Category: podcasts

A few months back I was lapsing on my commitment to stay off of social media and scrolling through my Facebook feed (<side note> if Apple really want to give people control over their lives again, they should add a feature to screen time that limits the number of scrolls you can have per day in the bottomless bowl apps like Facebook and Instagram </side note>). I happened to see a promotion of a new initiative from Story Corp called One Small Step. I was familiar with Story Corp from hearing some of the interviews they captured aired on local radio stations, but the One Small Step project was something different.

The usual Story Corp format is to have a couple people that know each other tell a story. They’ve done series on people’s immigration stories, cancer stories, childhood stories, etc. One Small Step was all about getting two people that didn’t know each other and were coming at things from different political viewpoints to sit down with each other tell / listen to each other’s stories.

Needless to say I was all in. This pushed so many buttons for me: the art of the conversation, seeking to understand, expressing yourself clearly, getting your ideas tested by someone, healing polarization, doing something physical / face to face instead of digital, going deep…I could go on for pages.

I clicked the link, filled out the survey (to determine my political leanings) and submitted my application. All from my phone. At dinner….sigh… I tried to answer the questions as truthfully as I could, but I also have a natural resistance to the left – right political paradigm, so I think I ended up describing myself in one of the few open text answers as a “anarchs-syndicalist” (which was intended to be ironic, but which I might actually have some sympathies towards).

I heard back about a month later that I was “accepted” with a quote from my story partner to tell me a little bit about who I would be talking to:

“I’m pretty damn liberal, but with a few areas of more traditionally conservative views (I tend towards pro-life, for example, but not the sign-waving, pray it away types.) I swear a lot. I honestly think a real apology is worth as much as a good public policy and I suck at both. I’m excited to meet you.”

I recorded my interview on Feb 15th at NKU. There was someone there from StoryCorp to run the equipment and to make sure things didn’t go too far off the rails (you can hear him a bit off Mic at the start of the recording below). I was a bit late to arrive (stupid Google Maps!) so didn’t have much chance to talk with my partner before the we started recording.

I was more than a little nervous. Who was this other person? Would we have even close to enough common ground to have a reasonably coherent conversation or would we be talking past each other the whole time? Would I be able to express myself clearly? Were my ideas even worth considering? Would I talk too much…or not enough?

All of that quickly faded away as I simply focused on the person across the table from me with the intention of sharing my experience with them and listening to what their experiences were. I covered things that I had no intention of talking about. We both commented on how this conversation ended up being a bit like therapy ;-). You can listen the conversation in the player below (it will also pop up on my podcast feed in iTunes).

I think you’ll hear that we ended up being far more similar that different. Not sure if that means that StoryCorp needs to find a better test or maybe it just doesn’t account for “off scale” people like me. Or maybe if we had met in cyberspace we would have fought and its just that when people are face to face they take the time to understand each other and have more than 140 characters to respond react.

Overall this was a fantastic experience and has provided more motivation for me to find opportunities for deeper conversations about things that really matter with small groups of people in face to face situations. In other words pretty much the opposite of what we all spend more time doing everyday, staring at screens. One Small Step made me realize that its just as interesting and valuable to do all of that with people I don’t know and/or don’t agree with.

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This is podcast 2 in a two part series (part 1 here)on our 2018 section hike of the Appalachian Trail through the White Mountains in New Hampshire. ?Kendall and I recount our various adventures and sum up with what we are taking away from this most recent walk in the woods (more mountains than woods…), including:

• Getting back on the trail after an unplanned day off.
• Making decisions as a group
• How luck plays a huge role in your experience
• How hiking can “force” you into a more meditative frame of mind

We are already planning our next adventure, so if you have any suggestions of sections we should take a look at , drop them in the comments below.

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A little late in getting this posted, but we hit the Appalachian Trail again this summer. ?It was Kendall and I, plus Mason this time as well as 4 friends from church. ?This trip all got started last summer when I was talking about our trip to Shenandoah and Greg, a guy I go to church with, expressed some interest in doing a section hike. ?10 months, a few planning meetings and a lot of miles in the car later, we were in Pinkham Notch getting ready for what would turn out to be a really challenging, but really rewarding 8 days on the AT.
This hike was a lot different than our previous section in Shenandoah, but as I come off this section (and with the benefit of a few weeks or R&R back home), I can say that it has only strengthened my resolve to through hike. ?Where there is a will there is way.
Mason, Kendall and I say down to record our experiences on the first half of the trip, including:

• A pretty easy first day from Pinkham Notch to Osgood tent site
• A way harder second day over Mt Adams and Madison to get the Perch (with some getting separated and lost for good measure)
• A recovery third day with awesome weather to get great views from Mt. Washington and an overnight stay at Lake of the Cloud hut.
• A very nice fourth day that got us in pretty early at Nauman tent site
• A surprise 5th day that you’ll have to listen to hear what happened…

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Despite the cooler fall weather, I’ve still had to mow quite a bit which means podcast listening time.  It’s not all bad though since of late I mostly work from home, which has cut down on my commute related podcast listening time, so about the only time I get to catch up on the 30 or so podcasts I subscribe to is when I’m rolling around on my Dixie Chopper.
As I headed out to the shop to mow last night I saw that two of my “regular listens” had relatively recent episodes, so I added them to my play next, hopped, on fired up, and started to mow.
First up was Episode #309 from Dan Carlin’s Common Sense show (Dan’s new site is very pretty, but I can’t figure out how to link to specific episodes, hence the link to the top level page…if you are reading this later, you’ll have to scroll to find it if you want to listen to the whole thing).
Dan said something that really resonated with me early in this episode when talking about the “envy” he feels for his mom and her book club.  I think perhaps one of the reasons I have been doing book reviews here is to share the things I have read and to try to start up a conversation with people that have read the same thing.  I too am interested in having a conversation about what the facts mean vs. what the facts are.  Dan’s point seems to be this: how can we have a conversation about meaning if we don’t share any common conception of “the truth”?
Here is an excerpt of the audio from where he makes this point (I assume it’s OK to post this…if not, then this section of the post will disapear):

The rest of this episode is fascinating, pretty much like all of them are, so I highly reccomend you listen to it all and suscribe to his cast.
Next up was Episode #449 from the School Sucks Project , which is part 2 of a two part conversation wth Julia Tourianski about a video she created about “50 differences between men and women“.  Before he got into the main discussion, Brett included a clip of audio from a 1984 interview of a former KGB agent, Yuri Bezmenov by G. Edward Griffen, a member of the John Birch society (which every time I hear, I can’t help think of this).  Here is an excerpt of that audio (same note as above…if exceprting / reposting is not allowed by SSP, then I will take this down):

Again, SSP is one of my “always listen” to podcasts so if you find anything in the clip above interesting, make sure to subscribe.  And if you are interested in more of what Bezmenov had to say, you can get an electronic copy of one of his books for free from archive.org.
I can sort of see why Brett decided to include that given where the rest of the conversation with Juliana went, but I found the connection between what I was listening to from Dan just an hour earlier even more interesting.  No I don’t think the lack of meaningful discourse is due to some vast KGB conspiracy to undermine the US (“Мы вас похороним!”), but I do find it interesting that the inability to discern truth is the exact outcome that Bezmenov says comes from the demoralization stage.
But of course this could all be disinformation.  Who can really say?