it is always complicated. Finally when the blur is a life changing transition, were were learning how to pause and experienced moment together in ways that feels intertwined with generations past and authentic to the ones were just nota way experiencing. We realize just because some of institutions or doctrines havetn been flawed only fools would forgo the vital meaning of witnessing these moments. Its honoring, not the authority that matters. This requires a tremendous a tremendous amount of creativity and fortitude, selfexamination court nation. Its worth it. I would got is one chance to live lives that give us pleasure to make us proud and connect us on dying questions that human ask of themselves and each other when theyre muddling through. One of my four, why why am i here, what matters . Proud. [applause] so what happens next . [inaudible] [inaudible] s2016 comes to a close, many publications are offering their picks for the best books of the year, here are some of the books that the New York Times book review has selected. In american has selected. In american errors, cnn legal analyst and staff writer recalls the kidnapping of patty hearst but the Liberation Army in 1974. Emory university africanamerican studies professor argues that throughout history the advancement of africanamericans has been followed by legal and legislative backlash and, white rage. Blanche concludes a three volume biography of the first ladies lie. Notable books of 2016 also included then it makes a Science Writer eddie youngs examination of the microbes in our bodies in, i contain multitudes. And historian heather and thompson recalls that a cup prison uprising of 1971 in her National Book award nominated title, but in the water. 1971 like so many prisons in new york but really the nation was bursting at the seams because there been policing in inner cities across the nation but particularly in new york city. Buffalo, rochester, and rochester, and attica was filled with 2400 men. Overwhelmingly black and puerto rican, but also white men. The conditions were horrendous. One roll of toilet paper to last a month, 2 quarts of water to do everything in, wash, clean yourself, drink. Medical care so bad that prisoners were not only dying in attica but were permanently disfigured from lack of care. This is the context that the men and the Research Talk you about civil rights in the prison and human rights in the prison. Many of these guys had also come from streets that have been very active particularly rebellion in 64 and they began to ask for help initially through the system writing letters to their state senators im back in the of correction to do something. But nothing was really done. In fact what was done was more repression. Anybody who is caught having the letter asking for help would be thrown in the cell for indefinite time and you couldnt get out. Its in in that context that people Start Talking across political lines and racial lines. Thats a look at some of this years notable books according to the New York Times book review. Book tv has covered many of these authors. You can watch the programs on her website, booktv. Org. A from the tragic and compelling story of how the book subject fields went from being an idealistic harvard graduate hardcore columnist to the modern forms of fanaticism to the story of how he came to write about all this in the same way. Its a brilliant book to both the New York Times as a window into delusion and narcissism that fuels the self radicalized of any era but there is another reason we are particularly delighted to be hosting tonights event at the library and that is the long distinguished career as a journalist and human rights advocate you can read about in the Program Actually researched and wrote much in the Lewis Frederick alle allen room one of those special