Podcast appearances and mentions of ivan ilyich

After enjoying her new book Open Socrates so much (and having written about her previous book Aspiration in Second Act), I was delighted to talk to Agnes Callard, not least because, as she discusses in Open Socrates, she is a big Tolstoy admirer. We talked about Master and Man, one of my favourite Tolstoy stories, but also about the value of reading fiction, the relationship between fiction and a thought experiment, and other topics of related interest. George Eliot makes an appearance too. In the discussion about the use of fiction in philosophy classes, I was slightly shocked to hear about how much (or how little) reading her undergraduates are prepared to do, but I was interested that they love Pessoa. Agnes has previously written that the purpose of art is to show us evil. Here is Agnes on Twitter. Transcript below, may contain errors!I found this especially interesting.Exactly, and I mean, 10 seconds, that's a wild exaggeration. So do you know what the actual number is? No. On average. Okay, the average amount of time that you're allowed to wait before responding to something I say is two tenths of a second, which, it's crazy, isn't it? Which, that amount of time is not enough time for, that is a one second pause is an awkward pause, okay? So two tenths of a second is not long enough time for the signal that comes at the end of my talking, so the last sound I make, let's say, to reach your ears and then get into your brain and be processed, and then you figure out what you want to say. It's not enough time, which means you're making a prediction. That's what you're doing when I'm talking. You're making a prediction about when I'm going to stop talking, and you're so good at it that you're on almost every time. You're a little worse over Zoom. Zoom screws us up a little bit, right? But this is like what our brains are built to do. This is what we're super good at, is kind of like interacting, and I think it's really important that it be a genuine interaction. That's what I'm coming to see, is that we learn best from each other when we can interact, and it's not obvious that there are those same interaction possibilities by way of text at the moment, right? I'm not saying there couldn't be, but at the moment, we rely on the fact that we have all these channels open to us. Interestingly, it's the lag time on the phone, like if we were talking just by phone, is about the same. So we're so good at this, we don't need the visual information. That's why I said phone is also face-to-face. I think phone's okay, even though a lot of our informational stream is being cut. We're on target in terms of the quick responses, and there's some way in which what happens in that circumstance is we become a unit. We become a unit of thinking together, and if we're texting each other and each of us gets to ponder our response and all that, it becomes dissociated.Transcript (AI generated)Henry: Today, I am talking to Agnes Callard, professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, author of Aspiration, and now most recently, Open Socrates. But to begin with, we are going to talk about Tolstoy. Hello, Agnes: .Agnes: Hello.Henry: Shall we talk about Master of Man first?Agnes: Yeah, absolutely.Henry: So this is one of Tolstoy's late stories. I think it's from 1895. So he's quite old. He's working on What is Art? He's in what some people think is his crazy period. And I thought it would be interesting to talk about because you write a lot in Open Socrates about Tolstoy's midlife crisis, for want of a better word. Yeah. So what did you think?Agnes: So I think it's sort of a novel, a story about almost like a kind of fantasy of how a midlife crisis could go if it all went perfectly. Namely, there's this guy, Brekhunov, is that his name? And he is, you know, a landowner and he's well off and aristocratic. And he is selfish and only cares about his money. And the story is just, he takes this, you know, servant of his out to, he wants to go buy a forest and he wants to get there first before anyone else. And so he insists on going into this blizzard and he gets these opportunities to opt out of this plan. And he keeps turning them down. And eventually, you know, they end up kind of in the middle of the blizzard. And at kind of the last moment, when his servant is about to freeze to death, he throws himself on top of the servant and sacrifices himself for the servant. And the reason why it seems like a fantasy is it's like, it's like a guy whose life has a lacuna in it where, you know, where meaning is supposed to be. And he starts to get an inkling of the sort of terror of that as they're spending more and more time in the storm. And his initial response is like to try to basically abandon the servant and go out and continue to get to this forest. But eventually he like, it's like he achieves, he achieves the conquest of meaning through this heroic act of self-sacrifice that is itself kind of like an epiphany, like a fully fulfilling epiphany. He's like in tears and he's happy. He dies happy in this act of self-sacrifice. And the fantasy part of it is like, none of it ever has to get examined too carefully. It doesn't like, his thought doesn't need to be subjected to philosophical scrutiny because it's just this, this one momentary glorious kind of profusion of love. And then it all ends.Henry: So the difficult question is answered the moment it is asked. Exactly, exactly, right?Agnes: It's sort of, it's, I see it as like a counterpart to the death of Ivan Ilyich.Henry: Tell me, tell me more.Agnes: Well, in the death of Ivan Ilyich, the questions surface for even, you know, when death shows up for him. And he suddenly starts to realize, wait a minute, I've lived my whole life basically in the way that Brekhunov did. Basically in the way that Brekhunov does as, you know, pursuing money, trying to be a socially successful person. What was the point of all that? And he finds himself unable to answer it. And he finds himself, it's the exact opposite. He becomes very alienated from his wife and his daughter, I think.Henry: Yeah.Agnes: And the absence of an answer manifests as this absence of connection to anyone, except an old manservant who like lifts up his legs and that's the one relief that he gets. And, you know, it's mostly in the gesture of like someone who will sacrifice themselves for another. Right, that's once again where sort of meaning will show up for a Tolstoy, if it ever will show up in a kind of direct and unashamed way.Henry: Right, the exercise of human compassion is like a running theme for him. Like if you can get to that, things are going great. Otherwise you've really screwed up.Agnes: Yeah, that's like Tolstoy's deus ex machina is the sudden act of compassion.Henry: Right, right. But you think this is unphilosophical?Agnes: I think it's got its toe in philosophical waters and sort of not much more than that. And it's in a way that makes it quite philosophical in the sense that there's a kind of awareness of like a deep puzzle that is kind of like at the heart of existence. Like there's a sensitivity to that in Tolstoy that's part of what makes him a great writer. But there's not much faith in the prospect of sort of working that through rationally. It's mostly something we just got a gesture at.Henry: But he does think the question can be answered. Like this is what he shares with you, right? He does think that when you're confronted with the question, he's like, it's okay. There is an answer and it is a true answer. We don't just have to make some, he's like, I've had the truth for you.Agnes: Yes, I think that that's right. But I think that like the true answer that he comes to is it's compassion and it's sort of religiously flavored compassion, right? I mean, that it's important. It's not just. Yeah, it's a very Christian conclusion. Right, but the part that's important there in a way, even if it's not being Christian, but that it's being religious in the sense of, yes, this is the answer. But if you ask for too much explanation as to what the answer is, it's not going to be the right answer. But if you ask for too much explanation as to why it's the answer, you're going the wrong way. That is, it's gotta, part of the way in which it's the answer is by faith.Henry: Or revelation.Agnes: Or, right, faith, exactly. But like, but it's not your task to search and use your rational faculties to find the answer.Henry: I wonder though, because one of the things Tolstoy is doing is he's putting us in the position of the searcher. So I read this, I'm trying to go through like all of Tolstoy at the moment, which is obviously not, it's not currently happening, but I'm doing a lot of it. And I think basically everything in Tolstoy is the quest for death, right? Literature is always about quests. And he's saying these characters are all on a quest to have a good death. And they come very early or very late to this. So Pierre comes very early to this realization, right? Which is why he's like the great Tolstoy hero, master of man, Ivan Ilyich, they come very, and Tolstoy is like, wow, they really get in under the wire. They nearly missed, this is terrible. And all the way through this story, Tolstoy is giving us the means to see what's really going on in the symbolism and in all the biblical references, which maybe is harder for us because we don't know our Bible, like we're not all hearing our Bible every week, whereas for Tolstoy's readers, it's different. But I think he's putting us in the position of the searcher all the time. And he is staging two sides of the argument through these two characters. And when they get to the village and Vasily, he meets the horse thief and the horse thief's like, oh, my friend. And then they go and see the family and the family mirrors them. And Tolstoy's like, he's like, as soon as you can see this, as soon as you can work this out, you can find the truth. But if you're just reading the story for a story, I'm going to have to catch you at the end. And you're going to have to have the revelation and be like, oh my God, it's a whole, oh, it's a whole thing. Okay, I thought they were just having a journey in the snow. And I think he does that a lot, right? That's, I think that's why people love War and Peace because we go on Pierre's journey so much. And we can recognize that like, people's lives have, a lot of people's lives happen like that. Like Pierre's always like half thinking the question through and then half like, oh, there's another question. And then thinking that one through and then, oh, no, wait, there's another question. And I think maybe Tolstoy is very pragmatic. Like that's as philosophical as most people are going to get. Pierre is in some ways the realistic ideal.Agnes: I mean, Pierre is very similar to Tolstoy just in this respect that there's a specific like moment or two in his life where, he basically has Tolstoy's crisis. That is he confronts these big questions and Tolstoy describes it as like, there was a screw in his head that had got loose and he kept turning it, but it kept, it was like stripped. And so no matter when you turned it, it didn't go. It didn't grab into anything. And what happens eventually is like, oh, he learns to have a good conventional home life. Like, and like not, don't ask yourself these hard questions. They'll screw you up. And I mean, it's not exactly compassion, but it's something close to that. The way things sort of work out in War and Peace. And I guess I think that you're sort of right that Tolstoy is having us figure something out for ourselves. And in that way, you could say we're on a journey. There's a question, why? Why does he have us do that? Why not just tell us? Why have it figured out for ourselves? And one reason might be because he doesn't know, that he doesn't know what he wants to tell us. And so you got to have them figure out for themselves. And I think that that is actually part of the answer here. And it's even maybe part of what it is to be a genius as a writer is to be able to write from this place of not really having the answers, but still be able to help other people find them.Henry: You don't think it's, he wants to tell us to be Christians and to believe in God and to take this like.Agnes: Absolutely, he wants to tell us that. And in spite of that, he's a great writer. If that were all he was achieving, he'd be boring like other writers who just want to do that and just do that.Henry: But you're saying there's something additional than that, that is even mysterious to Tolstoy maybe.Agnes: Yeah.Henry: Did you find that additional mystery in Master in Man or do you see that more in the big novels?Agnes: I see it the most in Death of Ivan Ilyich. But I think it's true, like in Anna Karenina, I can feel Tolstoy being pulled back and forth between on the one hand, just a straight out moralistic condemnation of Anna. And of, there are the good guys in this story, Levine and Kitty, and then there's this like evil woman. And then actually being seduced by her charms at certain moments. And it's the fact that he is still susceptible to her and to the seductions of her charms, even though that's not the moral of the story, it's not the official lesson. There's like, he can't help but say more than what the official lesson is supposed to be. And yeah, I think if he were just, I think he makes the same estimation of himself that I am making in terms of saying, look, he finds most of his own art wanting, right? In what is art? Because it's insufficiently moralistic basically, or it's doing too much else besides being, he's still pretty moralistic. I mean, even War and Peace, even Anna Karenina, he's moralistic even in those texts, but his artistry outstrips his moralism. And that's why we're attracted to him, I think. If he were able to control himself as a writer and to be the novelist that he describes as his ideal in what is art, I don't think we would be so interested in reading it.Henry: And where do you see, you said you saw it in Ivan Ilyich as well.Agnes: Yes, so I think in Ivan Ilyich, it is in the fact that there actually is no deus ex machina in Ivan Ilyich. It's not resolved. I mean, you get this little bit of relation to the servant, but basically Ivan Ilyich is like the closest that Tolstoy comes to just like full confrontation with the potential meaninglessness of human existence. There's something incredibly courageous about it as a text.Henry: So what do you think about the bit at the end where he says he was looking for his earlier accustomed fear of death, but he couldn't find it. Where was death? What death? There was no fear whatsoever because there was no death. Instead of death, there was light. Suddenly he said, oh, that's it, oh bliss.Agnes: Okay, fair enough. I'd like forgotten that.Henry: Oh, okay. Well, so my feeling is that like you're more right. So my official thing is like, I don't agree with that, but I actually think you're more right than I think because to me that feels a bit at the end like he saw the light and he, okay, we got him right under the line, it's fine. And actually the bulk of the story just isn't, it's leading up to that. And it's the very Christian in all its imagery and symbolism, but it's interesting that this, when it's, this is adapted into films like Ikiru and there was a British one recently, there's just nothing about God. There's nothing about seeing the light. They're just very, very secular. They strip this into something totally different. And I'm a little bit of a grumpy. I'm like, well, that's not what Tolstoy was doing, but also it is what he was doing. I mean, you can't deny it, right? The interpreters are, they're seeing something and maybe he was so uncomfortable with that. That's why he wrote what is art.Agnes: Yeah, and that's the, I like that. I like that hypothesis. And right, I think it's like, I sort of ignore those last few lines because I'm like, ah, he copped out at the very end, but he's done the important, he's done the important, the important work, I think, is for instance, the scene with, even on his wife, where they part on the worst possible terms with just hatred, you know, like just pure hatred for the fact that she's forcing him to pretend that he isn't dying. Like that is like the profound moment.Henry: What I always remember is they're playing cards in the other room. And he's sitting there, he's lying there thinking about like the office politics and curtain, like what curtain fabrics we have to pick out and the like, his intense hatred of the triviality of life. And I love this because I think there's something, like a midlife crisis is a bit like being an adolescent in that you go through all these weird changes and you start to wonder like, who am I? What is my life? When you're an adolescent, you're told that's great. You should go ahead and you should, yes, lean into that. And when you're like in your forties, people are going, well, try and just put a lid on that. That's not a good idea. Whereas Tolstoy has the adolescent fury of like curtains and cards. Oh my, you know, you can feel the rage of his midlife crisis in some of that seemingly mundane description. Yeah. I think that's what we respond to, right? That like his hatred in a way.Agnes: Yeah. I mean, maybe we, many of us just have trouble taking ourselves as seriously as Tolstoy was able to, you know? And that's something, there's something glorious about that, that anyone else would listen to the people around them telling him, hey, don't worry, you're a great guy. Look, you wrote these important novels. You're a hero of the Russian people. You've got this wife, you're an aristocrat. You've got this family, you've got your affairs. I mean, come on, you've got everything a man could want. Just be happy with it all, you know? Many of us might be like, yeah, okay, I'm being silly. And Tolstoy is like, no one's going to tell me that I'm silly. Like I'm the one who's going to tell myself, if anything. And that kind of confidence is, you know, why he's sort of not willing to dismiss this thought.Henry: Yeah, yeah, interesting. So how do you think of Master and Man in relation to all the others? Because you know Tolstoy pretty well. You teach him a lot. How do you place it? Like how good do you think it is?Agnes: I don't teach him a lot. I'm trying to think if I ever taught Tolstoy.Henry: Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I read that you had.Agnes: I've taught The Death of Ivan Ilyich. That's the one, I have taught that one. I wish, I mean, I would love to teach. I just can't imagine assigning any of these novels in a philosophy, my students wouldn't read it.Henry: They wouldn't read it?Agnes: No.Henry: Why?Agnes: It's pretty hard to get people to read long texts. And I mean, some of them certainly would, okay, for sure. But if I'm, you know, in a philosophy class where you'd have to kind of have pretty high numbers of page assignments per class, if we're going to, I mean, you know, forget War and Peace. I mean, even like Ivan Ilyich is going to be pushing it to assign it for one class. I've learned to shorten my reading assignments because students more and more, they're not in the habit of reading. And so I got to think, okay, what is the minimum that I can assign them that where I can predict that they will do it? Anyway, I'm going to be pushing that next year in a class I'm teaching. I normally, you know, I assign fiction in some of my classes but that's very much not a thing that most philosophers do. And I have to sign it alongside, you know, but so it's not only the fiction they're reading, they're also reading philosophical texts. And anyway, yeah, no, so I have not done much, but I have done in a class on death, I did assign Ivan Ilyich. I don't tend to think very much about the question, what is the level of quality of a work of art?Henry: Well, as in, all I mean is like, how does it compare for you to the other Tolstoy you've read?Agnes: I, so the question that I tend to ask myself is like, what can I learn from it or how much can I learn? Not, it's not because I don't think the question of, the other one is a good one. I just think I trust other people's judgment more than mine unlike artistic quality. And I guess I think it's not as good as Death of Ivan Ilyich and I kind of can't see, like, it's like, what do I learn from it that I don't learn from Death of Ivan Ilyich? Which is like a question that I ask myself. And, there's a way in which that like that little final move, maybe when I'm reading Death of Ivan Ilyich, I can ignore that little final bit and here I can't ignore it. Tolstoy made it impossible for me to ignore in this story. So that's maybe the advantage of this story. Tolstoy makes his move more overt and more dominating of the narrative.Henry: Yeah, I think also, I've known people who read Ivan Ilyich and not really see that it's very Christian. Yeah, oh yeah.Agnes: I don't think I- Much less.Henry: Yeah.Agnes: That's what I'm doing. I'm erasing that from the story.Henry: But that's like much less possible with this one. I agree.Agnes: Right, exactly. That's sort of what I mean is that- Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, here the message is more overt. And so therefore I think it's actually a pretty important story in that way. Like, let's say for understanding Tolstoy. That is, if you were to try to take your view of Tolstoy and base it on Death of Ivan Ilyich, which sometimes I do in my own head, because it's occupied such an important place for me, then this is a good way to temper that.Henry: Yeah, they make a nice pairing. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Let's pick up on this question about philosophers and fiction because you write about that in Open Socrates. You say, great fiction allows us to explore what we otherwise look away from. So it makes questions askable, but then you say only in relation to fictional characters, which you think is a limitation. Are you drawing too hard of a line between fictional characters and real people? Like if someone said, oh, we found out, we were in the archives, Ivan Ilyich, he didn't, it's not fiction. He was just a friend, just happened to a friend, basically word for word. He just did the work to make it kind of look okay for a novel, but basically it's just real. Would that really change very much?Agnes: I think it wouldn't, no. So it might change a little bit, but not that much. So maybe the point, maybe a better thing I could have said there is other people. That is one thing that fictional people are is resolutely other. There's no chance you're going to meet them. And like they are, part of what it is for them to be fictional is that, there isn't even a possible world in which you meet them because metaphysically what they are is the kind of thing that can't ever interact with you. And, like the possible world in which I run into Ivan and Ivan Ilyich is the world in which he's not a Tolstoy character anymore. He's not a character in a novel, obviously, because we're both real people. So I think it's that there's a kind of safety in proving the life of somebody who is not in any way a part of your life.Henry: The counter argument, which novelists would make is that if you gave some kind of philosophical propositional argument about death, about what it means to die, a lot of people just wouldn't, they'd like, maybe they'd understand what you're saying, but it just wouldn't affect them very much. Whereas if they've read Ivan Ilyich, this will actually affect them. I don't want to say it'll resonate with them, but you know what I mean. It will catch them in some way and they're more likely then to see something in their own life and be like, oh my God, I'm appreciating what Ivan Ilyich was telling me. Whereas, this is the argument, right? The statistics of social science, the propositions of philosophy, this just never gets through to people.Agnes: Yeah, so one way to put this is, novelists are fans of epiphanies. I mean, some novelists, like Tolstoy, it's quite explicit. You just get these epiphanies, right? Like in this story, epiphany. James Joyce, I mean, he's like master of every story in Dubliners, epiphany. Novelists have this fantasy that people's lives are changed in a sudden moment when they have a passionate, oh, I just read this story and I'm so happy about it. And I don't actually doubt that these things happen, these epiphanies, that is people have these passionate realizations. I don't know how stable they are. Like they may have a passionate realization and then, maybe it's a little bit the novelist's fantasy to say you have the passionate realization and everything is changed. In this story, we get around that problem because he dies, right? So, that, I don't know. I somehow am now James Joyce. I don't know. I somehow am now James Joyce is in my head. The final story in Dubliners is the dead. And there's this like, amazing, I don't know who read the story.Henry: Yeah, yeah. Also with snow, right?Agnes: Yeah, exactly.You know, and it's this amazing where this guy is realizing his wife, their relationship is not what he thought it was, whatever. But then the story ends, does he really change? Like, do they just go on and have the same marriage after that point? We don't know. I mean, Joyce avoids that question by having the story end. But, so you might say, you know, novelists like epiphanies and they're good at writing epiphanies and producing epiphanies and imagining that their readers will have epiphanies. And then there's a question, okay, how valuable is the epiphany? And I think, not nothing. I wouldn't put it at zero, but you might say, okay, but let's compare the epiphany and the argument, right? So, what philosophers and the social scientists have, what we have is arguments. And who's ever been changed by an argument? And I think I would say all of human history has been changed by arguments and it's pretty much the only thing that's ever done anything to stably change us is arguments. If you think about, like, what are the things we've moved on? What are the things we've come around on? You know, human rights, there's a big one. That's not a thing in antiquity. And it's a thing now. And I think it's a thing because of arguments. Some of those arguments, you know, are starting to come in their own in religious authors, but then really come in, the flourishing is really the enlightenment. And so you might think, well, maybe an argument is not the kind of thing that can change very easily an adult who was already pretty set in their ways and who is not going to devote much of their time to philosophizing. It isn't going to give them the kind of passionate feeling of your life has suddenly been turned around by an epiphany, but it might well be that if we keep arguing with each other, that is how humanity changes.Henry: I think a lot of the arguments were put into story form. So like the thing that changed things the most before the enlightenment maybe was the gospels. Which is just lots of stories. I know there are arguments in there, but basically everything is done through stories. Or metaphor, there's a lot of metaphor. I also think philosophers are curiously good at telling stories. So like some of the best, you know, there's this thing of micro fiction, which is like very, very short story. I think some of the best micro fiction is short stories. Is a thought experiment, sorry. Yeah. So people like Judith Jarvis Thompson, or well, his name has escaped my head, Reasons and Persons, you know who I mean? Derek Parfit, right. They write great short stories. Like you can sit around and argue about long-termism with just propositions, and people are going to be either like, this makes total sense or this is weird. And you see this when you try and do this with people. If you tell them Parfit's thought experiment that you drop a piece of glass in the woods, and a hundred years later, a little girl comes in and she cuts up. Okay, everyone's a long-termist in some way now. To some extent, everyone is just like, of course. Okay, fine. The story is good. The famous thought experiment about the child drowning in the pond. And then, okay, the pond is like 3000. Again, everyone's like, okay, I get it. I'm with you. Philosophers constantly resort to stories because they know that the argument is, you have to have to agree with you. You've got to have the argument. The argument's the fundamental thing. But when you put it in a story, it will actually, somehow it will then do its work.Agnes: I think it's really interesting to ask, and I never asked myself this question, like what is the relationship between a thought experiment and a story? And I think that, I'm fine with a thought experiment with saying it's a kind of story, but I think that, so one feature of a thought experiment is that the person who is listening to it is given often a kind of agency. Like, which way do you push the trolley? Or do you care that you left this piece of glass there? Or are you, suppose that the pond was so many miles away but there was a very long hand that reached from here and you put a coin in the machine and at the other end, the hand will pull the child out of the water. Do you put the coin in, right? So like you're given these choices. It's like a choose your own adventure story, right? And that's really not what Tolstoy wrote. He really did not write choose your own adventure stories. There's a, I think he is-Henry: But the philosopher always comes in at the end and says, by the way, this is the correct answer. I'm giving you this experiment so that you can see that, like, I'm proving my point. Peter Singer is not like, it's okay if you don't want to jump into the pond. This is your story, you can pick. He's like, no, you have to jump in. This is why I'm telling you the story.Agnes: That's right, but I can't tell it to you without, in effect, your participation in the story, without you seeing yourself as part of the story and as having like agency in the story. It's by way of your agency that I'm making your point. Part of why this is important is that otherwise philosophers become preachers, which is what Tolstoy is when he's kind of at his worst. That is, you know, the philosopher doesn't just want to like tell you what to think. The philosopher wants to show you that you're already committed to certain conclusions and he's just showing you the way between the premises you already accept and the conclusion that follows from your premises. And that's quite-Henry: No, philosophers want to tell you the particular, most philosophers create a thought experiment to be like, you should be a virtue ethicist or you should give money away. Like they're preaching.Agnes: I don't think that is preaching. So I think that, and like, I think that this is why so many philosophical thought experiments are sort of meant to rely on what people call intuitions. Like, oh, but don't you have the intuition that? What is the intuition? The intuition is supposed to be somehow the kind of visceral and inchoate grasp that you already have of the thing I am trying to teach you. You already think the thing I'm telling you. I'm just making it clear to you what you think. And, you know, like there's like, I want to go back to the gospels. Like, I think it's a real question I have. I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but I feel like something I sometimes think about Jesus and I say this as a non-Christian, is that Jesus was clearly a really exceptional, really extraordinary human being. And maybe he just never met his Plato. You know, he got these guys who are like telling stories about him. But like, I feel like he had some really interesting thoughts that we haven't accessed. Imagine, imagine if Socrates only ever had Xenophon. You know, if Socrates had never met Plato. We might just have this story about Socrates. Oh, he's kind of like a hero. He was very self-sacrificing. He asked everyone to care about everybody else. And he might like actually look quite a bit like Jesus on a sort of like, let's say simplistic picture of him. And it's like, maybe it's a real shame that Jesus didn't have a philosopher as one of the people who would tell a story about him. And that if we had that, there would be some amazing arguments that we've missed out on.Henry: Is Paul not the closest thing to that?Agnes: What does he give us?Henry: What are the arguments? Well, all the, you know, Paulian theology is huge. I mean, all the epistles, they're full of, maybe, I don't know if they're arguments more than declarations, but he's a great expounder of this is what Jesus meant, you should do this, right? And it's not quite what you're saying.Agnes: It's conclusions, right?Henry: Yes, yes.Agnes: So I think it's like, you could sort of imagine if we only had the end of the Gorgias, where Socrates lists some of his sayings, right? Yes, exactly, yes. You know, it's better to have injustice done to you than to do injustice. It's better to be just than to appear just. Oratories should, you should never flatter anyone under any circumstances. Like, you know, there's others in other dialogues. Everyone desires the good. There's no such thing as weakness of will, et cetera. There are these sort of sayings, right? And you could sort of imagine a version of someone who's telling the story of Socrates who gives you those sayings. And yeah, I just think, well, we'd be missing a lot if we didn't hear the arguments for the sayings.Henry: Yeah, I feel stumped. So the next thing you say about novelists, novelists give us a view onto the promised land, but not more. And this relates to what you're saying, everything you've just been saying. I want to bring in a George Eliot argument where she says, she kind of says, that's the point. She says, I'm not a teacher, I'm a companion in the struggle of thought. So I think a lot of the time, some of the differences we're discussing here are to do with the readers more than the authors. So Tolstoy and George Eliot, Jane Austen, novelists of their type and their caliber. It's like, if you're coming to think, if you're involved in the struggle of thought, I'm putting these ideas in and I'm going to really shake you up with what's happening to these people and you're going to go away and think about it and Pierre's going to stay with you and it's really going to open things up. If you're just going to read the story, sure, yeah, sure. And at the end, we'll have the big revelation and that's whoopee. And that's the same as just having the sayings from Socrates and whatever. But if you really read Middlemarch, one piece, whatever, Adam Bede is always the one that stays with me. Like you will have to think about it. Like if you've read Adam Bede and you know what happens to Hetty at the end, this has the, oh, well, I'm not going to spoil it because you have to read it because it's insane. It's really an exceptional book, but it has some of those qualities of the thought experiment. She really does put you, George Eliot's very good at this. She does put you in the position of saying like, what actually went right and wrong here? Like she's really going to confront you with the situation but with the difficulty of just saying, oh, you know, that's easy. This is what happened. This is the bad thing. Well, there were several different things and she's really putting it up close to you and saying, well, this is how life is. You need to think about that.Agnes: So that last bit, I mean, I think that this is how life is part. Yeah. Really do think that that's something you get out of novels. It's not, so here's how you should live it or so here's why it makes sense, or here are the answers. It's none of the answers, I think. It's just that there's a kind of, it's like, you might've thought that given that we all live lives, we live in a constant contact with reality but I think we don't. We live in a bubble of what it's, the information that's useful to me to take in at any given moment and what do I need in order to make it to the next step? And there's a way in which the novel like confronts you with like the whole of life as like a spectacle or something like that, as something to be examined and understood. But typically I think without much guidance as to how you should examine or understand it, at least that's my own experience of it is that often it's like posing a problem to me and not really telling me how to solve it. But the problem is one that I often, under other circumstances, I'm inclined to look away from and the novelist sort of forces me to look at it.Henry: Does that mean philosophers should be assigning more fiction?Agnes: I, you know, I am in general pretty wary of judgments of that kind just because I find it hard to know what anyone should do. I mean, even myself, let alone all other philosophers.Henry: But you're the philosopher. You should be telling us.Agnes: No, I actually just don't think that is what philosophers do. So like, it was like a clear disagreement about, you know, is the, like George Eliot's like, I'm not a teacher, but the philosopher also says I'm not a teacher. I mean, Tolstoy was like, I am a teacher.Henry: Yeah, I'm a teacher.Agnes: I'm ready to guide you all.Henry: You should take notes.Agnes: But I think it's right that, yeah. So I think it's like, you know, maybe they have some other way of forcing that confrontation with reality. But I, my own feeling is that philosophers, when they use examples, including some of the thought experiments, it's sort of the opposite of what you said. It's kind of like they're writing very bad fiction. And so they'll come up with these, like I am philosophy. We have to, we're forced to sort of come up with examples. And, you know, I discuss one in my aspiration book of, oh, once upon a time, there was a guy. And when he was young, he wanted to be a clown, but his family convinced him that he should be an investment banker and make money. And so he did that. But then when he was older, he finally recovered this long lost desire. And then he became a clown and then he was happy. It's a story in an article by a philosopher I respect. Okay, I like her very much. And I haven't read it in a long time. So I'm hoping I'm summarizing it correctly. But my point is like, and this is supposed to be a story about how sort of self-creation and self-realization and how you can discover your authentic self by contrast with like the social forces that are trying to make you into a certain kind of person. But it's also, it's just a very bad piece of fiction. And I'm like, well, you know, if I'm say teaching a class on self-creation as I do sometimes, I'm like, well, we can read some novelists who write about this process and they write about it in a way that really shows it to us, that really forces us to confront the reality of it. And that story was not the reality. So if you have some other way to do that as a philosopher, then great. I'm very instrumental about my use of fiction, but I haven't found another way.Henry: Which other fiction do you use in the self-creation class?Agnes: So in that class, we read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend. And we also read some Fernando Pessoa.Henry: Pessoa, what do your students think of Pessoa?Agnes: They love it. So when I first assigned it, I'm like, I don't know what you guys are going to make of this. It's kind of weird. We're reading like just, you know, 20 pages of excerpts I like from the Book of Disquiet. I mean, it's like my own text I'm creating, basically. I figure with that text, you can do a choose your own adventure. And they like it a lot. And I think that it really, that, you know, the thing that really resonates with them is this stuff where he talks. So there are two passages in particular. So one of them is, one where he talks about how he's like, yeah, he meets his friend. And he can't really listen to what his friend is saying, but he can remember with photographic precision the lines on the face when he's smiling, or like, it's like what he's saying is, I'm paying attention to the wrong thing. Like I'm paying attention to the facial expressions and not to the content. And that I'm somebody who's in a world where my organization of my own experience is not following the rules that are sort of being dictated to me about how my experience is supposed to be organized. And that's sort of his predicament. So that's a thing that they like. And then there's a wonderful passage about how I keep trying to free myself from the social forces oppressing me. And I take away this noose that's around my neck. And as I'm doing it, I realize my hand is attached to a noose and it's pulling me. Like I'm the one who's doing, I'm the one who's suffocating myself all along when I'm trying to free myself from social forces, it's me who's doing the oppressing. Anyway, so those are some passages that we talk about that they like. They like it a lot. They have a lot less trouble making something of it than I had expected that they would.Henry: Is this because he, is he well-suited to the age of social media and phones and fragmented personalities and you're always 16 different people? Is it that kind of thing?Agnes: Partly it's the short texts. I mean, as I said, meeting a problem, right? And so, yeah. So like they like Nietzsche too, probably for the same reason, right? I mean, anything where the-Henry: The aphorism.Agnes: Yeah, exactly. Like no joke. You know, it's not the era for War and Peace. It's the era for the Nietzschean aphorism.Henry: This is so depressing. I thought this wasn't true.Agnes: Yeah, I think it's true. I like, I had a conversation with a student in my office yesterday about this and about how like just his own struggles with reading and how all his friends have the same problem. And, you know, I have made some suggestions and I think maybe I need to push them harder in terms of, you know, just university creating device-free spaces and then people having like, I think we have to view it the way we view exercise. Like none of us would exercise if we didn't force ourselves to exercise. And we use strategies to do it. Like, you know, you have a friend and you're going to go together or, you know, you make a habit of it or whatever. I mean, like, I think we just have to approach reading the same way. Just let's accept that we're in an environment that's hostile to reading and make it a priority and organize things to make it possible rather than just like pretending that there isn't a problem. But yeah, there is. And it's hard for us to see. So you're not as old as me, but I'm old enough that all of my reading habits were formed in a world without all of this, right? So of course it's way easier for me. Even I get distracted, but, you know, for me spending a couple of hours in the evening reading, that's like a thing I can do. But like a lot of people, okay, I was at a like tech, in a little tech world conference in California. And it was early in the morning and my husband wasn't awake yet. So I was just, and it was one of these conferences where there's like a little group room and then you have your own, like we had like a hotel room type room, but like then I would had to be in the room with my husband who was sleeping. I couldn't turn the light on. So it was early. I woke up at four. So I went to the group room just to read. And I'm sitting there reading and someone came up to me and they were like, I can't believe you're just sitting there like reading. I don't think I've seen someone read a book in, you know, he's like ever or something, maybe. I mean, he's a half my age. Like he's like, that's just not a thing that people do. And it was like, he's like, it's so on brand that you're reading, you know? But it's like, it's, I think it's just, it's much harder for people who have grown up with all of this stuff that is in some way hostile to the world of reading. Yeah, it's much harder for them than for us. And we should be reorganizing things to make it easier.Henry: Yeah, I get that. I'm just, I'm alarmed that they can't read, like the depth of Ivan Ilyich. It's like, I don't know, it's like 50 pages or.Agnes: Yeah, for one class, no.Henry: It's very short. It's very short.Agnes: That's not short. 50 pages is not short.Henry: It's an hour or two hours of reading.Agnes: It's like, yeah, between two and three. They also read slower because they don't read as much.Henry: Okay, but you know what I'm like…Agnes: Yeah, right, three hours of reading is a lot to assign for a class. Especially if, in my case, I always also assign philosophy. So it's not the only thing I'm assigning.Henry: Sure, sure, but they read the philosophy.Agnes: Same problem. I mean, it's not like some different problem, right? Same problem, and in fact, they are a little bit more inclined to read the fiction than the philosophy, but the point is the total number of pages is kind of what matters. And from that point of view, philosophy is at an advantage because we compress a lot into very few pages. So, but you know, and again, it's like, it's a matter of like, it's probably not of the level. So I can, you know, I can be more sure that in an upper level class, students will do the reading, but I'm also a little bit more inclined to assign literature in the lower level classes because I'm warming people up to philosophy. So, yeah, I mean, but I think it is alarming, like it should be alarming.Henry: Now, one of the exciting things about Open Socrates, which most people listening to this would have read my review, so you know that I strongly recommend that you all read it now, but it is all about dialogue, like real dialogue. And can we find some, you know, I don't want to say like, oh, can we find some optimism? But like, people are just going to be reading less, more phones, all this talk about we're going back to an oral culture. I don't think that's the right way to phrase it or frame it or whatever, but there's much more opportunity for dialogue these days like this than there used to be. How can Open Socrates, how can people use that book as a way of saying, I want more, you know, intellectual life, but I don't want to read long books? I don't want to turn this into like, give us your five bullet points, self-help Socrates summary, but what can we, this is a very timely book in that sense.Agnes: Yeah, I kind of had thought about it that way, but yeah, I mean, it's a book that says, intellectual life in its sort of most foundational and fundamental form is social, it's a social life, because the kinds of intellectual inquiries that are the most important to us are ones that we can't really conduct on our own. I do think that, I think that some, there is some way in which, like as you're saying, novels can help us a little bit sort of simulate that kind of interaction, at least some of the time, or at least put a question on the table. I sort of agree that that's possible. I think that in terms of social encounters doing it, there are also other difficulties though. Like, so it's, we're not that close to a Socratic world, just giving up on reading doesn't immediately put us into a Socratic world, let's put it that way. And for one thing, I think that there really is a difference between face-to-face interaction, on the one hand, where let's even include Zoom, okay, or phone as face-to-face in an extended sense, and then texting, on the other hand, where text interaction, where like texting back and forth would be, fall under texting, so would social media, Twitter, et cetera, that's sort of- Email. Email, exactly. And I'm becoming more, when I first started working on this book, I thought, well, look, the thing that Socrates cares about is like, when he says that philosophy is like, you know, when he rejects written texts, and he's like, no, what I want to talk back, I'm like, well, the crucial thing is that they can respond, whether they respond by writing you something down or whether they respond by making a sound doesn't matter. And I agree that it doesn't matter whether they make a sound, like for instance, if they respond in sign language, that would be fine. But I think it matters that there is very little lag time between the responses, and you never get really short lag time in anything but what I'm calling face-to-face interaction.Henry: Right, there's always the possibility of what to forestall on text. Yeah. Whereas I can only sit here for like 10 seconds before I just have to like speak.Agnes: Exactly, and I mean, 10 seconds, that's a wild exaggeration. So do you know what the actual number is? No. On average. Okay, the average amount of time that you're allowed to wait before responding to something I say is two tenths of a second, which, it's crazy, isn't it? Which, that amount of time is not enough time for, that is a one second pause is an awkward pause, okay? So two tenths of a second is not long enough time for the signal that comes at the end of my talking, so the last sound I make, let's say, to reach your ears and then get into your brain and be processed, and then you figure out what you want to say. It's not enough time, which means you're making a prediction. That's what you're doing when I'm talking. You're making a prediction about when I'm going to stop talking, and you're so good at it that you're on almost every time. You're a little worse over Zoom. Zoom screws us up a little bit, right? But this is like what our brains are built to do. This is what we're super good at, is kind of like interacting, and I think it's really important that it be a genuine interaction. That's what I'm coming to see, is that we learn best from each other when we can interact, and it's not obvious that there are those same interaction possibilities by way of text at the moment, right? I'm not saying there couldn't be, but at the moment, we rely on the fact that we have all these channels open to us. Interestingly, it's the lag time on the phone, like if we were talking just by phone, is about the same. So we're so good at this, we don't need the visual information. That's why I said phone is also face-to-face. I think phone's okay, even though a lot of our informational stream is being cut. We're on target in terms of the quick responses, and there's some way in which what happens in that circumstance is we become a unit. We become a unit of thinking together, and if we're texting each other and each of us gets to ponder our response and all that, it becomes dissociated.Henry: So this, I do have a really, I'm really interested in this point. Your book doesn't contain scientific information, sociological studies. It's good old-fashioned philosophy, which I loved, but if you had turned it into more of a, this is the things you're telling me now, right? Oh, scientists have said this, and sociologists have said that. It could have been a different sort of book and maybe been, in some shallow way, more persuasive to more people, right? So you clearly made a choice about what you wanted to do. Talk me through why.Agnes: I think that it's maybe the answer here is less deep than you would want. I think that my book was based on the reading I was doing in order to write it, and I wasn't, at the time, asking myself the kinds of questions that scientists could answer. Coming off of the writing of it, I started to ask myself this question. So for instance, that's why I did all this reading in sociology, psychology, that's what I'm doing now is trying to learn. Why is it that we're not having philosophical conversations all the time? It's a real question for me. Why are we not having the conversations that I want us to be having? That's an empirical question, at least in part, because it's like, well, what kinds of conversations are we having? And then I have to sort of read up on that and learn about how conversation works. And it's surprising to me, like the amount of stuff we know, and that it's not what I thought. And so I'm not, maybe I'm a little bit less hostile than most philosophers, just as I'm less hostile to fiction, but I'm also less hostile to sort of empirical work. I mean, there's plenty of philosophers who are very open to the very specific kind of empirical work that is the overlap with their specialization. But for me, it's more like, well, depending on what question I ask, there's just like, who is ready with answers to the question? And I will like, you know, kind of like a mercenary, I will go to those people. And I mean, one thing I was surprised to learn, I'm very interested in conversation and in how it works and in what are the goals of conversation. And of course I started with philosophical stuff on it, you know, Grice and Searle, speech act theory, et cetera. And what I found is that that literature does not even realize that it's not about conversation. I mean, Grice, like the theory of conversational implicature and you know, Grice's logic on conversation, it's like if you thought that making a public service announcement was a kind of conversation, then it would be a theory of conversation. But the way that philosophers fundamentally understand speech is that like, you know, speakers issue utterances and then somebody has to interpret that utterance. The fact that that second person gets to talk too is not like part of the picture. It's not essential to the picture. But if you ask a sociologist, what is the smallest unit of conversation? They are not going to say an assertion. They're going to say something like greeting, greeting or question answer or command obeying or, right? Conversation is like, there's two people who get to talk, not just one person. That seems like the most obvious thing, but it's not really represented in the philosophical literature. So I'm like, okay, I guess I got to say goodbye philosophers. Let me go to the people who are actually talking about conversation. You know, I of course then read, my immediate thought was to read in psychology, which I did. Psychology is a bit shallow. They just don't get to theorize. It's very accessible. It's got lots of data, but it's kind of shallow. And then I'm like, okay, the people who really are grappling with the kind of deep structure of conversation are sociologists. And so that's what I've been reading a lot of in the past, like whatever, two months or so. But I just wasn't asking myself these questions when I wrote the book. And I think the kinds of questions that I was asking were in fact, the kinds of questions that get answered or at least get addressed in philosophical texts. And so those were the texts that I refer to.Henry: So all the sociology you've read, is it, how is it changing what you think about this? Is it giving you some kind of answer?Agnes: It's not changing any, my view, but any of the claims in the book, that is the exact reason that you brought out. But it is making me, it's making me realize how little I understand in a sort of concrete way, what like our modern predicament is. That is, where are we right now? Like what's happening right now? Is the question I ask myself. And I get a lot of, especially in interviews about this book, I get a lot of like, well, given where things are right now, is Socrates very timely? Or how can Socrates help or whatever? And I'm like, I don't think we know where things are right now. That is that given that, where is it? Where is it that we are? And so part of what this kind of sociology stuff is making me realize is like, that's a much harder question than it appears. And even where do we draw the lines? Like, when did now start happening? Like my instinct is like, one answer is like around 1900 is when now started happening. And, and so like, so I guess I'm interested both at the very micro level, how does the conversational interaction work? What are the ways in which I am deciding in this very conversation, I'm deciding what's allowed to be in and what's not allowed to be in the conversation, right? By the moves I'm making, and you're doing the same. How are we doing that? How are we orchestrating, manipulating this conversation so as to dictate what's in it and what's out of it in ways that are like below the surface that we're not noticing, that we either that we are doing it or that we're doing it ourselves. Neither of us is noticing, but we're doing that. So that's at the micro level. And then at the macro level is the question about when did now start happening? And what are the big shifts in like the human experience? And, are we at a point somehow in human history where culture like as a mechanism of coordination is a little bit falling apart and then what's going to come next? That's like a kind of question that I have to put in that kind of vague way. So maybe the right thing to say is that reading all these sociology texts has like, has given me a sets of questions to ask. And maybe what I'm trying to do is, it's like, what my book does is it describes a kind of ideal. And it describes that ideal, you know, using the power of reason to see what would it take to sort of set us straight? What is the straightened version of the crooked thing that we're already doing? And I think that that's right, but that's not at all the same thing as asking the question like, what's our next step? How do we get there from here? That's the question I'm asking now. But part of trying to answer the question, how do we get there from here is like, where are we now? And where are we both very, very locally in an interaction, what are we doing? And then in a big picture way, where are we? What is the big, what is like, you know, in the Taylor Swift sense, what era are we in? And, you know, I guess I still feel like we are, we are living in the world of Fernando Pessoa, Robert Musso, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Hermann Bruch, Franz Kafka, like that set of writers, like around 1900-ish set of writers who didn't all know each other or anything, didn't coordinate, but they all, there was this like primal scream moment where they were like, what the hell is going on? What has happened to humanity? Where are the rules? Like, who are we supposed to be? I mean, of all of those, I would pull out Musso as like the paradigm example. So this is me, I guess, taking inspiration from literature again, where I feel like, okay, there's something there about we're lost. There's an expression of, there's a thought we're lost. And I'm trying to understand, okay, how did we get lost? And are we still in that state of being lost? I think yes. And let's get a clear, once we get very clear on how lost we are, we'll already start to be found. Cause that's sort of what it is to, you know, once you understand why you're lost, like that's situating yourself.Henry: Those writers are a long time ago.Agnes: Yeah, I said around 1900.Henry: Yeah, but you don't, you don't, but there's nothing more recent that like expresses, like that's a very long now.Agnes: Yeah. Well, yes, I agree. So I say, when did now start happening? I think it started happening around 1900. So I think-Henry: So are we stuck?Agnes: Yeah, kind of. I think, so here's like a very, he's like a very simple part of history that must be too simple because history is not, is like, it's very mildly not my strong suit. I can't really understand history. But it's like, there is this set of writers and they don't really tell stories. It's not their thing, right? They're not into plot, but they are issuing this warning or proclamation or crisis, like flashing thing. And then what happens? What happens after that? Well, World War I happens, right? And then, you know, not very long after that, we got World War II and especially World War II, the result of that is kind of, oh no, actually we know what good and bad are. It's like fighting Nazis, that's bad. And, you know, so we got it all settled. And, but it's like, it's like we push something under the rug, I guess. And I think we haven't dealt with it. We haven't dealt with this crisis moment. And so, you know, I think I could say something very similar about Knausgaard or something that is, I think he's kind of saying the same thing and his novel has a novel, whatever you want to call it, the, you know, I'm talking about the later one. That's the kind of weird sort of horror quadrilogy or something. It has this feeling of like trying to express a sense of being lost. So there's more recent stuff that, a lot of it's autofiction, the genre of autofiction has that same character. So yeah, like maybe there is some big progress that's been made since then, but if there is, then it has passed me by.Henry: Agnes: Callard, thank you very much. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk/subscribe

Listen up, fetid moppets. Jim and A.Ron have refined the data and prepared a feedback file for your review. Listen to the deep connections between The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Severance. Is Lumon trying to create a pain-free existence? Did Gemma join Lumon willingly? Kier will reveal all in this feedback episode of Waffle Poddy. The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy Full Text Pete Peppers YouTube Channel Joanna Robinson Interviews Damon Lindelof Got feedback? Send it to severance@baldmove.com. Hey there! Check out https://support.baldmove.com/ to find out how you can gain access to ALL of our premium content, as well as ad-free versions of the podcasts, for just $5 a month! Join the Club! Join the discussion: Email | Discord | Reddit | Forums Follow us: Twitch | YouTube | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Leave Us A Review on Apple Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everything is a spoiler-heavy podcast. We talk about all aspects of whatever we are discussing and do not announce or avoid spoilers in any way.In this episode of Everything, Justin, Keith, and Julia discuss episode seven of Severance's second season, “Chikhai Bardo”. Episode discussion begins around 8 minutes.Reddit posts discussed in this episode:Episode 7 discussion thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1izxmfl/severance_2x07_chikhai_bardo_postepisode/Outie Dylan doesn't seem that bad:https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1iwcd4b/outie_dylan_doesnt_seem_bad/The Death of Ivan Ilyich:https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1j2kcwx/i_read_the_death_of_ivan_ilyich_so_you_wouldnt/Why is No One Talking about the Final Scene:https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1j22sxa/why_is_no_one_talking_about_the_final_scene_of/Episode 7 told us almost everything we need to know:https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1j0oze7/episode_7_told_us_almost_everything_we_need_to/I think the consensus about Lumon is wrong:https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1j1jmjm/i_think_the_new_consensus_about_lumon_is_wrong/Allentown:https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1j1c71x/allentown_references_two_traumatic_memories/Combat Cards:https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1j2jnq8/did_you_catch_this_reference_when_gemma_talked/Music by Johnny Hawaii.

Inspired once again by the show Severance, Garrett and Mike discuss "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", a novella by Leo Tolstoy, and how it shows us what it means to live a full life.

Death to your pet theories! Kier has introduced many mysteries to Jim and A.Ron to discuss in this episode of Waffle Poddy. We finally get an intimate look at the love and loss between Mark and Gemma. Throughout the winding vignettes of this episode, one pertinent question remains…what IS wrong with Ricken? Bald Move Prestige - Ikiru (1952) The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy Got feedback? Send it to severance@baldmove.com. Hey there! Check out https://support.baldmove.com/ to find out how you can gain access to ALL of our premium content, as well as ad-free versions of the podcasts, for just $5 a month! Join the Club! Join the discussion: Email | Discord | Reddit | Forums Follow us: Twitch | YouTube | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Leave Us A Review on Apple Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textDescription: An immersive reading of The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy with reflection on incontinence, caregivers, and existential distress.Website:https://anauscultation.wordpress.comWork:The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.Special arrangements were also made for his stools, and this was a torment to him each time. A torment in its uncleanness, indecency, and smell, in the awareness that another person had to take part in it. But in this most unpleasant matter there also appeared a consolation for Ivan Ilyich. The butler's helper, Gerasim, always came to clear away after him. Gerasim was a clean, fresh young muzhik, grown sleek on town grub. Always cheerful, bright. At first the sight of this man, always clean, dressed Russian style, performing this repulsive chore, embarrassed Ivan Ilyich. Once, having gotten up from the commode and being unable to pull up his trousers, he collapsed into the soft armchair, looking with horror at his naked, strengthless thighs with their sharply outlined muscles. Gerasim, in heavy boots, spreading around him the pleasant smell of boot tar and the freshness of winter air, came in with a light, strong step, in a clean canvas apron and a clean cotton shirt, the sleeves rolled up on his bared, strong, young arms, and without looking at Ivan Ilyich¾obviously restraining the joy of life shining on his face, so as not to offend the sick man¾went to the commode. "Gerasim," Ivan Ilyich said weakly. Gerasim gave a start, evidently afraid he was remiss in something, and with a quick movement he turned to the sick man his fresh, kind, simple young face, only just beginning to sprout a beard. "What, sir?" "I suppose this must be unpleasant for you. Excuse me. I can't help it. " "Mercy, sir." And Gerasim flashed his eyes and bared his young, white teeth. "Why shouldn't I do it? It's a matter of you being sick." And with his deft, strong hands he did his usual business and went out, stepping lightly. And five minutes later, stepping just as lightly, he came back.References: The Death of Ivan Ilyich: https://web.stanford.edu/~jsabol/existentialism/materials/tolstoy_death_ilyich.pdf Tolstoy, Leo, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories (Vintage, 2010) Charlton B, Verghese A. Caring for Ivan Ilyich. J Gen Intern Med. 2010 Jan;25(1):93-5. Lucas V. The death of Ivan Ilyich and the concept of 'total pain'. Clin Med (Lond). 2012 Dec;12(6):601-2.

In this classic novella, Leo Tolstoy asks, "What would it take for a guy who stinks to realize he stinks? And how would he feel about that at the end of his life?"This episode is sponsored by the PBS American Masters: Creative Spark, find it on your favorite listening app.This episode is also sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain.Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.Follow @overduepod on Instagram and BlueskyAdvertise on OverdueSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Analysis of The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

Garrett and Mike discuss the idea of bare life from Byung-Chul Han's essay "The Agony of Eros" and how thinking about the concept can help us reexamine our "why." Books Mentioned: The Agony of Eros by Byung-Chul Han The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy Movies Mentioned: The Jungle Book

Vivian Dittmar is an author, speaker, and wisdom teacher dedicated to enhancing holistic development for over two decades. Through her books and the Be the Change Foundation, she focuses on emotional intelligence, ecological sustainability, social justice, and spiritual fulfillment to address modern society's crises.  What does it mean to truly transcend the ego and embrace a transpersonal state of being?  In this episode of “Voices with Vervaeke,” John Vervaeke and Vivian Dittmar thoughtfully explore enlightenment, viewing it not as a final destination but as an ongoing journey of maturation and integration. They challenge conventional perspectives on enlightenment, proposing a more dynamic interplay between personal growth and spiritual awakening. By examining the delicate balance required to maintain higher states of consciousness while cultivating a healthy personal self, they illuminate the complexities of spiritual bypassing and the necessity of embracing imperfection. Their conversation also delves into the importance of vulnerability, aligning inner and outer worlds, the role of synchronicity, and the transformative power of confronting our own mortality. Join them as they unravel these intricate themes with intellectual rigor, poetic insight, and a commitment to deepening our understanding of what it means to lead a truly awakened life.   Embark on a journey with us to tackle the Meaning Crisis by joining our exclusive Patreon Community. —   00:00 Introduction: Exploring Transpersonal and Transegoic States 02:10 Navigating the Spectrum of Egoic and Transrational Consciousness 07:20 Beyond the Social Conscience: Discovering the Voice of the Soul 12:35 Exploring the Implicate Order and Transrational Ways of Knowing 19:00 Redefining Spiritual Awakening and the Mythology Surrounding It 23:25 Bridging the Gap between Inner and Outer Worlds through Wisdom and Virtue 32:20 Cultivating a Healthy Personal Self after Enlightenment 43:45 Beyond Spiritual Bypassing and the Pursuit of Perfection in the Journey Towards Wholeness  57:00 Facing Mortality: A Journey Towards Wholeness and Maturity   01:18:00 Conclusion: Reflections on Convergence, Gratitude, and the Quest for True Prosperity   —   The Vervaeke Foundation is committed to advancing the scientific pursuit of wisdom and creating a significant impact on the world. Become a part of our mission.   Join Awaken to Meaning to explore practices that enhance your virtues and foster deeper connections with reality and relationships.    —   Ideas, People, and Works Mentioned in this Episode   The Death of Ivan Ilyich, by Leo Tolstoy David Bohm Plato Carl Jung Leo Tolstoy Spinoza Fallible Man, by Paul Ricoeur  Relevant Episodes Exploring the Transrational: A Journey into the Realms of Consciousness with Vivian Dittmar   Exploring Emotions and Transrational Wisdom with Vivian Dittmar   Wisdom Through the Imaginal: IFS Insights with Seth Allison Part 3   — Follow John Vervaeke: Website | Twitter | YouTube | Patreon   Follow Vivian Dittmar: Website | YouTube Workshops/Courses:   Introduction to the Practice of Conscious Release How Big Is Your Emotional Backpack?The Emotional Backpack Books: The Emotional Backpack Your Inner GPS —   Thank you for Listening!  

The Russians make their first appearance on this edition of the Me, Myshelf, and I Podcast! Matthew and Alex break down Leo Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Though depressing at times, Russian literature is a blunt instrument which brings home the realities of life in a unique way. The guys discuss Ivan's reflections on his life, his friends, and why Gerasim is the lone bright spot. Please subscribe to get the latest info on new episodes and check out our other classic literature podcasts. You can also follow our Instagram and YouTube channel for more literary fun! Instagram: @the_mmi_podcast YouTube: @MeMyshelfandIpodcast

Sam Harris speaks with George Saunders about his creative process. They discuss George's involvement with Buddhism, the importance of kindness, psychedelics, writing as a practice, the work of Raymond Carver, the problem of social media, our current political moment, the role of fame in American culture, Wendell Berry, fiction as way of exploring good and evil, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, missed opportunities in ordinary life, what it means to be a more loving person, his article “The Incredible Buddha Boy,” the prison of reputation, Tolstoy, and other topics. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe. Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That's why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life's most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/372-life-work Sam Harris speaks with George Saunders about his creative process. They discuss George’s involvement with Buddhism, the importance of kindness, psychedelics, writing as a practice, the work of Raymond Carver, the problem of social media, our current political moment, the role of fame in American culture, Wendell Berry, fiction as way of exploring good and evil, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, missed opportunities in ordinary life, what it means to be a more loving person, his article “The Incredible Buddha Boy,” the prison of reputation, Tolstoy, and other topics. George Saunders was born in Amarillo, Texas, and raised in Chicago. He is the author of twelve books, including Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the 2017 Booker Prize for the best work of fiction in English, and Tenth of December, a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the author of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, a book about the Russian short story. In 2013, he was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. He has taught in the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University since 1997. Website: https://georgesaundersbooks.com/about-george-saunders Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

It's time for the quarterly books episode of The Russell Moore Show! Tune in as Russell and producer Ashley Hales talk about their recent reads ranging from politics to poetry. The two discuss a variety of topics including Augustine's argument in City of God , how theological convictions become slogans, and the world of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). Their conversation considers what true joy looks like, why it's okay not to understand everything we read (even in the Bible), and how books can give us words for our most deeply felt human experiences. Books mentioned in this episode include: God Gave Rock and Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music by Leah Payne City of God by Augustine  God's Rascal: J. Frank Norris and the Beginnings of Southern Fundamentalism (America's Baptists) by Barry Hankins Joy: 100 Poems by Christian Wiman Zero at the Bone by Christian Wiman Four Quartets: A Poem by T.S. Eliot Lutheran Slogans: Use and Abuse by Robert W. Jenson A Shining by Jon Fosse The Inferno by Dante Alighieri The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy The Maytrees: A Novel by Annie Dillard Additional resources mentioned in this episode include: Petra Amy Grant Rich Mullins “Christian Wiman's Work Against Despair”  George M. Marsden Eugene Peterson Music & Meaning with Charlie Peacock Owen Barfield C.S. Lewis J.R.R. Tolkien Do you have a question for Russell Moore? Send it to questions@russellmoore.com. Special offer for listeners:  Russell Moore will join friends David French and Curtis Chang in Washington, DC for The After Party LIVE! on April 19. As a faithful listener to the podcast, we'd love for you to join us and use this $20 off offer just for listeners! The After Party is a free six-part video curriculum designed for people & pastors alike, and offers "a better way" for Christians to engage in politics. Learn more and buy tickets here — we've saved a seat for you! Click here for a trial membership at Christianity Today. “The Russell Moore Show” is a production of Christianity Today  Executive Producers: Erik Petrik, Russell Moore, and Mike Cosper  Host: Russell Moore  Producer: Ashley Hales  Associate Producers: Abby Perry and McKenzie Hill Director of Operations for CT Media: Matt Stevens Audio engineering by Dan Phelps  Video producer: Abby Egan  Theme Song: “Dusty Delta Day” by Lennon Hutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, we discuss two films from legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.   The first is Throne of Blood (1957), which is based on Shakespeare's Macbeth. The film stars Toshiro Mifune and Isuzu Yamada in the lead roles. With a budget of $350,000, the film was one of the most expensive films ever made in Japan at the time of its release.   The second is Ikiru (1952). The film examines the struggles of a terminally ill Tokyo bureaucrat (played by Takashi Shimura) and his final quest for meaning. The screenplay was partly inspired by Leo Tolstoy's 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich.   Timestamps   What we've been watching (00:01:02)   Throne of Blood (00:35:45)   Ikiru (00:51:55)   Coin toss (01:15:55)     Links   Instagram -   @callitfriendopodcast   @munnywales   @andyjayritchie       Letterboxd –   @andycifpod   @fat-tits mcmahon     Justwatch.com – streaming and rental links - https://www.justwatch.com

Chapter 1 What's War and Peace Book by Leo Tolstoy"War and Peace" is a novel written by Russian author Leo Tolstoy. It was first published in 1869 and is considered one of the greatest works of world literature. The novel follows the lives of several aristocratic families in Russia during the Napoleonic Wars, exploring themes of war, love, and the complexities of human nature. It is known for its detailed portrayal of historical events and its philosophical reflections on the nature of power and conflict.Chapter 2 Is War and Peace Book A Good BookMany consider War and Peace to be a masterpiece of literature and one of the greatest novels ever written. Leo Tolstoy's sweeping epic covers themes such as love, war, and society, and delves deep into the complexities of human nature. The novel's rich character development, intricate plot, and profound philosophical insights have captivated readers for generations. If you enjoy classic literature and are interested in exploring the human condition, War and Peace is definitely worth reading.Chapter 3 War and Peace Book by Leo Tolstoy SummaryWar and Peace is a novel by Leo Tolstoy that follows the lives of several Russian nobles during the Napoleonic Wars. The novel is divided into four parts and spans over a period of around 15 years.The story begins in 1805 and follows the Bezukhov family, particularly Pierre Bezukhov, who unexpectedly inherits a large fortune and becomes embroiled in the political and social circles of St. Petersburg. The novel also follows the Rostov family, particularly Natasha Rostov, who is a young woman coming of age during this tumultuous time.As the Napoleonic Wars escalate, the characters are drawn into the conflict in different ways. Pierre becomes involved in a secret society and witnesses the horrors of war firsthand. Natasha falls in love with a dashing young officer, Andrei Bolkonsky, who is deeply affected by the brutality of war.The novel explores themes of love, war, power, and fate. Tolstoy delves into the psychology of his characters, depicting their inner thoughts and struggles as they navigate the tumultuous events of their time.Ultimately, War and Peace is a complex and sprawling epic that captures the human experience in all its glory and tragedy. It is considered one of the greatest works of world literature and remains a timeless masterpiece that continues to captivate readers around the world. Chapter 4 War and Peace Book AuthorLeo Tolstoy released War and Peace in 1869. Some of Tolstoy's other well-known works include Anna Karenina, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and Resurrection. In terms of editions, the best version of War and Peace would likely be the edition published by Vintage Classics, as they are known for their high-quality translations and annotations.Chapter 5 War and Peace Book Meaning & ThemeWar and Peace Book MeaningWar and Peace is a novel by Leo Tolstoy that delves into the complex themes of war, power, love, and fate. The book follows the lives of several aristocratic families in Russia during the Napoleonic Wars, exploring the impact of historical events on individuals and society as a whole.One of the central themes of War and Peace is the futility and destructiveness of war. Tolstoy portrays the horrors of battle and the devastating effects of war on both soldiers and civilians, highlighting how the pursuit of power and glory can lead to senseless bloodshed and suffering.At the same time, the novel

Beer will be the death of the Drunk Guys this week when they read The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. To get through the cold Russian winter they drink: East Coast Ghost by Ghost Brewing, Thrush by Esker Heart Artisan Ales, and Origin of Darkness by Collective Arts,

Thebes are the beers of the Drunk Guys this week when they read Antigone by Sophocles: Aqualung by Finback Brewing and Non-Compliance by Wild East Brewing. Join the Drunk Guys next Tuesday when they read The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy The Drunk Guys now have a Patreon

There is more backstory to tell before I get to the day that I flushed my anti-depressants. I had never hear of Father Garrigou-Lagrange and the idea of a “predominant fault,” also called a root sin, until a few years ago. Everyone has a predominant fault, and it is one of three things: pride, vanity, or sensuality. Sensuality seems to be my taproot, because in pleasure I find the sensual escape from all struggle. A slice of pumpkin pie is not unlike a shot of whiskey for me. But pride and vanity are ever ready to take the lead as well as my predominant fault. The more I reflected on it, I came to see that I have all three of these faults. And the more I reflected on everyone else I know, I came to realize that every human being suffers from all three of these in different ways. Pride is unavoidable. I came to reject authority, since that is the American way, and pride is the fault in every case. The problem is that we lionize pride today. Individual pride, national pride, school pride, family pride, town pride, gay pride - it's everywhere. We have all forgotten that pride is what caused the Fall because we dropped humility long ago. Vanity too is praised. Looking fit, being cool, seeking approval, receiving honors, gaining esteem - all of these are valued today. And as for the old morality around sensuality, around sex and food, gluttony and lust? The old “prudish” ways didn't seem to have any answers either. Pride, vanity, and sensuality were littered all over in the lyrics and scripts of American culture. After all, celebrities and singers believe in themselves, and usually in interviews when asked to give advice to aspiring fans, they say, “Never give up. Always believe in yourself.” The messages about marriage and sex and morality in general were unanimous on the radio and TV: humans could only flourish if they were free to sleep with random partners at will, unrestrained from the old Church rules. Also, getting high was good. Also, sex was meaningless and masturbation was self-care. Also, honoring your parents was for suckers. Also, the pursuit of wealth was not a trap, but the good life. Also, Sundays were not for worshipping Jesus, honoring Mary, and communing with the Saints, they were for sleeping off a hangover, drinking Bloody Marys, and watching the New Orleans Saints play football. And as for God? Get serious - that was just an adult Santa story. Rage Against the Machine summed up the 1990s best with their lyrics: “F*** you, I won't do what you tell me,” screamed at high decibels. Like in the old Maxell cassette ad, this song screamed what we felt inside. It's comical to listen to Rage Against the Machine songs now, but it's solid evidence of what a screwed up era it was, particularly when we were living an age of wealth and privilege. Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg took care of glorifying violence, meaningless sex, and open disrespect of women. The culmination of it all came with Limp Bizkit screaming, “Give me something to break” in stadiums full of wrecked people smashing into each other like the harpies in hell. We were like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island, where all the cosmetic gauges and lights in the control room looked great as the reactor core, the heart, was in the throes of violent meltdown. The good thing was, all of this could fit in just fine with the “Believe in yourself” mantra. The important thing was that you kept up the facade of self-esteem. The first principle of “believe in yourself” is that perception is reality: Whatever I think is right, is right because…I believe in myself. I am the authority. The Sophists that Socrates argued against have been let out of their cage all over again. Having grown up around a fair amount of lukewarm Christians of all stripes, it seemed that the call to chastity and claim to holiness was a wink. Some were living their lives as if Christ had risen from the grave, but not many. Following suit, I loosely clung to the Church for a badge of identity for a while, until the school system fully applied the wedge between belief in Self versus belief in God. I was mostly eager to let it happen. After all, most TV shows mocked the Church in one way or another. I'd seen George Carlin's HBO-special tirades against faith that made atheism seem cool. Most of all, teachers and college professors seemed to be on a subtle crusade against all things supernatural. Here is one example (of many possible examples) of the programming I received: In my junior year of high school, in chemistry class, the teacher showed us a video that explained what really happened at the Wedding Feast at Cana. We were told by the Bible and at Church that Jesus had miraculously turned water into wine. This was a mystery to be pondered and wondered about in awe. But my teacher shared a hypothesis that it could have been accomplished by a chemistry trick. Jesus was most likely a magician, or a scientist (Occam's Razor, right?) - and therefore he was a charlatan. The laws of physics could never be broken, you see, because we lived in a purely material universe. The teacher showed us a video and was very pleased with it. (This really did happen in class, and there really is a video about this, although I cannot find it now.) Jesus had just used an acid-to-base additive to cause the color of the water to change. The people in Cana were so drunk that they couldn't tell. (Of course, this disregards the line that this was the “best wine” of all from the actual Wedding Feast at Cana story - and it is the sober host that tastes it and announces the quality of the wine - but I digress.) To me, this event marks the logical conclusion of the long watering-down of Biblical scholarship. The wine at Cana was now just colored water. This fit well with the modern scholarly view that when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes that the people just shared what they had been hiding. All the miracles were being explained away in purely rational, natural, material methods. The message was clear: science was the only way of knowing; no such thing as miracles existed. A university New Testament class took it even further with mentioning a funny “swoon theory” to explain away the Resurrection. Comparative literature professors turned the Bible into the equivalent of Greek myth. The 19th century Germans had dissected the Bible, the 20th century atheist academics then had the body drawn and quartered, and now it was scientists themselves doing the autopsy. That my public school teacher (who was really just echoing the very old Ebionite heresy) was now evangelizing kids into the “cool teacher/magician” version of Jesus illustrated how far the Word of God had fallen in Christendom. This anti-religious intrusion into science class surprised me, although I don't know why it did. God-talk had long been forbidden at school. Religious mockery, however, was not prohibited, even by teachers, and this was specifically true for Christianity, while Islam and Jewish talk had a hall pass. This speech code had been established in fifth and sixth grade already. God-talk had been banished from music and language arts. But now I had an authority from the science department pitching the idea that the Biblical miracles were a magic act, a facade, a sham. This was going above and beyond the typical curriculum of “believe in yourself” to openly plant doubts about the idea of a Creator, the Incarnation, miracles, and faith in general. Besides my one hour of Mass a week as a child, with its three readings and a seven-minute Homily, I had no spiritual direction. School and TV sitcoms were the closest thing to spiritual direction. Teachers and TV dads gave the life talks. The idea that the public school is “non-religious” has become less and less tenable, because the consistent messaging from age six onward was a dead match for the beliefs of religious humanism. And of course, there was always the obsession with shape-shifting Liberty, as liberalism has its goddess on an island off of New York City. But what the goddess of liberty means can be whatever you like, since individualism goes really well with “believe in yourself.” Unfortunately, all of this takes a very long time for a kid to figure out, and that is the point; most will never figure it out. As for me, I was a house of cards, with no real strength in my belief. No foundation, no understanding. Had life events not guided me to another path, I would never have uprooted what had been planted in the soil tended by my public school gardeners. Now when I think of the teachers I had, they were so clearly humanist in their approach. For three years in particular, the humanist message was like an air-horn in the classroom. I don't think it was anything evil. These teachers had just bought a bad batch, thinking they were planting oak trees but it was just thorns and thistles. They acted as the apostles of John Dewey, not Jesus Christ. I suppose they even thought it was working. Having been around enough sales people, a pitch becomes contagious when it appears to be working. As long as people are buying, they will use the pitch. This also happens with fishermen, where if one guy catches a big fish, everyone cuts their bait and starts using the same bait that the lucky guy was using. We just can't help ourselves but get on the bandwagon. But as soon as the product proves a failure and the pitch can no longer sell product, they drop it like garbage and chase the new thing. Fishermen do the same. That is what has happened now, as the humanism of the 20th century has proven to be a failure, and new shiny pitches were taken up for testing. These too will fail within a generation. The problem is that these ideas are all coming from “The Enlightenment,” which was never the candle in the dark it claimed to be. If there was any light, it was from a dumpster fire of half-truths. It ignored the soul and God, the key things needed for sanity and mental health. My teachers of the humanist dogma were doing what they thought was best for kids because the cult of self-esteem had been sold to them first. When you buy a bad product, it's hard to admit. It's embarrassing. It was like the many monorails that were sold to cities across America, or like Olympic villages with their unused, mossed-over bobsled tracks. The problem is that much time is required to pay the piper for leading people into error, and it takes generations to correct. This is why the modern dogma of “Believe in yourself” is so lame. We are just so small in the grand scheme of all that God has created in time and space, and when we elevate our importance to the highest place of belief, it's absurd. It's boring. We're so limited, but God can do anything. To quote Pink Floyd, I'd rather have a walk-on part in the war, than a lead role in a cage. (And we are living in a spiritual war.)Thus it becomes a manner of assenting to a set of foundational ideas and the proof is in how you live. Because it's one thing to say “I believe in one God” and then live for the sacred Self. And now I know, this is why I needed to ask my doctor about Lexapro. This division within from childhood had cleaved me apart, leaving me as only a body. Because I could say the Creed at Church but not believe it, and I certainly wasn't living it. Around age eighteen, I started only mouthing certain lines of the Nicene Creed, if I happened to attend Mass. But in reality, I was just finally in such a state of mortal sin that I could no longer even fake the words. And this is how the devil gets you. What must never be forgotten is that angels are pure intellect, and the devil is a fallen angel. Hence, if we assume our intelligence is high, the angels shake their virtual heads and the devils rub their virtual hands. While I was mouthing the words of the Creed but living a humanist or agnostic life, the devil's work was already done. Voltaire, the writer who made a living attacking the Catholic Church so long ago, once advised a person who wanted to leave the Church on how he could stop believing that the Eucharist was the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus. Voltaire told him to continue committing sins and receiving the Eucharist until it blunted his faith so badly that the Eucharist became just a wafer, just a piece of bread. As it turns out, Voltaire understood spiritual warfare extremely well, because he articulated exactly what has happened to millions of “faithful” Catholics. This is exactly how faith dies, because saying the Creed and receiving the Eucharist does nothing without Confession and conversion of the heart and kneeling and asking God for help. Once disobedience in living for God has taken root, the outward actions of faith become false. The entire idea of “believe in yourself” casts God out immediately, but of course, when we turn from God we only cast ourselves out. Either a Creator made the world, or it has always existed. This was the presented options from Church and from public school. Today, for me, it takes far less faith to believe that time and space came from a Creator God who made it “out of nothing” than for time and space to have been created by…nothing. How much faith you need to believe that the universe is “self-existing”?! Far more than I can muster. But the public schooling and media propped up this absurdity for a long time simply by repeating this first principle of humanism in subtle and sundry ways. Is it any wonder people today are scattered and confused? If you have two opposed worldviews battling and rattling around in your head for power and control, chaos and disorder are the result. How could it not be? If I told you that up is down one minute, and down is up the next, it would be confusing. As Jesus said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Humanism, it turns out, is a crusade against standard Christian ideas like God, sin, the Fall, the need for redemption, eternal life, and so on. The summary statement of the humanist manifesto says something very old, in a kind of triumphant reiteration of the sophist Protagoras who said, “Man is the measure of all things” but with more words. The humanists even sum up their own manifesto with a flourish arguing that the fruit from the tree of Knowledge tastes better than that from the tree of Life:Though we consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task.Ah, the good life! Sounds good. And yes, “he alone” will bring the dream, the utopia! God need not apply. But really, all of this could be summed up more concisely, had they just said what my second-grade teacher had said, which was: “Believe in yourself.”This is what the architects of the public school system believed. Is it any wonder then that I became a humanist, when I had to sit in rooms for forty hours a week through the late 1980s and entire 1990s and early 2000s and listen to humanist sermons from humanist teachers? When you are feeling strong…and when it comes to an endWhile I was spinning in motion, on fast-forward all through the public school years, I could keep up the energy to believe in myself, so long as I achieved, believed, and had plenty of strength. This was a period of strength and motion, such that I could keep the illusion alive that I could will my destiny. I could have a good-looking girlfriend, win the game, ease the pain with a gallon of beer, work like a dog, get the grades, and fudge my way through life with a smile while my flaws were excused. Because one thing was clear: outside of the Church, the idea of sin only existed in getting caught. If all the right things were done, self-actualization would come. This is a lie. In Leo Tolstoy's short story, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” the dying man has lived a successful life. He's done all the right things. He's punched his ticket at every proper stop on the secular journey of life. But in his last days, nearing the edge, he peers into the nothingness. Looking back on his life of “right” choices that made him a respected person with a good career, he wonders about the point of his life and career. The gaping mouth of the Big Empty is looking at Ivan when he muses: "Then what does it mean? Why? It can't be that life is so senseless and horrible. But if it really has been so horrible and senseless, why must I die and die in agony? There is something wrong!"Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done," it suddenly occurred to him. "But how could that be, when I did everything properly?" he replied, and immediately dismissed from his mind this, the sole solution of all the riddles of life and death, as something quite impossible.Oh, it's unfair, cries Ivan! Like a Pharisee, he had done all the external actions needed to be whole, to be self-actualized, and to be at peace. Yet he is not at peace in his heart - he is at terror. Why? Because he didn't choose the right things. He chose the wrong things. Career and success are good things, but they are lesser things. Ivan Ilyich is at a loss because he chose the things that the culture valued, not what his heart and God value. A life of fear chases things, and I know it well. But Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”When I was living like Ivan Ilyich, as all body, achievement, and reputation, I had no concern for the soul or God. Then the illusion of strength and accomplishment painted me into a corner. Ivan's second chance comes in the weeks of his death, when he is weak. I was feeling strong, most of the time, and in those days I could indeed “Believe in myself.” But when the down periods came and the tank was empty, the great sadness came with it. A lesson in life was being taught that, when I am feeling strong, I have grand ideas about life, justice, and mercy. But when I am weak, those feelings change. Weakness is never far away either, as a simple cold or flu can collapse the whole facade. Any crack in the armor can cause the rust to begin, and we become brittle. Aging is a great teacher, as Ivan Ilyich learned. On some of the darkest days, even after winning a game, or getting a grade, or getting a raise at work, I could not hold back the swell of emotion that made me think of ending my life. This glorious, gifted, unique, special, life - where I “believed in myself” and “followed my heart” and “was perfect just the way I was” - I could not explain why I was so lost. On those days I thought of veering into a semi-truck. And even if a girlfriend or my mom asked me, “What's wrong?” I had no words. None whatsoever. There was nothing that I could tell them, because I myself had no idea what was wrong. For someone to have everything, and yet be utterly empty, made no sense to me. This is why for a long time I assumed I needed anti-depression medication. I needed a button to push, a technique, a material solution. I didn't understand that the entire problem was spiritual. When the booze stopped working, the pills took main stage. And when the pills stopped working, I knew that I'd been trying to turn on a light using the wrong switch. The pyramid of self-actualization was not wired to anything but myself, and I had lost the ability to believe in myself any longer. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit whydidpetersink.substack.com

(0:00) Intro.(1:28) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel.(2:15) Start of interview.(3:16) Yifat's "origin story." (6:20) Yifat's bio and positions at the University of Haifa and Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.(8:00) About Elizabeth Pollman, Professor at the Penn Carey Law School at the U. of Pennsylvania.(9:57) About their article, Ousted (2023). "We use that term broadly to refer to being forced or pushed to step down from the CEO role, specifically that managerial role, despite having significant control. And what we're arguing is that there's a whole bunch of countervailing forces and factors that can work to limit the durability of the founder CEO's power and ultimately can lead to them resigning from that managerial role."(11:58) Examples of countervailing forces and factors to the founder/CEO power. Differences between public and private companies. Influence of voting rights.(15:20) Influence of margin loans (backed by founder stock) and secondary sales in corporate governance. *Reference to E41 with Maureen Farell on Cult of We (Aug 2021).(19:31) Conflict with regulators, investors and other stakeholders (example: Uber). *Reference to Elizabeth Pollman's article on Regulatory Entrepreneurship. (22:19) On employee pressure in corporate governance.(23:00) On OpenAI's board debacle (involving Sam Altman's ouster and reinstatement). (29:31) Other founder/CEO cases referenced in Ousted. *Mention of E64 with Keir Gumps, involved in Uber's governance clean-up. Cases of Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) and Sam Bankman-Fried (FTX). On externalities from lack of corporate governance in startups, particularly unicorns. The impact of the Power Law in VC-backed companies.(36:26) Take-aways from their article Ousted. Gap between academia and practice.(40:04) Elizabeth Pollman's article Startup Failure. *Reference to E3 with Elizabeth Pollman on Startup Governance and Regulatory Entrepreneurship (May 2020)."[I]t's really important that law and culture facilitate the efficient flow of the failure of venture-backed startups and that failed startups can do so with honor because that's what sustains our system in a big way, out of which comes these few successes. But we also have to have a way of dealing with lots of failed startups (ie. M&A, acquihires, ABCs, and liquidation)."*Reference to my newsletter describing a time of "downrounds, shutdowns and recaps" on a monthly basis.(44:28) Yifat Aran's article The RSU Time Bomb: Regulating Startup Equity Compensation in the Unicorn Era. Triggered by Stripe's downround in March 2023 (raising $6.5 billion at $50 billion valuation).(52:51)  On current equity compensation practices and the private/public market divides.(54:51) Consequences of startups staying private for longer (SPL) or forever.- Rapid fire questions for Yifat Aran:(58:31) Books that have greatly influenced her life: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (1886)(59:56) Her mentors: Dorit Beinisch (Former President of the Supreme Court of Israel)Joe Grundfest, Stanford Law School.Elizabeth Pollman, Penn Carey Law School.(01:02:30) Quotes that she thinks of often or lives her life by: "I believe that you can achieve everything, but you aren't likely to achieve everything at the same time."(01:03:13) An unusual habit or absurd thing that she loves: chic flicks and gummy bears to write papers.(01:03:46) A living person she admires: Arthur Rock.Elizabeth Pollman is a Professor of Law and the Co-Director of the Institute for Law & Economics at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She teaches and writes in the areas of corporate law and governance, as well as startups, venture capital, and entrepreneurship.Yifat Aran is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Haifa. She is also a lecturer in the MBA program at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and a research fellow at the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing. She is primarily interested in corporate law and governance and securities regulation, with a focus on venture capital and entrepreneurship. __This podcast is sponsored by the American College of Governance Counsel. You can follow Evan on social media at:Twitter: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/__You can join as a Patron of the Boardroom Governance Podcast at:Patreon: patreon.com/BoardroomGovernancePod__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

In the episode titled "21 Days of Business Brilliance-Interview with Rodric Lenhart," highlights the significance of surrounding oneself with successful individuals and disregarding advice from friends and family. It emphasizes the need to step out of one's comfort zone to connect with people who are more accomplished. Overcoming fear is identified as a common challenge, while trusting intuition and recognizing people's energy are also discussed. Maurice emphasizes the importance of receiving feedback and criticism for personal growth. Rodric shares personal experiences of defeat and the influence of the book "The Death of Ivan Ilyich." Despite achieving external success, Rodric feels unfulfilled and depressed, contemplating suicide and back surgery before seeking alternative solutions. The Waves Method is mentioned as a contributing factor to their success in building businesses. Seeking help, learning from books, and encouraging men to ask for assistance are highlighted. The show concludes with information on where to find more details listed below. Learn more listen today! Follow on LinkedIn Rodric Lenhart and the website Million Dollar Flip Flops

Welcome to Books Without Borders, the podcast where two people in different hemispheres come together to discuss their favourite things: books! In this episode, Nina's been exploring Japan, Emma's body been a pain again, and we have some fun new things happening in our episodes moving forward! Send us an email! BooksWithoutBordersPod@gmail.com ————————————————— Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and chats 03:41 Recent Reads 05:11 The Canterville Ghost 07:20 The Model Millionaire and Other Stories (11:07-17:33 spoilers about The Birthday of the Infanta) 18:55 The Last Lecture 26:31 The Uninhabitable Earth 39:19 Convenience Store Woman 48:10 Moshfegh tangent 50:12 Space, Stars, and Slimy Aliens 51:45 Dracula 57:53 Currently Reading 58:19 Dune 01:08:15 The Death of Ivan Ilyich 01:10:29 These Broken Stars 01:13:22 Haul/TBR 01:17:45 Challenge Check-In 01:29:09 Outro ————————————————— Books mentioned in this episode: The Canterville Ghost - Oscar Wilde The Model Millionaire and Other Stories - Oscar Wilde Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch The Uninhabitable Earth - David Wallace-Wells This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate - Naomi Klein Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change & Consumerism - Aja Barber Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata Eileen - Ottessa Moshfegh Death in Her Hands - Ottessa Moshfegh My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh Space, Stars, and Slimy Aliens - Nick Arnold Dracula - Bram Stoker Dune - Frank Herbert The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy These Broken Stars - Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner This Shattered World - Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner Illuminae - Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff Artwords - Beatriz M. Robles Toddler-Hunting & Other Stories - Taeko Kōno The Eve Illusion - Giovanna & Tom Fletcher The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett Discworld stories - Terry Pratchett A Study in Drowning - Ava Reid Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go - Joanne Greene Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys The Hunger Games series - Suzanne Collins The Snow Queen - Hans Christian Andersen ————————————————— Also mentioned: Scarf update: https://imgur.com/a/bEg9wO0 Audrey app https://www.listenwithaudrey.com/ Randy Pausch Last Lecture https://youtu.be/ji5_MqicxSo Leena Norms https://youtube.com/@leenanorms The Vlogbrothers https://www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers Books Unbound https://www.booksunboundpodcast.com/ Booksandlala 2023 Buzzword Reading Challenge https://youtu.be/SwmtVw9iJUg Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/c883c525-cad4-47be-af53-9a5f307b091d Gilmore Girls https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238784/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk Northanger Abbey https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844794/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Tolstoy is a great writer. The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a novella about a middle-aged man named Ivan Ilyich. Yep, he dies. It's sad, moving, thoughtful, ironic, true to life, etc. And unlike some other Tolstoy books we could name, it's short. Worth your time. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Episode 129 Friday, November 24, 2023 On the Needles 1:48 ALL KNITTING LINKS GO TO RAVELRY UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.  Please visit our Instagram page @craftcookreadrepeat for non-Rav photos and info   Roam by Dawn Barker, Rainbow Peak Yarns super sock in Luminosity II (Lula Faye Fibre)   Vanilla is the New Black by Anneh Fletcher, Knit Picks Felici in Beyond the Wall– DONE!!   Christmas is the New Black by Anneh Fletcher, Lollipop Yarn Quintessential in We Need a Little Christmas (started December 2022, yarn 2016)   Ilha by Orlane Sucche, SugarPlum Circus sock in Scorpio   Explicate by Hunter Hammerson, Hue Loco Merino Sock in Blue laced red wyandotte–DONE!!   On the Easel 14:51 Gouachevember Calendar prep check here for shop updates On the Table 21:15 Monster Cookies | Cup of Jo   Crispy Honey Balsamic Glazed Brussels Sprouts - Caroline Chambers   Paper Plane Wild Rice and Mushroom Pilaf Recipe   Ad hoc chicken pot pie with the BEST crust! (used icy cold vodka instead of water). Carmelized Shallot gravy  Yellow Curry Chickenturned into Handpies with leftover crust from above. Cocktail from Episode 61 New cocktail! We're calling it The Franciscan. I part Orange Curacao, 1 part Gin, splash of ginger allspice simple syrup*, garnish with cara cara orange. *Ginger Allspice Simple Syrup: 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon allspice berries, 2-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped. Combine in saucepan & bring to boil. Cook till sugar is melted. Remove from heat & let steep for 30-60 minutes. Strain into a jar, cover & refrigerate. And an epic quantity of green beans! On the Nightstand 36:36 We are now a Bookshop.org affiliate!  You can visit our shop to find books we've talked about or click on the links below.  The books are supplied by local independent bookstores and a percentage goes to us at no cost to you!   Goodreads best of 2023 voting   T is for Trespass by Sue Grafton (audio) Malice by Keigo Higashino, trans by Alexander O. Smith (audio) Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel (audio) Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel (audio) Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy, trans by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (this link goes to a different version) Under the Smokestrewn Sky by A. Deborah Baker/seanan McGuire Little Thieves by Margaret Owen  The Keeper's Six by Kate Elliott    48:00 Starter Villain by John Scalzi  Evil Eye by Etaf Rum  August Blue by Deborah Levy  Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop, trans by Sam Taylor  Aliss at the Fire by Jon Fosse, trans by Damion Searls  Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros    All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers Happy Place by Emily Henry Mrs. Porter Calling by AJ Pearce The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar All Wrapped Up 1:09:19 Needles   Weather or Knot Scarf Kit – The Yarnery   Faux suede tags, handmade, this is the back   Knitting cady yarn bowl Uncommon Goods   CABLE KNIT LEATHER BANDS FOR APPLE WATCH birdie parker   Nudge Brass Counter Budget version counter Handmade: knitting tags   Easel Caran D'ache Bi-color set of colored pencils (unfortunately, I cannot find the set I have. Here's an example). Klee Marble Pencil Set from LACMA Blackwings! Leuchtturm1917 sketchbook Talens Art Creations sketchbook Hahnemuhle Bamboo (lightweight paper) sketchbook Field Notes small sketchbooks   Blick Acrylic Portrait Set Charvin Acrylic Portrait set   Handmade: sketchbook ideas Table   Snacking Bakes by Yossi Arefi   Substack subscription   State baking dish, serving dish, platter, historic map trays   Diaspora & Co spices also, check Whole Foods Lucky Iron fish Big Sur Elote Salt or Maldon bucket!   Handmade: giftable spice blends   Nightstand   Demon Copperhead   Everyman's Pocket Classics: Scottish Stories, Garden , New York, Detective   Literary women book locket necklace   Tequila Mockingbird (10th Anniversary Expanded Edition): Cocktails with a Literary Twist Museum Book Shops: MFA Boston, SFMoma, DeYoung/Legion, The Met, etc. The Simple Art of Rice by Danica Novgorodoff and Joseph Johnson Here We Go Again by Tiffani Thiessen The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan (boo! Not out till April!--sorry friends). Day by Michael Cunningham America's Test Kitchen 2023 & others. Handmade: bookmarks!

This episode of BookShook is all about the second half of The Death of Ivan Ilyich published in 1886 written by the Russian author, Leo Tolstoy.I take a book, split it in two, and discuss each half in consecutive podcasts. I'll briefly summarise the half alongside my thoughts and reactions and raise any ideas that resonated with me - be warned - there will be spoilers. I'd love to share your thoughts on the book so send an an email to bookshook @yahoo.com. My next read will be The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Also, let me know if any book suggestions you may have. Welcome to BookShook. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The final episode of Season #3 is here! We are all about the number 3 in this episode!3 Brothers each giving their Top 3 resources from 2023.Whether it be a sermon, podcast, book, or conversation the top 3 personally changing moments from this year! Join us for this final episode of the season!Books: Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda LernerReplenish by Lance WittPsychology of Money by Morgan HouselDeath of Ivan Ilyich by Leo TolstoyThe Creative Act by Rick RubinDrive by Daniel PinkConscience by Nacelli and CrawleyTimothy Keller by Collin HansenVoddie Baucham SermonsThe FamilyProvidence of God Thanks for Listening! Follow us on Facebook and Instagram!

This episode of BookShook is all about the first half of The Death of Ivan Ilyich (up to Chapter 6 on page 61) by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy (translated by Anthony Briggs), first published in 1886.In the podcast, I take a book, split it in two, and discuss each half in consecutive shows. I'll briefly summarise the half alongside my thoughts and reactions and raise any ideas that resonated with me. But be warned - there will be spoilers - (but for this show only up to half way). I'd love to share your thoughts on the book so send an an email to bookshook @yahoo.com. Also, let me know if any book suggestions you may have. Welcome to BookShook”Next books on my ‘to read' list:Satantango by László KrasznahorkaiI'm delighted that this podcast has been voted in the top UK Books podcasts' at https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_book_podcasts/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is all about the second half of The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster published in 1928 (from Part 2 The Mending Apparatus if you're reading alongside). The idea of the episode is that I take a book I've never read, split it in two and discuss each half in consecutive podcasts. I'll do a first impressions summary alongside my thoughts and reactions and then raise any interesting ideas so far in the novel (be aware - there may be spoilers.) And then on the last Friday of the month, I'll discuss the second half of the book. We'll see together how the novel concludes and decide whether it's a book we'd recommend to a friend - or not. Of course, you don't have to read the book, you can listen to it, or just follow along without doing either since I'll be summarising what happens (but be aware! - there will be spoilers). You can leave a comment or start a conversation at youtube.com/@BookShook or send an email to bookshook@yahoo.com. The next book I'll be reading is The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (106 pages) —I'll be reading up to half way for the next episode. Thanks for listening to BookShook! RogerNext Reads:The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy The Awakening Kate ChopinSatantango László KrasznahorkaiI'm delighted that this podcast has been voted in the '90 best UK Books podcasts worth listening to in 2023' at https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_book_podcasts/) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chaz Wolfe welcomes Rodric Lenhart, to the show. Renowned as the brains behind multiple multi-million dollar ventures, Rodric stands tall with accomplishments that span over three decades. This Michigander's tenacity and foresight led him to become one of the pioneering graduates of UT's Entrepreneurship, Family, and Small Business Program. With an ICF designation from the distinguished Brown University's LPCC Program, Rodric doesn't just wear the hat of a #1 Best Selling Author. He marries his extensive global voyages across 50 countries with his entrepreneurial prowess, channeling all the profits towards the laudable mission of his foundation: sending student leaders abroad.In this engaging conversation, Chaz and Rodric demystify the core essence of entrepreneurship, challenging the conventional belief that wealth accumulation is its zenith. Rodric introduces listeners to his revolutionary 'Waves' method, underlining the importance of understanding one's 'why'. Tune in to learn the philosophies that power Million Dollar Flip Flops and the incredible vision of the man behind it.

This essay is a little different than others on my channel. It is a wholly subjective interpretation of the topics and works discussed. It discusses only what I personally take away from a couple of Leo Tolstoy's writings. Thus, this video leaves out significant parts of both The Confession and The Death of Ivan Ilyich (the former of which is largely a religious text). I would not recommend this video as a substitute for reading either of those works. Horses Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HorsesPTSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We dive deep with Rodric as he shares his transformative journey from isolation to establishing multimillion-dollar businesses. Through candid conversations, Rodric emphasizes the significance of aligning one's values with their actions, the profound impact of coaching, and the essence of finding one's "why." His insights, stemming from personal experiences and challenges, offer a fresh perspective on success, purpose, and the art of living authentically.Chapters:00:00:00 Embracing Life's Purpose: Reflecting on Influential Sacrifices and Transformative Journeys00:03:42 Pursuit of Excellence: The True Essence of Value in Every Task00:09:20 Beyond Conventional Success: Rodric's Midlife Awakening and Self-Realization00:11:37 The Life-changing Trip: Igniting a Passionate Mission for Global Youth Opportunities00:14:39 A Global Mission: Harnessing Unity for a Brighter Tomorrow00:17:08 Delving Deep: The Quest for True Authenticity and Discovering Your 'Why'00:19:26 Escaping the Mundane: Unearthing Your Life's Purpose and Authentic Living00:22:03 A Catalyst for Change: Rodric's Epiphany by the Beach00:24:36 The Magic of Coaching: Lighting Up Lives One Revelation at a Time00:30:26 Mastery in Coaching: Dive Deep with Rodric's Approach to Unlocking Potential00:33:32 Finding Your North Star: Unraveling Life's Big Questions and Embracing Purpose00:38:19 Leveraging Wisdom: Valuable Takeaways from Surrounding Yourself with the Right PeopleLinks And Resources:Million Dollar Flip Flops Website LinkedIn Instagram Book Recommendations:Million Dollar Flip Flops by Rodric Lenhart Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life by Dr. Wayne Dyer Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo TolstoyThanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Eternal Optimist? Have some feedback you'd like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and leave us a review!

Welcome to BookShook! This episode is all about the first half of September's book, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin published in 2022 (up to Chapter 5 'Pivots' on page 211 if you're reading alongside). The idea is that I split a book into two equal halves — a book that I and perhaps you have never read. In the first episode, published on the second Friday of the month, we'll discuss the first half. And then in the second episode (published on the last Friday of the month - $Part2EpisodeDate$ September), we'll look at the second half of the book (in this case from Chapter 5 'Pivots' on page 211). We'll see together how the novel concludes and decide whether it's a book we'd recommend to a friend - or not. Of course, you don't have to read the book, you can listen to it, or just follow along without doing either since I'll be summarising what happens (but be aware! - there will be spoilers). You can leave a comment or start a conversation at youtube.com/@BookShook or send an email to bookshook@yahoo.com. The book we'll be reading for October is The Machine Stops by EM Forster (so get that ready if you're going to read alongside). Thanks for listening to BookShook! RogerContent Warning: There are adult themes throughout the first half: suicide, violence, sexism and misogyny. I don't use any foul language in this podcast. Please check the content of the novel before proceeding.Future Reads:October: The Machine Stops by EM Forster November: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo TolstoyArticle "The Unquenchable Thirst to Understand" by Yvonne Merritt http://itech.fgcu.edu/&/issues/vol2/issue2/rabelais.htm Youtube video of Simon McBurney discussing Rabelais http://itech.fgcu.edu/&/issues/vol2/issue2/rabelais.htmI'm delighted that this podcast has been voted in the '90 best UK Books podcasts worth listening to in 2023' at https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_book_podcasts/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Finally, Shruti and Neha are answering all your burning questions! Listen in to find out more about us including the books we loved, books we hated, how we started this podcast, and (perhaps most importantly), the ultimate Harry Potter book ranking.If you would like to hear more in-depth literary and cultural analysis, curated book recommendations, and critical commentary, subscribe to our free newsletter. You can also connect with us on Instagram or by emailing us at thenovelteapod@gmail.com.Books Mentioned:Ready Player One by Ernest ClineThe Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. TolkeinBreakfast at Tiffany's by Truman CapoteThe Hunger Games by Suzanne CollinsThe Princess Bride by William GoldmanThe Harry Potter series by J.K. RowlingHoles by Louis SacharEragon by Christopher PaoliniAnxious People by Fredrik BackmanNormal People by Sally RooneyA Man Called Ove by Fredrik BackmanWar and Peace by Leo TolstoyThe Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo TolstoyWhen Breath Becomes Air by Paul KalinithiLonesome Dove by Larry McMurtryThe Devil in the White City by Erik Larson Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Warning: this episode contains references to suicide. The Vegetarian, an International Booker Prize winner and the first of Han Kang's books to be translated into English, explores shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand each other. In 2016, the International Booker Prize moved from a bi-annual award recognising an author's body of work to a prize that celebrated an individual book translated into English, giving its author and translator equal billing – The Vegetarian was the first novel to win the revamped prize, and this month we're revisiting the story to explore it more deeply. In this episode Jo and James chat about: Jo and James' best and worst ever meals, spurred on by the omnipresence of food throughout The Vegetarian A slightly spoiler-y account of what happens in the novel and whether it's about Korean society and the pressures faced by women living under the patriarchy... even though the author has stressed that this isn't the case Whether Yeong-hye, the book's protagonist, is “mad” or not The nuances of translating fiction, including the controversy that riled people up to such an extent that it was dubbed “Han Kang-gate” Who should read The Vegetarian The Booker Clinic: a segment where we recommend books in response to listeners' dilemmas. This week: books to ease your guilt if you're conducting an illicit affair Books discussed in this episode: The Vegetarian by Han Kang The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Fingersmith by Sarah Waters The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy The Stranger by Albert Camus The Maples Stories by John Updike Heartburn by Nora Ephron Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert Further resources: ‘Raw and Cooked' by Tim Parks for The New York Review ‘Lost in (mis)translation? English take on Korean novel has critics up in arms' by Claire Armitstead for The Guardian ‘How the bestseller “The Vegetarian,” translated from Han Kang's original, caused an uproar in South Korea' by Charse Yun for the LA Times ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Translation' by Deborah Smith for Los Angeles Review of Books Hong Sang-soo on MUBI The Handmaiden, directed by Park Chan-wook A full transcript of the conversation is available on our website here. If you've got a problem you'd like some literary help with, email us at contactus@bookerprizefoundation.org using the subject line “The Booker Clinic”. Follow The Booker Prize Podcast so you never miss an episode. Visit https://thebookerprizes.com/podcast to find out more, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok @thebookerprizes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shruti and Neha read and cry about Crying in H Mart, a memoir by Michelle Zauner, best known as singer and songwriter for Japanese Breakfast. We talk about the mother-daughter relationship, family dynamics in an Asian household, and the importance of food as an expression of love.If you would like to hear more in-depth literary and cultural analysis, curated book recommendations, and critical commentary, subscribe to our free newsletter. You can also connect with us on Instagram or by emailing us at thenovelteapod@gmail.com.Links:Crying in H Mart: essay by Michelle Zauner first published in the New YorkerChoosing Forgiveness: essay by Michelle Zauner published in Harpers BazaarShelf discovery:Crying in H Mart by Michelle ZaunerShruti - The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy; and Paula by Isabel AllendeNeha - Know My Name by Chanel Miller Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shownotes: This week, Matt and Cameron move away from particular characters and start talking about the long arc of history in Book 4, Part 2 of War and Peace. As the French army retreats from Moscow, it's the perfect time to ask the question: hey, wait, was everyone wrong about calling Stalingrad the Soviet War and Peace? You'll have to listen to find out. Plus we'll learn about the function of pain in Tolstoy's work, which will really lighten the mood. Grab your water for a long march back to Paris, then tune in!  Major themes: The Function of Pain, Pierre's Thiccness, Dialoguing with Stalingrad  26:45 - “Revisiting the Dialectic of Pain and Truth: War and Peace and The Death of Ivan Ilyich” by David Rosenshield The music used in this episode was “soviet march,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.  Follow us on Instagram, check out our website, if you're so inclined, check out our Patreon! 

Rachel talks about the shooting at MSU in this week’s intro before introducing her guest - fellow Michagander, Abby. Abby and Rachel talk about perfectionism, philosophy, literature, self growth, spirituality, and writing as therapy. Episode Notes: “Falling apart is part of growth” - Abby Conversation with Abby begins at 00:12:00. Leaving Perfect website: https://leavingperfect.com/ Books discussed in the episode: Then Joy Breaks Through, by George A. Benson The Drama of the Gifted Child, by Alice Miller Frames of Mind, by Howard Gardner Seth Material, by Jane Roberts The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, by Hendrik Groen The Plague, by Albert Camus The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy Discussed in the intro: Everytown for Gun Safety: https://www.everytown.org/ Give to Spartan Strong: https://givingto.msu.edu/spartan-strong.cfm Requiem for the Spartans: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/michigan-state-university-mass-shooting-campus/673060/ -------- Let’s keep talking! Have a question or idea for a topic? Email winedine@allportsopen.com! Podcast artwork by Yogesh Nankar (Design by Dreamers). Intro and Outro music by John Bartmann. Book cover image used with permission of the author.

Rachel talks about the shooting at MSU in this week’s intro before introducing her guest - fellow Michagander, Abby. Abby and Rachel talk about perfectionism, philosophy, literature, self growth, spirituality, and writing as therapy. Episode Notes: “Falling apart is part of growth” - Abby Conversation with Abby begins at 00:12:00. Leaving Perfect website: https://leavingperfect.com/ Books discussed in the episode: Then Joy Breaks Through, by George A. Benson The Drama of the Gifted Child, by Alice Miller Frames of Mind, by Howard Gardner Seth Material, by Jane Roberts The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, by Hendrik Groen The Plague, by Albert Camus The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy Discussed in the intro: Everytown for Gun Safety: https://www.everytown.org/ Give to Spartan Strong: https://givingto.msu.edu/spartan-strong.cfm Requiem for the Spartans: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/michigan-state-university-mass-shooting-campus/673060/ -------- Let’s keep talking! Have a question or idea for a topic? Email winedine@allportsopen.com! Podcast artwork by Yogesh Nankar (Design by Dreamers). Intro and Outro music by John Bartmann. Book cover image used with permission of the author.

The guys discuss the film adaptation of WOMEN TALKING, a novel written by Miriam Toews that tells the story of colony of Mennonite women who are victims of obscene and grotesque crimes, meet in secret to decide their response and ultimately their future. The film adaptation received a limited release in theaters in December 2022 and stars Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand. The film was written and directed by Sarah Polley. Listen to the episode to find out how the film stacks up to the novel. (0:00) Excerpt from the novel… (0:49) Fast facts, Recap, Games… (10:53) A word from our sponsor… (11:16) Studio pitch & novel breakdown… (42:07) Trailer… (43:48) Learn you something, film differences… Other topics include the author's choice to have a male narrator taking meeting minutes as the novel's narrative structure, the important of setting, why audiobooks suck, and why this film may have received more love this award's season than SHE SAID. Our next episode will be on LIVING, an adaptation of the Russian novella written by Leo Tolstoy titled, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, as well as the 1952 Japanese film Ikiru, directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film is about an English bureaucrat facing a fatal illness in 1950's London. The film adaptation has received rave reviews and two Academy Award nominations (Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay), and was directed by Oliver Hermanus, screenplay written by Kazuo Ishiguro, and stars Bill Nighy. If you would like to get in contact with us about anything regarding the show, feel free to shoot us an e-mail: littolens@gmail.com Or reach out on social media: twitter.com/littolens instagram.com/littolens

Welcome back to Movies that Make Us. We are continuing this month's theme of feel-good movies, since January is the worst month of the year and we close it out with the Sundance film Living starring Bill Nighy.The film is based on a film based on the 1952 Japanese film Ikiru, directed by Akira Kurosawa, which in turn was inspired by the 1866 Russian novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. Living is set in 1953 London and depicts a bureaucrat in the county Public Works department contemplating his life when informed he's facing a fatal illness. What are your thoughts on the film? It's in theaters now, and Bill Nighy was nominated for an Oscar for his performance. Did you miss the video premier of this episode? Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, and then click the little bell to receive notifications when we add a new video or go live.You can also follow our Facebook page so you can receive notifications for new audio or video of our episodes.As always, thank you for listening, and for now, we won't see you at the movies… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Living is a 2022 British drama film directed by Oliver Hermanus from a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, adapted from the 1952 Japanese film Ikiru directed by Akira Kurosawa, which in turn was inspired by the 1886 Russian novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. Set in 1953 London, it depicts a bureaucrat (played by Bill Nighy) facing a fatal illness. Living had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival on 21 January 2022, and was released in the United Kingdom on 4 November 2022, by Lionsgate.[1] The film received positive reviews, with Nighy's performance receiving particular acclaim. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/popcorn-junkies/message

In the big building of the law courts, during a break in hearing the case of the Melvinskys, the members and the prosecutor met in Ivan Yegorovich Shehek's office, and the conversation turned to the famous Krasovsky case. Fyodor Vassilievich became heated demonstrating non-jurisdiction, Ivan Yegorovich stood his ground; as for Pyotr Ivanovich, not having entered into the argument in the beginning, he took no part in it and was looking through the just-delivered [newspaper]. “Gentlemen,” he said, “Ivan Ilyich is dead!” Thus begins Leo Tolstoy's 1886 novella, The Death of Ivan Ilych, the first reading for the 2022 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought. It's intriguing that the story begins with Ivan Ilych's death, recounting his life and his dying as a flashback after we hear of his funeral. At the Wyoming School, Wyoming Catholic President, Dr. Glenn Arbery introduced Tolstoy's novella this way.

Ivan Ilyich is a man. All men are mortal. So Ivan Ilyich is mortal. Sure absolutely, that's true for Ivan Ilyich and for all men. But we're not Ivan Ilyich and we're not ‘all men'- so what does this have to do with us? Right? David and Tamler confront their mortality as they discuss Leo Tolstoy's brilliant and chilling short story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” Plus the ‘Why I am leaving academia' essay has become its own genre. But is this profession really that much worse relative to others?

Authentically Russian. Depressingly bleak, a touch of divinity and more than a little strange.'The Death Of Ivan Ilyich' by Leo Tolstoy is a collection of 11 novellas, which contain Russian everything (characters, landscape, traditions, culture, etc.,). There is no connecting theme in the stories but they do contain some commonalities. They're told from an outside narrator, have men as the principal characters, contain multiple references to Russian words or Arabic influences and are about everyday interactions.I summarised the book as follows. "These are probably the easiest way to introduce yourself to Tolstoy's 'realistic fiction' without having to commit to an 800+ page book like Anna Karenina or War & Peace. I've never been to Russia but this conforms to most of what I have heard elsewhere about their traditions and culture. There is a strong emphasis on the bleakness and suffering in life, but hey, that's just how Russians roll."I hope you have a fantastic day wherever you are in the world. Kyrin out!Timeline:(0:00) - Intro(0:38) - Synopsis(3:28) - Anguish: Extreme unhappiness due to mental/physical suffering(8:22) - Rumination: The Russian version of introspection(12:19) - Personal Observations/Takeaways(13:33) - SummaryConnect with Mere Mortals:Website: https://www.meremortalspodcast.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcast/Support the show

Is dedicating yourself single-mindedly to a task a psychologically good for you?In Episode #230 of 'Musings' Juan and I discuss: how Juan is ill prepared and therefore definitely not all in, Tolstoy's book and story that gave me the idea for today's topic, our definition on what this psychology is, why Juan thinks Tolstoy is an average writer and needs to improve (lol), why I believe that the mental process of pure dedication is one of narrowing your focus, liberation from choice and efficiency vs consistency, our general thoughts on whether it is healthy and some shoutouts to key supporters!As always, we hope you enjoy. Mere Mortals out!Timeline:(0:00) - Ill prepared(0:47) - The Death of Ivan Ilyich(4:32) - Defining 'going all in'(9:55) - Tolstoy needs to get better at writing(14:20) - Putting the blinders on(22:44) - The pros of being all in(28:05) -  Should people be more 'all in' than not?(33:54) - Shoutout to Anisha & KatieConnect with Mere Mortals:Website: https://www.meremortalspodcast.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcast/

In this week's edition of The New Thinkery, the guys analyze a frequent read of David's: The Death of Ivan Ilyich. A tome by one of the great Russian authors, Leo Tolstoy, the crew have much to discuss as they reflect on the key theme of the book, mortality.

Leo Tolstoy's novella speaks volumes on mortality, conformity, societal expectations, and what it means to live an authentic life. Ivan Ilyich suffers on his deathbed until he is able to fully confront his mortality. This same denial of death and the anguish it causes can be seen in our culture today, brought into focus by the events of 2020. Matt Walsh, host of The Matt Walsh Show, sits down with Michael Knowles to work through Tolstoy's masterpiece of fiction. In our fast-paced world, it's tough to make reading a priority. At least it used to be. At Thinkr.org, they summarize the key ideas from new and noteworthy nonfiction, giving you access to an entire library of great books in bite-size form. Read or listen to hundreds of titles in a matter of minutes: start your free trial today at https://thinkr.org/. Subscribe so you never miss a new episode!

The brothers discuss David Foster Wallace's modern retelling of the Death of Ivan Ilyich, Good Old Neon.

The brothers discuss The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Widely considered to be one of the finest novellas ever written, The Death of Ivan Ilyich tells the story of a high-court judge in 19th-century Russia and his sufferings and death from a terminal illness.