What People Do

I am a big fan of thinking of productivity and task management, but I've been through dozens of them and I no longer think that any tool is going to magically spirit away whatever issues I have with self-motivation, focused productivity, or values-based action. Buuut … I still like to toy with this stuff. Back in the day, David Allen's book Getting Thing Done changed my life, and I still fall back on GTD's principles every day. Because I like to experiment, I was willing to switch to Cherry Task from the GTD-based FacileThings in the past couple months, because Ken Fleisher's interactions about his product and productivity in general on Reddit were so open-minded and thoughtful. So, I've switched to Cherry Task. I use it, on and off, every day or two. I've learned to enjoy being able to reach out directly to the designer every few weeks with problems. I appreciate its focus on visual appeal and usefulness of color and symbol. It's a nicer thing to look at than many other task management or GTD-focused tools out there on the internet. If you like productivity talk, if you want to hear how the sausage of a task management app gets made, tuck your napkin into your shirt and get to it … let's try some Cherry Task! For further reading: Request to get it on Cherry Task's beta testing here. Read more thoughts from Ken on his blog here. WHAT?! You haven't read David Allen's Getting Things Done or tried out his new workbook? Buy them new in bookstores all over, or online, or used or new here.

He's a scholar. A therapist. And a rabbi. And all three of those disciplines have touched on his work deeply studying what Judaism has to say about the supernatural and especially the afterlife. Rabbi Simcha Raphael takes me on a fascinating, personal, and well-researched dive into his decades' long work into a realm that doesn't get as much attention as it does in Christianity: what happens to us after we die. If you think about God, life and death, and the lesser-known parts of our world, "the window, not a door" we can peek through of the afterlife, this is a must-listen ...  You may also be inspired to read one or more of his books if this conversation grabs your attention. Recommended is a visit to his Da'at Institute and the books: Musings With the Angels of Death: Poems of Love, Life and Longing, one poem from which is shared in this episode The quintessential Jewish Views of the Afterlife, now updated and in its third edition. Other books of thought and poetry on end-of-life issues and care appear on the same website.  P.S. For those into the feminine aspects of spirituality, Jewish of otherwise, an upcoming interview will feature the rabbi's wife, also a rabbi, who is working on a special deck of oracle cards drawing from Jewish ideas of the feminine aspect of God, the Sh'chinah.

After interviewing Rabbi Rifat Sonsino about a co-edited book he worked on called A God We Can Believe In, the other co-editor reached out and said he had more to say on it. Given that I peppered Rabbi Sonsino mostly about other books he'd worked on that had been influential in my understanding how pluralistic and wide-ranging Jewish views on God were, I said absolutely sure of course yes to a new interview with Rabbi Richard Agler. In this discussion, we use a little Jewish lingo (most of it explained), but overall, we're wrestling with a perennial problem with monotheism: If God is all-powerful and all-just, why do we see bad things happen to people who have not committed injustices? Why do tragedies happen to good people? Rabbi Agler's previous book, titled The Tragedy Test, wrestled with that firsthand as he, a decades-long pulpit rabbi, was faced with the unexpected death of his own child. He came out with a God that he could believe in. Then, with A God We Can Believe In, he and Rabbi Sonsino asked thinkers to share the more modern ideas about God that they use in their own lives. I especially invite you this time to buy either of Rabbi Agler's books, as proceeds go to the Tali Fund, whose good work he talks out in this podcast as well as on his own website here.  

Israel and Zionism: Could I have picked a hotter topic? Well, cool your jets, man. Sam Brody, PhD, an associate professor of religious studies at University of Kansas, is going to bring a nuanced view of Zionism, theology, politics, and the ever-in-the-news dilemma of the nation-state of Israel by exploring an early thinker on the topic who's most famous these days in bookstores for his religious work alone: Martin Buber. If there are terms you don't get as you listen, stop and look them up. It's not too deep. Then, bask in Brody's thoughts on the evolving thinking of Buber, whom he says brings an “anarchist” reading to the Bible to support his ideas about what kind of people the Jews are and what kind of place Israel could be. His book is Martin Buber's Theopolitics (what a fantastic word!), published in 2018 by Indiana University Press. Sure, the academic hardback is $90, but the ebook is only $9.99. Don't be a cheapskate. When I asked what people completely new to Buber should dig into first—how they should order their first dive into the life and ideas of this empathetic Jewish philosopher famous for his ideas on relational thinking—he recommends some books at the tail end of the podcast (before Brody's recommendations, I recommend you read a way-too-short and over-simplified snapshot about Buber here, and if you're into philosophy, head here): I and Thou, in many old and new versions all over, here in a 100th anniversary reissue Buber's Hasidic stories (here or here, all available in earlier cheaper editions, too) about the great Eastern European rabbis—and the first of them, the Ba'al Shem Tov—from the past few centuries who focused on making Judaism more attainable and emotional overly scholarly and intellectual Thinker Paul Mendes-Flohr, of blessed memory—either reading his book on Buber or watching a talk he gave about the book in synagogue “Then after that,” Brody says in our interview, “you can read my book.” After speaking to Brody, I think about the clash of politics and theology in a way, way different way. So this interview was, without exaggerating, eye-opening and mind-shifting for me. May it be for you, too!

Religions emphasize, in different measure at different times and for different reasons, belief/theology and practice/ritual/tradition.  Judaism, in general, is a religion that focuses more on practice than belief. And it famously has multiple ways to remain “tied in” to the ethnoreligious tribe: To be Jewish is to do Jewish religion, to be Jewish is to be a part of the tribal nation of Israel (as differentiated from the secular state today), and to be Jewish is to be a part of the tribe of Jewish people. Religion. Nation. Tribe.  Traditionally, you are a Jew whether you believe in God or not, but other religions aren't so forgiving on the point. Can you be a Christian without believing Christ is Lord? Can you be a Muslim if you don't believe Muhammad was a prophet? But you can deny God and remain in the Jewish people.  All that to say, when I was studying for conversion more than 20 years ago, one of my favorite books was not about the practice of Judaism, but the range of belief systems available to those under the umbrella of Judaism: Finding God by Rabbi Rifat Sonsino. When a student of mine said she was questioning the existence of the Jewish God, I offered her parents a few books to read with her, and one of them was this one. I was happy to see Rabbi Sonsino had updated the book as well as written others.  When I reached out to him, and this was me really reaching for the stands, I was thrilled to hear he'd talk to me about theology and his books. This podcast episode is the result.  If you're interested in Jewish theology and thinking about God in general, our conversation will be interesting and enlightening. If you, like Rabbi Sonsino, find the rational/scientific/modern world is quite impressive, and your ideas about God are flavored or curtailed by that, Rabbi Sonsino is your jam.  In the ideal world, you'd want to read more after hearing this. Great! Start with Rabbi Sonsino himself. His blog is free and updated at least monthly.  Want to dig into books covering the wide range of Jewish theology in Rabbi Sonsino's bibliography? Consider:  Finding God: Selected Responses (Behrman House);  or The Many Faces of God (Behrman House), which relies on wonderfully chosen direct excerpts from modern thinkers.  Interested in Rabbi Sonsino's own exploration of theology and the God-wrestling he describes in this episode? Try:  6 Jewish Spiritual Paths: A Rationalist Looks at Spirituality (Jewish Lights);  And God Spoke These Words: The Ten Commandments and Contemporary Ethics (Behrman House), a perfect one for Christians and Jews who draw from these teachings;   or, last but not least, his most recent book, A God We Can Believe In, co-written with Rabbi Richard Agler. This comes with a lengthy, free book-club-like set of discussion questions to put the book's content to work for you in rolling the idea of God around in your own head.  Whether you believe in God, believe in something god-like, or think the idea has outlived its usefulness, well, hear what Rabbi Sonsino has to say first ...  

I know Ilana from a teaching gig. Ilana's mom asked if I wanted to interview the budding podcaster. I said, of course, sure, absolutely. You can find everything they're working on around the project of helping kids make a difference in causes they care about at the very well-named Kids4Justice.org. You can also get right to the podcast The Power Pod on Spotify. Episodes are VERY short with snappy music and great guests, and Ilana actually does work to edit a podcast, which I am too much of a sloth to do. They've interviewed musical activists and artist activists, and talked to experts about LGBTQIA+ rights, campaigning, social movements, and protests. Don't like this episode? It's because I don't put as much work into mine as Ilana does. Go listen to The Power Pod, yo!

He's a dad. He's a granddad. He was a decades-long sporting goods salesman in his town. And he worries about the negativity in the world today and wanted to take a stab at sharing the philosophy that helps him. That's Larry Stigsell and his new book, Looking Through Our Eyes of Curi Osity. I knew Larry through his son; we used to work together in B2B publishing. I think you get a feel for Larry's energy and goodwill, and the evergreen sensibility at the base of his advice to everybody, in the new book, this interview, and his fun experimentation with videos on YouTube. If you're ever thought of self-publishing a book, take a ride on Larry's magic carpet for a bit in this episode and try to heat up a bit in the joyful energy for his confidence and friendliness ... P.S. The cool thumbnail from the book cover is from Larry's graphic-designer son. You can find that dude, Shawn Stigsell, on LinkedIn.

It's been a few weeks now that I've been keeping a commonplace book. A few hours after discovering the concept and chasing some internet rabbit holes, I found Richard Orodenker, a former Temple University faculty member, who uses a commonplace book, has studied historical examples of them, and used them as projects in some of “Intellectual Heritage” classes with college students. I immediately contacted him and asked if he'd be interviewed on the books, their use, and his practice and study with him. He agreed. And, thus, another episode of What People Do was borne ... tada! Orodenker employs a commonplace book with quotations and things from books he's read on the right-hand side of a journal spread, and his own journaling thoughts and reflections on the left-hand side. Commonplace books are sometimes nothing but scrawled notes, and other times gorgeous, intricate, and artistically wondrous works from artists and scientists. I have found the commonplace book helpful as a way to note, reflect on, and re-read things that jumped out at me in all the things I try (new psychology exercises, new spiritual exercises, journaling) and all the things I read (nonfiction, prayers, poems, websites, articles). I keep my commonplace book and journal separate for now, but maybe someday I'll swing the Orodenker way and throw them together! If you love smart professors, old things made new again, and journaling, reading and self-reflection, this episode is a must-listen.   For further exploration: Orodenker's The Common Place Book Project appears here. If you're into baseball and the Philaldephia Phillies (they're my arbitrarily chosen MLB team), enjoy this. Orodenker has written about sports writing for some more scholarly works as well, including this and this.

KJ Gibbs is a self-described "working neurodivergent matriach, military vet spouse, small business owner, and descriptive fantasy sci-fi author." All the aspects were interesting to me (we didn't talk the "military vet spouse" part, sorry). The idea of a small business that serves to help creatives take their burning passions to the people is a neat one. What if you're shy, nervous, inexperienced, afraid of failure, or have other social or psychological issues that make it hard to take those first steps in self-promotion to get your name out there? That's what KJ does ... Note: This episode is a special bonus episode featuring a sponsor at our local game convention, Kantcon, which is dope and you should check it out every year. The 2024 one is July 5-7!   For further enjoyment: Visit KJ's website here. There, you can find absolutely everything about all of her clients (art! snacks! books!), see some creativity-friendly merch to buy, and check out her fantasy novel series.

Noah Gibbs is a fellow tabletop gamer and Kansas City metro local. But he's got even stronger feelings about the local gaming and convention community than me. He's been working with a charity convention to raise funds for local causes for a few years. He still games regularly (I've lapsed). And, guess what, his connections at local gaming conventions led him to the Kansas City metro years ago. Folks he'd met at Kantcon helped get him established here. He met his wife. Now he's a proud dad, too. Find out more about Noah, his volunteer work at Meeple-a-thon, the joys of gaming and nonprofits ... and answer the question, “Sorry, umm, what's a meeple?” Note: This episode is a special bonus episode featuring a sponsor at our local game convention, Kantcon, which is dope and you should check it out every year. The 2024 one is July 5-7!   For further enjoyment: Noah Gibbs is assistant director of Meeple-a-thon, which runs Sept. 27-29, 2024. In the area? Come play! Just want to donate? Click here! Meeple-a-thon is sponsoring the Paint and Take table at Kantcon July 5-7, 2024. (See? It takes a village to make conventions happen!) Meeple-a-thon supports various nonprofits (A Turning Point!), but its biggest recipient remains Hillcrest Platte County's Youth Housing Program. Noah's Paint and Take legacy predecessor is Michelle Farnsworth, whose commission website is “Mini Painter, Ink” here. Go check out her stuff! The miniatures Noah 3D prints are cat people from Kawna Minis. You can find them here. Games mentioned in this podcast: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Red-box Dungeons & Dragons Fistful of Seamen BattleTech KeyForge Warhammer 40K Alpha Strike Marvel: Crisis Protocol Star Wars: Shatterpoint Carcassonne Betrayal Legacy (based on Betrayal at House on the Hill).

Georgios is a philosophy student and one who brings others along with him. Now, when I say he's a philosophy student, you think, ahh, he's taking a class.  No.  Georgios has a job. He lives in the real world with us outside academia. But he carves out time to study Aristotle and other writers and thinkers for fun and wisdom in the time he isn't working.  That's so amazing, this is my second time interviewing him. My first one looked at Socrates, Aristotle and what to do with this life.  This new one considers a new book from Georgios' working group of thinkers wrestling with a more obscure work of Aristotle's: The Categories.  It sounds like it'll be boring, but if you're into clumsily asked philosophical questions answered with passion by a Greek, well, here you are!    For further enjoyment:  Read Georgios' Substack on his and other group members' insights into the Aristotle readings. Here are collected summaries from Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.  Join Tom and Georgios in Aristotle's Organon Study Group Zoom Link every Tuesday 08:30pm CET/14:30pm EST.  Check out Georgios' Reddit post here for details on buying his book. Just 5EUR for the ebook to anyone who Paypals him at theduedissident@protonmail.com and mentions Brendan! Or you can buy it on Amazon, too.  Dive into Georgios' own subreddit, Philosophy of the Frontier. “Here, you will find philosophical content that I have written in the past two years,” he says. 

This episode gets into every angle of a musical instrument you've, for sure, heard yet may not know what it's called.  Elliot Kanshin Kallen touches on the history of this Japanese flute, the emotions you can conjure from it, how it compares to other breath instruments, and, best of all, plays some notes for us a few times to make a point. We even talk a little Zen Buddhism (because it ties into the history and use of the instrument).  The angle of the mouth ... how many holes and why ... its complicated popularity and disappearance in Japanese music over the centuries ... and where it shows up now ... it's all here. This is a must-listen for fans of music and Japanese history.  For further enjoyment:  See Kallen play in this short video.  Visit Kallen's website here.  Visit the International Shakuhachi Society, where Kallen is president and archive curator, here.  If you're in Sonoma County at the right, check out the Sonoma County Matsuri, a celebration of Japanese arts and culture in California.  Kallen makes musical recommendations during this podcast, but here are a few in our conversation and some that didn't make it in:  Shakuhachi Music: A Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky from Yamaguchi Goro (Nonesuch)   The Japanese Flute by Miyata Kohachirō (Nonesuch)  Anything from Kallen's friend, Riley Lee, who jokingly says, if you're in a place and hear New Age-y music with a shakuhachi, well, it's probably him (website) 

It's a new year, 2024, and that means James Gomes re-read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse for the umpteenth time. It's a short book, it's in the public domain, and Gomes says he gets something new out of it every time.  I know that happened for me. He set up an online book club, and I read along with him. I had read the book a few years ago, and based on my reading this time, I didn't remember as much as I'd thought. I got new insights, but like most things in my brain, they passed away.  We touch on the biggest themes of existence, life, death, purpose, and more in a wide-ranging discussion this time. They are not resolved. There are big unanswered questions about who the hero is, who's right, and who's wrong. The ending is ambiguous, or open to interpretation. You can get something new every time you read it. Enjoy. :)    For further reading:  You can read see the start to Gomes' Siddhartha reading plan and its resulting posts here.  You can read a translation of the book here.  You can listen to my last conversation with Gomes on the book here.

I interviewed Kevin Jones about soft skills in security and law enforcement work for another podcast here. I enjoyed the conversation so much, and I was so intensely curious about his work in law enforcement, that I asked him to drop in for this podcast to talk about his career in law enforcement as well, near the end, about his transition to private security at a regional airport and now overseeing safety programs in a school district.  Everyone has an opinion about cops, but there aren't many easy ways to try to get behind the curtain of law enforcement and ask what it's like to be a cop.  Kevin delivers. 

I met the Stoics a long time ago, as an adult, sitting in a field outside a local library and reading Epictetus' Enchiridion (the Handbook). In fact, it was probably one of these copies.  Well, before Epictetus, there were the Cynics, and their philosophy was a little harder to follow. The famous Diogenes lived more like the animals than the Greeks around him, enjoying the sunshine, wearing whatever he could find, eating whatever he could find. A famous anecdote has him living in a large wine cask, and Alexander the Great asking him, with respect, what boon he could offer. To paraphrase, “If you could move a little to the left, you're in my light.”  So, the Cynical philosophy makes for good anecdotes, inspiring countercultural ideas, and a way of life that is probably out of reach of the average person … who doesn't want to be homeless, wear rags, and live modestly and easily on whatever can be scrounged up.  That's a very rambling way of saying I saw a new translation of the Cynics at my local Barnes & Noble, and I jumped on it … then jumped on hunting an interview with the translator, M. D. Usher. And he'd written a marvelous assortment of other books—academic ones, popular and accessible ones, and even ones for kids.  If you're interested in practical philosophy and its connection to animals, us, and the web of life we share … well, enjoy my discussion with Mark Usher, the Lyman-Roberts Professor of Classical Languages and Literature in the Department of Geography and Geosciences at the University of Vermont in Burlington …  For further reading:  How to Say No: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Cynicism (Princeton University Press, 2022)  How to Be a Farmer: An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land (Princeton University Press, 2021), which covers some new, bad-ass translations of short pieces on interconnectedness, homesteading and agriculture from millennia ago.  Plato's Pigs and Other Ruminations: Ancient Guides to Living With Nature (Cambridge University Press, 2020) expounds and illustrates Usher's ideas, drawn from ancient philosophy, about our place among the other animals.  Diogenes (2009) and Wise Guy: The Life and Philosophy of Socrates (2005), available used here and here, kid-friendly picture books on the two great thinkers  A 10-year-old article about Usher as an alumnus of University of Chicago 

There is a beautifully un-nail-down-able question-and-answer I have been rolling around, like a stone in a rock polisher, for many years now: What is consciousness?  It's the big thing that seems to separate us from other animals: We are conscious or self-reflective or imaginative or reasoning in a way that other creatures, great and small, do not seem to be.  This quest, which has carried around in the world of neurologists, psychologists, philosophers, theologians, self-help gurus, physicists and more ...led me to Adam Toon, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Exeter.  His most recent book, Mind as Metaphor: A Defence of Mental Fictionalism (2023, Oxford University Press), discusses a related question he himself has been noodling on: What if our consciousness can make more sense if we admit that many of the truths of reality we hold are convenient fictions? We know some ideas we hold about ourselves and the world aren't true, or not totally true, but they're useful or convenient or accessible or … well, lots of things.  What if we admit things that aren't real are useful to believe? Is that the way we can better understand some part of this weird reason, consciousness, self-awareness we seem to have?  Let us find out, and along the way discover what brings a former math-and-theoretical-physics-obsessed guy to the world of thinking about science, not just doing science.    Further stuff you might like:  > Adam also wrote in 2012, as part of a "New Directions in the Philosophy of Science" series, Models as Make-Believe: Imagination, Fiction and Scientific Representation. > A favorite book of mine on mind is A Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter. If you were ever to read it, I would certainly re-read it and discuss it with you!  > A favorite podcast of mine on consciousness is Buddhist. The Amaravati Monastery, like Toon in the U.K., shares episodes online here. 

I enjoyed working for a few years with David Doherty with a multimedia publishing and events company in veterinary medicine. My favorite part was, every couple months, I'd go break into his office, sit down and ask him about sales. I thought his philosophy was fascinating. I don't like sales, but if I had to think about sales, heart about sales, wrap my head around sales ... I enjoyed doing it with Doherty. Today, Doherty is VP of Market Development with Coffman Group, a franchisee of the Sandler Training method. The Sandler book Doherty mentions is on my to-read list, because if he likes it, I want to read it. ANYway, whether you hate sales and selling, or you're super interested in it, I guarantee this interview will pay off. There's both high-level thinking and in-the-trenches advice (just a skosh). My favorite part is, David was a killer salesperson, then led salespeople ... but he had to both reinvent himself and get back to basics with a new, shared vocabulary for sales when he wound up in his latest gig with Coffman.  Everyone sells, even if you don't like to think about it (me). Why not come up with a better mindset around the work ... and consider small tactics that might tweak your selling for the better? Further research: David Sandler wrote a number of books, and Sandler Training has reworked them with new titles especially to take account of the changes in our life from the late 20th century (no internet) to now (internet everything). Because I like older books, I'll eventually read some version of Sandler's You Can't Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar. But if you're interested in more modern titles, there are a slew of "books and job-aids" offered here. You can reach Doherty from Coffman Group's website here.

I used to work at a magazine for video store owners. By the time I'd gotten there, it was a vanity publication for the gigantic red-headed stepchildren of Hollywood: home entertainment companies. You know, the big money and focus went into the movies heading to cinema, and direct-to-video/DVD/Blu-ray and the home release of those movies was … not as cool, not as big, etc. My interviewee, Mike Keller, has been collecting videos, DVDs and Blu-rays for a long time now. We discuss the transition we've all lived through: It seemed like everyone was buying video in various formats for their home collections … and then … they weren't. I mean, everything's streaming, right? But Keller keeps on keepin' on. After all, you never know when that streaming service is going to get rid of that TV show or movie … and then … no more watching for you! If you like movies, movie collecting, collecting, or walks down Memory Lane … you'll love this chat. And, yes, that's Keller's wall of awesome home entertainment in his own home ... bask in its glory ... :) Last bonus! Because Keller's favorite genre of movie is horror, he ponied up a couple lists for you to peruse. Thanks, Mike! You can find out where to watch these streaming on JustWatch.com or go buy new or used copies on your favorite e-commerce website ... or, y'know, check your local library!    15 Horror Essentials (that probably everybody has heard of, but they're still essential!) (loosely ranked) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Shining Carrie Night of the Living Dead Psycho The Exorcist Dracula (1931) Halloween Black Christmas Alien Poltergeist Suspiria Friday the 13th A Nightmare on Elm Street The Ring   15 Lesser-Known High-Recommendations Carnival of Souls (1962) The Midnight Hour (1985) Slumber Party Massacre (1982) Spider Baby (1967) Prison (1987) The Gate (1987) Manhunter (1986) The Vanishing (1988) Prince of Darkness (1987) Phantasm (1979) Psycho II (1983) Slugs (1988) (completely hilarious) Superstition (1982) The Brain (1988) Pin (1988)

I stumbled onto James Gomes (pronounced "GOHMZ," not "GOH-mez") on Reddit.com, which I have since abandoned as a forum for anything other than dumb questions, confirmation bias and echo chambers. However, I found a few interesting people along the way, like James. We were both into old books, and I was surprised to hear he'd read and re-read a particular book, like, every year ... for many years. In this episode, we find out the particular pull of Herman Hesse's Siddhartha for James as well as how a non-reader became a regular and repeating reader at all. Spend this conversation with us thinking about why you read and whether repeat readings help or comfort you. Further reading: James writes occasionally online when he's inspired Here's his post about this book. 

One role-playing game changed the way I think, or confirmed the way I think—now I don't know which.  It was Mage: The Ascension. The tabletop role-playing game had players take on the roles of modern mages. The difference was, in previous RPGs, mages are usually spell-casting wizards. In Mage, magic works by imposing will upon the world: A mage wants something to happen. They try to learn how to do things like that (use fire, use time, use space between things, use death), and then they try to force their will on the world. If they succeed without irritating the world (which is a function of other human beings' belief about how things work), they succeed in their magic. If they don't, or they're too obnoxiously obvious about their magic, they fail or succeed … and strange supernatural consequences may happen to them.  Anyway, one of my best friends, James, used to spend hours with me chatting about this world and its ideas.  Well, I saw this book sitting on my bookshelf, and I thought: Who made this thing?  Sam Chupp's name was associated with the game. He wasn't the mastermind behind it all, but he was a key writer for a few years with the game's publisher, White Wolf, and he takes us through a journey in this podcast that covers RPGs, White Wolf, writing, the business of writing, and the pain of workplace burnout, then healing, imagination, and art. We also find out about a game he's close to releasing himself …   What does that all mean? That means Chupp's story turned out to be even more interesting to me than anything I could have learned about the Mage game from him.  For those not well-versed in tabletop role-playing games, especially White Wolf, there may be some “What the hell are you saying?” moments. But don't give up. Let those weird moments of jargon float by and go deep again. Chupp and I will always dance to another topic, and you'll catch the train of thought again.  Further research:  The deepest dive into Chupp's past and current work is his Linktree here.  Buy Sam Chupp Media role-playing game offerings on DriveThruRPG.com at this link.  Listen to regular episodes of Chupp's podcast on his website here.   An old-fashioned website of Chupp's from years ago appears here. It's flavorful, fanciful, vulnerable and sweet. 

Pet owners complain about the rising cost of veterinary prices. What's to blame? This is a special bonus episode of What People Do that I've produced as a part of sponsored content for Animal Health Digest, a premier content curation service collecting and commenting on actionable information for people working in animal health.   I talk with Dr. Jennifer Sperry about the rising cost of veterinary care. Pet owners often say they're shocked and unprepared for the bill when they visit their local veterinary hospital. How can they cope? And what should they know about why costs are rising? Dr. Sperry is a veterinarian and a veterinary advisor at Independence Pet Group. IPG has several pet insurance brands specifically designed to help manage the risk of costs for services at veterinary practices. We discuss an opinion piece she has drafted with her perspective on five reasons for these increasing costs other than inflation. Agree? Disagree? Let's get into it ...  Further reading: Dr. Sperry's short opinion piece is available to read in the Digital Resources section at vet.aspcapetinsurance.com. Read more from the Animal Health Digest and subscribe here (it's free!). Final notes: ASPCA® Pet Health Insurance is a sponsor of Animal Health Digest, and we (and they) wanted to make sure the legal details made it in. So, please note ...  Dr. Sperry's policy covers eligible treatments for new and unexpected accidents and illnesses, including exam fees, prescriptions, hospitalization, surgery, referrals, alternative medicine*, prescription food*, and medical devices* (*are sublimited). Her policy limit is $5,000 annually with a $100 deductible and 10% coinsurance. Dr. Sperry had already met her deductible and had not yet exceeded her $5,000 annual limit in the example mentioned during this podcast. Plan premiums may vary based on location, your pet's breed and age, and the plan type, plan variables including annual deductible, annual limit, and reimbursement rate. The premium and reimbursement example from the podcast was based on the annual deductible being met in full. Pre-existing conditions are not covered. Waiting periods, annual deductible, co-insurance, benefit limits and exclusions may apply. For all terms and conditions, visit https://www.aspcapetinsurance.com/more-info/sample-plans-for-dogs-cats/. Preventive Care coverage reimbursements are based on a schedule. Complete Coverage reimbursements are based on the invoice. Products, schedules, and rates may vary and are subject to change. Discounts may vary and are subject to change. More information available at checkout. Insurance products are underwritten by United States Fire Insurance Company (NAIC #21113. Morristown, NJ), and produced and administered by PTZ Insurance Agency, Ltd. (NPN: 5328528. Domiciled in Illinois with offices at 1208 Massillon Road, Suite G200, Akron, Ohio 44306). (California residents only: PTZ Insurance Agency, Ltd., d.b.a PIA Insurance Agency, Ltd. CA license #0E36937). The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance. Through a licensing agreement, the ASPCA receives a royalty fee that is in exchange for use of the ASPCA's marks and is not a charitable contribution. 

Hey, gang. I was getting out new episodes of What People Do every Tuesday for a few months. Then my backlog run out Aug. 1. Surprise! I'm back. Not to tell you the backlog is back and the schedule is back (I am scheduling interviews, and this will keep going), but to say I'm working on a new podcast, too. This short 7-ish-minutes-long solo ramble covers what this podcast is and continues to be, and how a new podcast is another way to approach conversations. Watch out for the new one. Continue to enjoy this one. Tell folks you love about it, if you love it. Tell me what's wrong with it, if you have feedback. (It's terrible never to get feedback, positive or negative.) Enjoy ... talk soon ... 

The Greenies inventor is at it again … a new dental treat on the market.   This special podcast is a collaboration with Animal Health Digest, a premier content curation service collecting and commenting on actionable information for people working in animal health. I talk with Joe Roetheli, PhD, about something almost all dog owners buy: treats. Roetheli and his wife, Judy, were the masterminds behind the Greenies dental treat before selling it to a big dog in animal health, Mars, way back in 2006. Now, the serial entrepreneur has designed a new treat, also for dogs, and also for dental health: Yummy Combs.   After selling Greenies most might sail off into the sunset. Nope. Roetheli had more ideas for palatability as well as a honey-comb shape that he says helps scrub the tooth while dogs chew without harming their gums.   Let's find out how healthy the new treat is, why the world needed another one, and how hard it is to get the Veterinary Oral Health Council stamp of approval for a gingivitis-fighting treat.     But, first, I how the iconic treat Greenies first came about. It's inspiration from an inspirational inventor.     Further reading: Tired of hearing about the treat and want to see a dog going hard on a Yummy Combs treat? Here's a video. Roetheli mentions the Lil' Red Foundation. Find out more about his and his wife's philanthropic work here. Read more from the Animal Health Digest and subscribe here (it's free!).

It started before college. But when he showed up and could organize his life and calendar the way he wanted, well, there was so much TV to watch. All the time. And Michael Strumsky hit college during not “destination television,” but during the era of DVDs and online show sharing. He could watch and re-watch shows all the time, at all hours, any time of day.  What did he do? What did he do?  He eased up. He got busy. Let's see how it went …   Want more Michael? He interviews people more than interesting than him on the appropriately named People More Interesting Than Me. Subscibe and listen now! 

I read books all the time, but very, very rarely do I read a book more than once.  That was Leo Tolstoy's Confession. I had seen references to the Russian great's short work of religion, morality and personal experience.   Basically, Tolstoy hit middle age, wildly successful as an author with a happy family, and he wanted to die by suicide. For years, he struggled, and the short work is the story of his despair, his reasonable questioning, and the way out he found (it wasn't suicide).   Today, David Patterson is a literature and history professor at the University of Texas, Dallas. And, years ago, he translated the version of Confession that I read. I was delightfully shocked when he agreed to be interviewed about the work. (I reference this conversation in a dream here.)  Here, David talks Tolstoy, religion, and the meaning of life with me.  Want to learn more?  David Patterson's translation is available used and in a newer edition (Barnes & Noble).  If you read Tolstoy's Confession and are equally blown away, you can join me in reading other works infused with themes of religion and the meaning of life here.  Patterson is currently working on his 41st book. Eighteen Words to Sustain a Life: A Jewish Father's Ethical Will (available wherever fine books are sold, like Barnes & Noble) is David's living ethical will of advice and thought in the Jewish tradition and by Cascade Books. 

There are some dudes who play cricket in a big grassy field out here between a walking trail and some suburban homes. There's a long stretch of concrete in this Kansas suburban field, and a port-a-potty nearby. Some Saturdays I would walk by and see these guys out there, but I felt weird about stopping and asking about their game of cricket.  So, I found Ganesh online. And he answered all my dumb questions. And I think … I THINK … I understand the mechanics of the game and its appeal.  Among me asking questions over and over to try to figure out the rules of cricket, Ganesh shares why the sport has a such a powerful appeal for Indians: It's as if it was made by England for India … “a true Desi sport,” he says.  Take it away, Ganesh.  P.S. Here are some links if you want to learn more about the 1983 Cricket World Cup, the second One Day World Cup in 2011, and that movie about the fascinating national hero and cricket champion, M.S. Dhoni (watch it on Hulu). 

Some content creators get so busy that they can't find time to plan, film, edit, post and promote their own stuff online. They turn to a growing international corps of creatives to do it.  This guy's one. His favorite claim to fame right now? Editing a Minecraft video from Mr. Beast that now has 1.7 million views. Holy crap snacks.  Now, he might be off to his next greatest adventure, leaving rural northwestern America for … urban Florida!  Find him at tssvideoediting.com.  Let's dig into the calm but cool world of this video editor …  

In recent years, I have fallen back in love with New Age, space music, and the droning, atmospheric, accessible Neoclassical genre. Imagine music to TV shows, movies and moods that don't exist … or only exist in the composers' and performers' own heads.  Works like Max Richter's Sleep and Johann Johannson's Virðulegu Forsetar have played and replayed in my head as I lie on my bed dozens of times now. Their droning but moving parts, atmospheric sound and noise, and accessible melody and harmony, slow and calming and transporting … I can't get enough.   That's why a chance to interview Hipster Pug, a maker of Neoclassical, ambient and experimental music, was exciting.   Forgive some of my excited, stumbling questions. Settle in and discover why we both love these genres and how this new musician fell in love with, not just listening, but making the work himself …   Want a flavor before we start? I mention his “journey of dreams.” Listen right here on Bandcamp. If you like it, throw him a few bucks and buy the whole thing!  Want to dive into Neoclassical, to see what's what? Here are some artists and selections discussed during (or after we finished recording) this episode:  “Infra 5” from Max Richter's Infra (one of our guest's favorites), here on YouTube  Orphée from Johann Johannson  “Particles” from Ólafur Arnauld's Island Songs, here on YouTube  nouveau chapitre EP and Neon Noir album from Hipster Pug himself  artists from the label that carries Hipster Pug, Monochrome Motif, focusing on “Post Classical,” “Cinematic” and “Electronica” music  Want my favorite work these days? This is it: spoken word, machine noise, manipulated vocals, beautiful drones and music. 

I stumbled onto James Payne on Reddit.com, where he asked folks in my town if they'd go check on, and take measurements of, a big piece of public art he'd loaned to the city a few years ago.  I know that art! I've gotta talk to this guy!  And he agreed.  I got to ask Payne about his art sensibilities, how he got entranced by big sculptures, and the moment spirals grabbed his attention.  If all went as planned, I went out at the end of May to spend an hour or two meeting Payne in person and watching a team slowly dismantle his sculpture for relocation to Colorado. And if all went as planned, Payne has continued to garner new opportunities to make and showcase more big, big art.  You can find the most up-to-date online gallery of Payne's art at bxiie.com. You can see the installation before it was taken down in Olathe, Kan., at that website titled “Isolation/Wood, Steel/2021.”  He's in IT today, but some day Payne would like to be a full-time artist. I'd like to see that too. In the meantime, we'll all take what we can get from him …  

Pamela Topjian published a book last year about her experience escaping an abusive partner and figuring out how she'd wound up there in the first place: I Didn't Come This Far to Only Come THIS Far.  She was once trapped in a terrible marriage. Now, she lives a life she says she never expected to live. How did she get from there … to here?  She tells us.  You can, of course, run off and read Topjian's book on Kindle. Or you can check out her evolving channel of thinking, hypnotherapy and meditation here on YouTube.  As I say at the end of this episode, I am most excited to read her upcoming book about her experience as a nurse. YAY! Something to look forward to this year!!!

I can't share his name, but he calls in from France. He wanted to join the military, and he's serving a five-year stint. He's gotten promotions, and after basic training, he got into exactly the unit he yearned for. He doesn't regret his choice to join the military. He wanted a unique, powerful experience. He wanted to join that brotherhood of men and women that develops only when you're pushed your limit, under fire, in danger, and exhausted. He found what he wanted.  He also found Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and he sought help at the urging of his girlfriend (now his fiancee). It helped.   The good, the bad … his life in the military. Let's get started …  

The folks at the gaming convention Kantcon let me interview Gabi Dyck of Gamer Girl Jewelry recently to help me help them promote my favorite gaming convention in the country. (Full disclosure: It's them. They're my favorite. But I've only ever been to Kantcon over and over again for years, so I'm biased.)  You'd think with tabletop RPGs roughly 50 years old that hand-made dice would have totally been a thing by now. But Gabi Dyck, founder of Gamer Girl Jewelry, told me that hand-made dice are relatively new. Turns out, there's a lot of equipment that makes it a more complicated hobby and business than, say, crochet (which, yes, Gabi has also enjoyed).   It all started when Gabi saw her first set of handmade dice (bought for her by her partner—a keeper!). She was captivated and knew she had to make dice-making her business. That's why, today, it's her full-time job to make shiny dice, colorful dice, dice that sparkle, and dice with sparkles inside that move—like functional snow globes that double as a gamer's best friend.  You can find Gabi most active online on TikTok @gamergirljewelry, which includes a link to all her socials, storefronts and favorite ways to reach her.  Listen in if you're into arts, crafts, hobbies, gaming, or just really excited entrepreneurs …   P.S. The pic here showcases one of the cool dice dragon guardians that Gabi makes and talks about in the episode. One of her hand-made d20s is nestled in the crook of its tail. If you like the dragon or the dice, well, you'll like Gabi's work.

Ultimately, I think the fundamental question we tumble into, like rolling down a mountain of sharp, rocky points, bloodied and bruised at the bottom of the Mountain of Life time and time again, is, “What are we supposed to do with this life?” The philosophers phrase this question in many ways: What is good? What is God? What is truth? What is kindness? Why do we gather together? What are the best ways to gather together? Why do we rule and consent to be ruled, and what are the ways to do that?  On and on and on.  But, really, isn't the question also about work, action, energy, initiative, direction, drive, desire, purpose? “What do I do next?”  My thinking about activity and work as paramount might be because I've got it on the brain because I'm reading Work by James Suzman. But, if not work, then play? And if not play, then charitable helping? And if not charitable helping, then family or friends?  We are alive. We are doing things.  In that vein, this rambling (and, yes, I'm the one who gets lost during the conversation and is always trying to get found) chat between me and my favorite Greek mirrors the wandering ways of our first conversation. We've talked before—last time about Thucydides.  We were going to talk about Plato's Protagoras. But we hint at another dialogue that focuses, like Protagoras, on sophists, guys who get paid to teach other people how to sway people in conversation or debate. That's Gorgias. But then we were going to talk about Aristotle.  My favorite part, by far, of this conversation is the end: Georgios' analogy of “Society as a Board Game.” Don't miss it. And Socrates' answer? Well … that's the last few seconds of the podcast …   So, all that to say, if you get lost, go read a translation of either of those dialogues. Here are two:  I read Jowett's translation of Protagoras, and I suspect Georgios did, too. Here ya go.  And Jowett's Gorgias? Tada.  The picture? That's supposed to be Protagoras. But my buddy told me last time I stuck in a bust of an ancient, I got it wrong. So ... I think this is Protagoras.

Josh was an atheist. But Josh's mind was blown, in a good way, in experiences where he consumed psychedelic drugs. Here, he talks about his pre-psychedelic world, his mind shift, how religions might be onto something, and the benefits and dangers of psychedelics in this one.  Let me be clear: In talking to Josh openly about his experiences, I am not recommending anyone follow his path. I'm not telling you it would be good for you, personally, to use particular drugs, or drugs at all. That's a personal choice for grown adults, folks. Josh uses the drugs to learn things about himself, loved ones and the world, not bliss out at parties. Listen all the way to the end for Josh's story of one psychedelic experience he had that was a very, very unpleasant one.  If you are toying with the idea of trying out psychedelics sometime in the future, Josh says, as unexciting as it is, you need to do your homework first. Research, research, research. And on that note …   To feed further curiosity  Josh's podcast, Pursuit of Infinity: Get on it.  Josh also name-drops the Psychedelics Today website as an excellent resource.  

Beth Mayorga hosts her own podcast, The Fan Fic Maverick. What is “fan fic”? The definition is always being fought over in online forums, but Beth says it simply: You're writing stories using someone else's IP (intellectual property).  An early form of this in the 1960s that Beth and I mention are Star Trek stories written by fans shared way before the internet was big about Kirk and Spock's evolving relationship outside the "approved" TV show—sometimes romantically. No, that doesn't mean all fan fic is erotic fantasy. Any time a writer or a creator makes stories using someone else's characters, that's fan fic.  But, wait, wait: Isn't that what happens in myth? Heck yeah it is. So, in this convo, we situate fan fic in its wider place in literature as the newest outgrowth of a practice that's thousands of years old: making up new stories using characters you didn't make up.  To feed further curiosity  Ready to dive in? You've got two options.  Head to Archive of Our Own, which is jammed with one of the internet's biggest repository of fan fic on just about anything you love. Pick a character you love. A theme you want expressed. A story from movie, TV or books you want continued. Dive in.  Go the podcast route, and join Beth and Sara as they feature a two-part fan fic history in their two podcasts: Part 1 is at Sara's Talkin' Fanfic, and Part 2 is on Beth's podcast.  Dig Beth? She promises, at the end of our interview, that she's working on some written, video or podcast stuff on the history and culture of fan fiction writers. YAY!  Enjoy. :) 

What is spina bifida? What is it like living with the ongoing of the birth defect as a creative twentysomething American? Noah Mussay talks about childhood, school, work, life and sled hockey, and gives us a few pointers on the way he prefers strangers ask about his condition (hint: be curious, not entitled).  Note: After the last question here, I asked Noah what he does for fun outside of work and his former sled hockey days. He said he's reading Robert Jordan gigantic “Wheel of Time” series. He talked me into it, and I've got a copy of the first book coming from the library. I'm 48 now, and I tried to read it way, way back when it first started in 1990, when I was 15. Thanks, Noah. I'll let you know what I think. Second note: Noah says he's noodling around the idea of doing a podcast where he talks to other people about their lives with disabilities. He's got a great voice and ideas, so I really, really hope he does. I'd listen!

Jeffery D. Long spoke to me last year about religious pacifism, especially in reference to the brand-new book he co-edited (and wrote chapters for), Nonviolence in the World's Religions: A Concise Introduction (Routledge, 2022).   Now, the Carl W. Ziegler Professor of Religious Studies at Elizabethtown College talks to me about a book coming out this year: Discovering Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist Thought (Bloomsbury, coming 2023). It's a sneak peek! And I am incredibly interested in the topic. I have delved into Buddhism, which had its start in India way back when. And I've been fascinated by the study of Americans who brought Eastern philosophy and religion back with them in the back half of the 20th century.  Long, however, a convert to Hinduism, wanted to do his part of help place Indian philosophy not only in its place in world religion, but in the Philosophy Department proper.  What can we learn about what we think and how we think from the great traditions of the Indian subcontinent without silo-ing those ideas just in religion?  I was hungry to learn, and Long thrilled me with answers to questions I didn't even know I had ...  Photo by Navneet Shanu

There is a joy that comes with interviewing someone about something you are deeply familiar with. You have lots of follow-up questions. You have lots of chances to push back. You know what to joke about to show inside knowledge and how to carry the interviewee deeper and deeper into the shared pool.  There is another joy that comes with interviewing someone about something you know nothing about. Well, OK, to be fair, Adam Gray and I both teach languages, and we both play video games (check out his podcast here).   But Taiwan? Nothing. I got nothing. It's off the coast of China? There's some disagreement about who should be in charge of it, and what that looks like? That's it. So, I was delighted to get Adam's immigrant take. He has spent 16-ish years teaching “cram school” there, where students finish up their day at regular school then spend hours in the afternoon and evening in English immersion classes with Adam and thousands of other teachers around the island.  So, I get to learn from Adam what it's like to leap into a new country with a new career, live overseas for more than a decade, wrestle with the Chinese language, explore Chinese and Taiwanese politics as a bystander, and, generally, enjoy and flourish living in a new country.  Adam's got a voice for radio, answers every question I have, and seems like a bright example of a success story on a career path that many English speakers, all over the world, dive into: teaching your native language around the world.  We end on a discussion about something I find particularly interesting: the generational changes, as parents who went through strict and stressful education want their kids to have it easier, but wind up, maybe, making it harder for their kids to learn what they need to know.  Image of Kaohsiung City in Taiwan by tingyaoh from Pixabay 

I spoke to a veterinarian-and-amateur-historian recently, and he turned me onto the Crusades. I'll admit, I hadn't thought much about them beyond the basic line: zealous Christians from Europe led failed (and very bloody) military attempts to hold Jerusalem and other parts of Jesus' old stomping grounds. The leaders, I remembered, were surely motivated by greed and holy-war violence.  Not so fast, says professor emeritus John France. The truth of things is more nuanced and multifaceted, but, yes, still very violent and bloody. But this medieval historian argues compellingly that, well, we forget, as moderns, just how bloody medieval Europe was—how violence was a common experience for generation after generation there. France was there in academia for a slow sea change in medieval history, where they revisited the myth that all these crusaders were hungry for power and gold. (They actually spent a lot of their own money on these religious excursions.)  Find out what you didn't know about the Crusades with the brilliant professor emeritus from Swansea University in Wales, the delightful and thoughtful John France ...  To Feed Further Curiosity:   I have been reading an edition of The Concise History of the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden. It has a lot of names and locations that are hard to track, and it goes by pretty fast, but Madden writes with an excited, passionate voice and carries me through the moments when I get lost and hope to find purchase in the timeline again. Most illuminating are the different reasons and results of the separate crusades and groups gathered up under the umbrella of “crusading.”  France credits Jonathan Riley-Smith (The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading) with helping to change the vision of the Crusades from ruthless power grab to a more nuanced take.  France himself has written some academic books covered here. If you really want to go down the rabbit trail of medieval military tactics and history, France mentions De Re Militari. 

The very kind academic Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson answered questions about teenagers in society last year on this podcast. At the time, she told me she was a helping hand in research done right at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, say, March 2020.   The research had to do with social norms, Dr. Kirkpatrick Johnson told me, and her colleague—Washington State University sociology professor Dr. Christine Horne—could tell me more.  Well, she did. Dr. Horne and I discuss sociology, American culture, a little about her biggest bit of research (bridewealth, paid from groom's family to bride's family, in Ghana), and a lot about the research she did about brand-new social norms that developed, in real time, during the pandemic in 2020.  What are social norms? Are they good or bad … enervating or oppressive … both? And how did Democrats and Republicans judge each other for their choices about mask-wearing, vaccine-taking, shopping and store-closing during the pandemic?  You're not done with COVID until you've done a little reflection and processing with us …  To feed further curiosity:  Read one of Dr. Horne's co-written bridewealth research papers here.  Read the abstract for Dr. Horne's COVID paper here.  Note: There's some weird crinkling on some of this audio. I think, maybe, a camera was focusing in and out, and you could hear it on the mic. Honestly, I am becoming increasingly fascinated by the live sound artifacts that get captured electronically. Sorry about that. But, y'know, this podcast is free, so beggars can't be choosers. And Dr. Horne is so interesting, I'd listen to her thoughts on society and sociology through a loud wind storm. YMMV. 

Retired historian Dr. Jeremy Black has now allowed me to interview him three times. THREE TIMES. He gets an award for entertaining my curiosity.   In each interview, he dances through a historian's perspective and answers both detailed questions about fiddly bits of the world's past as well as giving detailed and thoughtful big-picture answers about war, religion and life in general.  In this episode, Jeremy discusses A History of the Second World War in 100 Maps (2020, The University of Chicago Press). He kicks off by explaining some wanted the book to be yet another chronological map book (1939, 1940, etc., etc.), but he pushed back to organize it along thematic threads and made sure many countries' maps were represented.  Interested in history, maps, World War II, propaganda, racism, why German Nazis weren't as great as some say they were (including themselves), and, lastly, why we ignore old-fashioned weapons like artillery in favor of obsessing over drones? Jeremy Black will interest you.  P.S. Jeremy likes maps so much, he'd make a map book a year (he's already got a rail map idea). Publishers, he's proven his prolific output (he has published 11 history books in 2022 alone).  Caveat: There's a delightful grandfather clock chiming a few minutes in. I left it in, because the chiming is really charming. Why am I suffering with these terrible smartphone beeps when the time could be announced in this way in my own apartment?  To Feed Further Curiosity:   Jeremy talked with me about Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes here. He talked about the big picture of war throughout human history here. Jeremy recommends other books of his at the end of the podcast. Here are some samples from his corpus:  A Short History of War (I read it; I liked it) Strategy and the Second World War Rethinking World War Two: The Conflict and Its Legacy I talked about maps (and old books) with college professor John Krygier here.

I regularly search on Amazon for “veterinary business” and “veterinary management” and “business” books. Sometimes to buy, but usually, at first, to find new guests for a veterinary podcast.   That's how I stumbled into Aaron Gruben's new book A Theology of Beasts: Christians and Veterinary Medicine. The book brought together two things that fascinate me: DVMs and divinity. I bought it. I read it. I liked it. The first half of the book is Dr. Gruben's deep dive into Christians he found in ancient and modern history who contributed to and focused on animal medicine. The back half is a collection of some philosophy and theology that Dr. Gruben has looked into that touch on how Christians can think about their place in the world as women and men of God whose ministry could include healing animals, soothing animals' suffering, and modeling love for Creation to their clients.  Those who might enjoy the book? Christian veterinarians, Christian pet owners, Christian agriculturalists, Christians with horses (early vet med is a lot of horses), and Christians with teenagers thinking about a career in veterinary medicine.   Those who will enjoy the podcast? Anyone curious about vet med, animals and religion.  Let's dive in …   To Feed Further Curiosity:   Dr. Gruben also writes time travel fiction and has developed curriculum focusing on chivalry. Chivalry, I wondered. Tell me more. So I asked, and he delivered, including book recommendations for someone who knows next to nothing about the Crusades. Then the author of one of the books Dr. Gruben read about the Crusades agreed to do a podcast interview with me. And then Dr. Gruben wrote me some questions to get me started in my interview with the guy who wrote the book Dr. Gruben liked. Convoluted? Sure. Amazing synchronicity? Heck yeah. That podcast interview, hopefully, will be coming soon ... 

There is the hypnosis done for entertainment—on the stage or in a room of conference-goers. Like, say, this. A hypnotist gathers a group, asks the members to relax, and watches them, with their eyes closed, to see if they're receptive to the hypnosis. The hypnotist kicks out the ones who are “faking it” or aren't relaxing. Then the others cluck like chickens or get hot or cold or act silly.  There is another hypnosis, built on the same principles, used as a therapy technique. Ray has used hypnotherapy to help people stop smoking, give up other bad habits, and explore their trauma. That's the front half of this podcast episode.  In the back half of this episode, we wander into a world less scientific, more “woo woo” and still wickedly fascinating: hypnosis used for past life regression. A woman on Oprah.com wrote about her good experience trying it. A professor at University of Virginia wrote about his concerns about its use. Here's the Wikipedia article on it. Decide for yourself.  However, I'd urge you to listen to Ray's poignant account of her very real, very felt experience from past life regression that gave her some insight into her irrational love of water and her obsession with certain colors.  Oh, my experience with hypnosis? I went on two dates with a nice Jewish woman years and years ago, and our first date was to a comedy hypnotist show. I volunteered. She did not. I sat, closed my eyes, and followed the hypnotist's directions. Breathe this way. Breathe that way. You're hot. You're cold. You feel this way. You feel that way. I never felt lost or out of sorts—I was happy doing whatever the hypnotists. But I was always myself; I never lost myself. And that's how Ray talks about hypnosis. You need to want to be hypnotized, which means you're not out of control. You're aware of what's going, and you're allowing it to happen. Some people can do it. Some people, in that moment, aren't ready. Some people hate that.  Caveat: I step on Ray's introduction (“My name is Ray”), because I'm blathering about some other person's introduction when we get started. That's all. Apologies.  To Feed Further Curiosity:   If you want to know more about hypnotherapy, Ray recommended, hey, just go search “hypnotherapy” on the internet and evaluate things yourself. If you want to know about its use in past life regression, do the same thing. But she said she did like a particular book on past life regression, Many Lives, Many Masters, by psychiatrist Dr. Brian L. Weiss. 

Everybody's talking about mental health these days. That's, by and large, a good thing. But did you ever wonder why the incidence of diagnosed depression has been skyrocketing even as we talk more openly about our mental and emotional issues? What's going on?  That's what I talk to retired professor emeritus Dr. Allan Horwitz about. Dr. Horwitz has tilted at the DSM (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) windmill with books like All We Have to Fear: Psychiatry's Transformation of Normal Anxieties into Mental Disorders (2012) and The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Misery into Depressive Disorder (2007). It was that 2007 book that caught my eye recently. In it, Dr. Horwitz and Dr. Jerome Wakefield argue that in the late 20th century, the psychiatric community chose to remove context from its depression diagnoses. Despite centuries (millennia even) of ancient thought and modern psychiatric approaches to anxiety, sorrow and depression that poignantly considered and recognized how great sadness could be an orderly, normal response to terrible circumstances (romantic breakup, divorce, death, illness and other rough life events), American diagnosticians chose in editions of the famous and widely used DSM to ignore almost all context for painful episodes of sadness (save a short period of time for grief after the death of a loved one).  Drs. Horwitz and Wakefield made the pitch to the psychology and medical community that terrible sadness sometimes might be a normal, healthy response in some cases, not a disordered response needing immediate medical intervention … and, of course, pills.  To boil it down: Sometimes you feel bad about life, but you should feel bad about life, because life, in that moment, is bad and hard and hurtful. You may not be crazy! You may be functional and responding appropriately to crappy things. He's not saying all the people with diagnosed anxiety disorders, depression or trauma should not seek help. He's saying in some cases, if he had his way, he would counsel “watchful waiting” for medical health professionals to see whether things improve with changes in life circumstances.  Did the psychiatric community listen for later editions to consider more context in diagnosing Major Depressive Disorder? Listen and find out …   Caveat: Nowhere is Dr. Horwitz saying people with mental illness or struggling with mental problems should not seek help. He's only saying we might not be doing the best service to individuals in need of help—either psychiatric, medicinal, psychological, etc.—if we are diagnosing too many people with more severe mental illness than they actually have.  To Feed Further Curiosity:  A fairly comprehensive listing for Dr. Horwitz's journal articles and books appears here. Other interesting stand-outs besides the two referenced earlier for non-academic readers who are deeply interested in the topic could also include What's Normal?: Reconciling Biology and Culture and Anxiety: A Short History. All of Horwitz's works are accessible to laypeople but are deeply researched enough and often focused towards clinicians wrestling with the big picture of “Who's sick?” and “How do we know it?” and “Are we using the right tools or benchmarks to assess the difference between normal, painful psychic pain and mental disorders?”   Also recommended by Dr. Horwitz is the book Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights Into the Frontiers of Evolutionary Psychology by Dr. Randolph Nesse. Dr. Horwitz says the book is very accessible and covers many of the hypotheses and new ideas that have come out of theories that try to figure out how our current feelings might have developed over the millennia, what they might be trying to do, and how they might be supporting or sabotaging us in the modern world today. 

Veterinarian Dr. Gene Maxwell remembers someone coming up to him after a show in his town where he'd played some easy-going tunes on his guitar, influenced by folk, country, bluegrass, jazz, whatever. And she said his music was relaxing. He was elated inside. Because that's what sitting and playing guitar does for him today: The tones of the guitar relax him like a feedback loop of calm.   He says everyone's life at the veterinary hospital is better if he gets 20 minutes of guitar time in before showing up. And he's never felt the pull to make his life all about the music. The guitars and the equipment to make those heart-pleasing tones sit around his house, and they're there when he needs them.  Find out what music on the side feels like to this practice-owning animal doctor. Have you neglected that little itch inside to get some deep-down healing from a strum, a blow, a hum, a chant, a thump?  To Feed Further Curiosity:  You can listen to the first album from the band that included Dr. Maxwell, The Company I Keep on Spotify and other streaming services right now. If you want a physical copy of that CD or the follow-up album, they're available $10 each from Dr. Maxwell himself; email him at imbcreative@yahoo.com It would mean a LOT to me if at LEAST one listener bought them the way I did. They're some of the last CDs I bought and held onto  ...    Dr. Maxwell has very helpfully put his released solo stuff from the past few years on ReverbNation here. 

I mean, he doesn't just study Xenophon. Dr. Gregory McBrayer teacher political philosophy and international relations as Director, Core Curriculum, and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ashland University.   I've been on a kick lately reading excerpts from late-19th-early-20th century series. (Find my writing here.) And each time I wrap up a thinker, I thought, “Hey, wouldn't it be neat if I talked to somebody who knows that thinker better to see if my impressions were right, what I missed, and what cool rabbit trails other people fall down when it comes to that thinker?”  And Dr. McBrayer very kindly agreed to answer some of my questions about Xenophon. The thinker seemed the most modern and readable to me, and Dr. McBrayer agrees. He loves Xenophon, which made this interview pop with enthusiasm for me. Especially interesting is his perspective on the ancient Greek. See, Xenophon was used by students for many, many years to learn and translate from. Why? It's straight-forward. But Dr. McBrayer says, hey, sure, it's straightforward and direct. And other folks think Xenophon was the “dumb jock” at the ancient Greek thinker table. But is there more to Xenophon than meets the eye? He sold me on it. Listen to the episode, and maybe you'll be sold, too. We also talk American politics, touch on Plato and Aristotle, and have a good old time …   To Feed Further Curiosity:  A series of translations (Cornell University's Agora Editions) of ancient and medieval works includes two Dr. McBrayer mentions. One is edited by him. The other he calls out as his favorite translation of Xenophon's semi-fictional tale of Cyrus the Younger, which he recommends as folks' gateway drug to the ancient Greek:  The Shorter Writings by Xenophon, edited by Dr. McBrayer with one selection translated by him  The Anabasis of Cyrus by Xenophon, translated by Wayne Ambler.  Dr. McBrayer co-hosts a podcast with two scholarly friends titled The New Thinkery. The discussion wanders from sarcastic ribbing, funny philosophical observations, and very in-depth looks at both philosophy most would consider obscure (medieval Islam, for instance) as well as takes on more familiar films and literature. If you like smart-people-discussion podcasts and don't mind lots of philosophical digressions and wanderings, then scroll through the titles and find a book, movie or topic you're interested in and try it out. Dr. McBrayer's co-hosts include David Bahr (editor of The American Mind) and University of Colorado, Boulder, professor Dr. Alex Priou.   Dr. McBrayer is involved with the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, “an independent, non-partisan nonprofit with the mission of restoring and strengthening the capacities of the American people for constitutional self-government.” The website teachingamericanhistory.org eats up some of Dr. McBrayer's time in his quest with others to offer primary documents of American history and government for the world to read online. 

This is my big Episode 50. That's, like, a milestone, right? And it's with a nice guy I know, so I like it even more. I worked with Greg for years at a veterinary publishing and event company. Now, he's working on revving up his business in commercial photography, which I think is interesting. What is commercial photography? In Greg's case, he specializes in tabletop product pics, headshots, and pet portraits. You know, not artsy-fartsy photographs (although he takes those, too, and they're real purty), but work for businesses. The kind of shots that leave you smiling at an executive's facial expression, or curious about a new beer, or intrigued by packaging of just about anything. In this interview, he drops some tidbits about two basic mistakes people make taking amateur pictures at the end, so stay tuned  … Audio note: Greg's audio is a little crackly sometimes. Hey—nice guys and gals agree to record interviews with me remotely, and I don't harangue them about their setup, alright? ALRIGHT? Love you all! :) To Feed Further Curiosity: You can find Greg Kindred Photography here. He takes good pictures of anything, he stays calm and collected, and he's creative. Here's a pic of me and Greg with ex-co-workers with that company. I found it in the set of “Events" pics Greg has on the above website. He's the tall guy in the shades far left. I'm the tall guy in the middle back with the mostly shaved head. We both have foam fingers because we rule. He looks about the same years later. I've chonked Greg is planning to crowd-fund publishing costs for a book of Kansas City breweries. He's already got interest from local retailers to sell it. I've seen the proof-of-concept book, and it's awesome. I don't care about beers or Kansas City that much (I'm from Cali, so sue me), but the book is really pretty and interesting. Hurry up, Greg.

I stumbled onto the writing of David Grayson as I reflected on my (sometimes) daily reading of The University Library. Grayson's way of seeing the good in people and letting curiosity turn his feelings of urban oppression into natural wonder were inspiring. Open, curious conversations with people are kind of what this podcast is about.  So, I went on the hunt for someone to talk to about the guy whose method of talking to people was so inspiring.  And I found Nick Grabbe (grab-AY). Nick worked for decades as a journalist in Amherst, Massachusetts. Born in Washington, D.C., and custom-built to work as a big-city journalist, Grabbe turned to what he calls “simple living” in the small Massachusetts town he moved to. That's what Grayson himself extolled for many years in his columns written for newspapers in the early 20th century.  But, it turns out … there was no David Grayson. It was a pseudonym. Who was this Grayson guy? Grabbe will explain. And along the way he'll tell us about journalism and the appeal of a less hectic way of life—both of which held Grayson's attention, too, as you'll discover ...  More to see:  Want to learn more about a simple-living, small-town-focused journalist's career? Buy Nick's self-published Print and Privilege: Newspaper Writer Tells His Story (2021, Off the Common Books).  Do you want to try out a David Grayson book, or an essay or character study or two? Gutenberg's offerings (website) Internet Archive's offerings; just ignore the ones that look newer (website) Read more from David and his wife on the simple-living blog Adventures in the Good Life. If we have titillated your curiosity, you can learn more from an online exhibit about Grayson and an event Nick spoke at. The website features photos and letters like the ones Grabbe references in this podcast. Read Nick's entire essay/speech/presentation on Grayson he delivered at the event referenced above.

I met Noah when he came to a big synagogue in the Kansas City Metro and spent a weekend with us there. I was teaching kids songs every Sunday, so he trooped around with me and my brilliant guitar-playing assistant and interacted with every age group with us during the day. He says in this podcast that he loves getting down with the kids on the ground and interacting with them in the moment, and that is exactly what I remember most about his presence: He was right there with you.  I still play a few of his songs, old and new, at my current Sunday School gig, and I always loved his energy and … really, his being he brings during music. And that's funny, because he plays with my opening question. I tell guests, “You'll start with, ‘I'm BLAH, and I do BLAH.'” And, well, he takes me literally. But then he gets on a philosophizing train in the moment about how “I am” can be so powerful—what we tell people about ourselves, how we feel about ourselves, what we really are. And he comes to a much wider statement when he gets to the end of it here, and I dug it.  Then we go on to talk about how Noah got into music, got into Jewish music, got into and out of rabbinic school, and got into his current place. He still makes Jewish music. He still visits and works with synagogues. But he's dipped back into his old love of theater recently, and he took the COVID break from shul-touring to make a new, different kind of music, which he'll talk about here.  Anyway, I always wanted to find out how Noah got started and why he does what he does in his way. And he very kindly told me. And now you.   If you like his vibe, you'll also like him here:  > M.O.V.E., a BeMajor Production by Noah Aronson, on Apple Music, Spotify, or in his album release concert on YouTube  > The BeMajor Podcast, with links here  > BeMajor, which offers Noah's guidance on music in wellbeing, music theory, songwriting, and more  He doesn't market these in this podcast, but I wanted you to know, if you like him, there's more to like.  P.S. This is two podcasts in a row where something was a little wonky about the audio. In this case, Noah sounds fabulous, and I sound scratchy/staticky. Thankfully, I shut my piehole most of the podcast.  P.P.S. My old boss in her new career as kick-ass executive coach is thinking about healthy feedback right now, and so my last question was about feedback. His answers were great. Thanks for the question, Marnette. 

Recently retired history professor Jeremy Black was very gracious in allowing me to interview a while back about something I was curious about: war. Black has written many, many books, and a darn big pile of them specifically about military conflicts. His historic perspective—looking at how many common narratives about why wars start and how they're won are often wrong—was amazingly refreshing, but … we're not here to talk war.  We're here to talk morality. Religion. And detective fiction.  Black has just published two new books on Sherlock Holmes (The Game Is Afoot: The Enduring World of Sherlock Holmes; Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) and Agatha Christie (The Importance of Being Poirot; St. Augustine's Press, 2022). Any fan of either, or detective fiction in general, surely will delight in the perspective of a history-trained literary appreciator (is that a word?) of the books. I've read a little Arthur Conan Doyle and none at all of Christie, but talking to him for a little while inspired me to do more of both and to take seriously the visions of society, morality and theology inside the works and, for sure, inside the writers' own intentions and lives. 

Two things everywhere around us: Religion. Space. But most people don't bring them together. Scientists unhappy with religion shake their head at our species' small-minded tribal violence that bubbles up in religious conflict or old-fashioned “sky daddy” thinking. Religionists unhappy with science shake their head at scientism's obsessive materialism and lack of answers and responses to our very human needs to understand, to be comforted, to be awed. Now that the two strawmen/women are out of the way, most of us can acknowledge religion doesn't end at the atmosphere, and space is as even more of a wild testimony to the universe's wonder and the necessity of the “why?” questions that, sometimes, are best discussed and studied in the social sciences.  Blah blah blah, from me. Let's talk Deana Weibel, PhD (DEE-nuh WHY-bull). She's a professor in both the Anthropology and Religious Studies departments at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. She studies sacred spaces, including sacred spaces and people's relationships to those places. She came up to me at Spaceport America as a visiting anthropologist observing and asking questions of folks like me there, who were waiting to see if their friends' and family members' remains would go up on a rocket. They didn't. She wanted to ask me a few questions about Judaism and space (I didn't have good answers). But I snuck her my card to interview her for my podcast, because when you're confronted with an anthropologist who studies religion and space, you want to know more.  Cool claim to fame: Dr. Weibel wrote a paper about what she calls the ultraview effect. The Overview Effect is one name for what astronauts say they experience when they look out at Earth from above and get a new, powerful perspective on humanity and our small planet. Weibel heard another astronaut talk about an experience of fear and awe that came with looking out at the stars in the other direction, causing “a transformative sense of incomprehension and a feeling or shrinking or self-diminution.” Anyway, the Brit-rock band Kasabian recorded a song called “T.U.E. (The Ultraview Effect),” which appears on their 2022 album. And the lyrics do talk about perspective, so it sounds like song and idea are intertwined. We get into the ultraview effect, but not the song, in this podcast.  So, settle back and let's study the stars … or strap in, we're going for a rocket ride … whatever metaphor you like … where does religious yearning meet with space exploration … ?  P.S. There's a tinny vibration in some of the audio here. Apologies. Don't hate me. I can't afford this genius for every podcast, alright?