CORRECTION: Season Nine will commence on July 7, not June 30

Origins Podcast Website

Hello friends, a new season of Origins arrives on July 7!

I can't genuinely describe my experience in the world right now without the term confusion. 

Confused in a deep sense: feeling a growing distance between the world as I experience it and the world we seem to be creating together.

The appropriate response to bewilderment is not certainty but deeper conversation. That has always been the purpose of Origins: A person bewildered by the world turning toward another person and asking: How do you live here?

So strangely, out of vulnerability there is capacity. Out of confusion there is hope.

The episodes in this season are meant to be companions in that work. They are certainly companions in mine.

What we do now will be oriented toward creating those sites at which vulnerability becomes capacity: belonging and solidarity. I hope each episode becomes an encounter with flourishing. 

Flourishing Commons Newsletter

The fundamental challenges confronting humanity are not the failure of particular nations or institutions or businesses or civil organizations, but rather the disconnect between our economic, political, and social systems. Dennis Snower and David Sloan Wilson, converging economics and evolution, have a plan to ameliorate the decoupling of economic prosperity and political success from social and environmental prosperity, a decoupling that destabilizes our planet.

Origins Podcast Website

Flourishing Commons Newsletter

Show Notes:

• paper that frames this conversation: "Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Economics"
• British postal strike (09:20)
• Amos Tversky (10:30)
• Sloan Wilson (11:00)
• Theodosius Dobzhansky (12:00)
• This is Water (15:00)
• David Whyte (16:00)
• Thomas Singer (18:20)
• Evolution Institute (19:20)
• Eric Beinhocker (20:00)
• Mont Pèlerin Society (21:00)
• Philip Anderson More is Different (26:00)
• rethinking wealth (26:30)
• multilevel selection (29:30)
• Elinor and Vincent Ostrom (31:00)
• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (42:10)
• Thich Nhat Hanh and engaged Buddhism (01:00:40)
• flourishing (01:08:10)
• Find Dennis online: https://www.global-solutions-initiative.org/person/dennis-j-snower/
• Find David online: davidsloanwilson.world/
• Recommended books:
  • Dennis: Tolstoy and the great works of literature
  • David: Teilhard de Chardin and people/places achieving positive cultural change 'hiding in plain sight'

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez
Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Guru Madhavan reverences the world and all that is in it. Guru is an engineer, but his conception of engineering is more vast than we typically assign to the role. To it he brings a systems consciousness that widens the field in recognition of its entanglement with the social and cultural.

Origins Podcast Website

Flourishing Commons Newsletter

Show Notes:

• David Sloan Wilson on Origins (02:05)
• systems consciousness (06:40)
• problematizing the term 'technology' (11:00)
• jirnoddhara - 'repairing what is worn' (13:30)
• Charles Vest (15:20)
• Applied Minds Guru's first book (21:20)
• 'lessons from the scrapheap' (24:00)
• Spanning Space by Claude Claremont (25:00)
• Cloaca Maxima (29:00)
• Wicked Problems by Guru (31:00)
• "How to be a poet" by Wendell Berry (31:00)
• "The Grind Challenges" by Guru (33:00)
• Evolution for Everyone by David Sloan Wilson (41:50)
• Flourishing Salons and the event Guru referred to (43:00)
• FOCUS (45:20)
• Elinor Ostrom (46:30)
• The Disuniting of America by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (55:20)
• Paul Virilio's 'inverted miracle' (56:30)
• What does it mean to flourish? (57:30)
• Why War? letters between Einstein and Freud (01:00:30)
• Lightning round (01:05:10)
  • Book: The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
  • Passion: cubist painting
  • Heart sing: latest book
    • The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton
  • Screwed up: communication
• Find Guru online: LinkedIn
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series  
  • Guru’s playlist

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez

Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Francesca Samsel is crafting a new language for our world. That is, she crosses art, science, and visualization to open new ways of understanding and engaging with the natural world, not just visually but across the sensorial spectrum. She recognizes the inextricably social element to this, too, and her work raises our capacity to collaborate, and in the process, alters our sense of what scientific inquiry is and can (and perhaps needs to) be. Her work as her life are teachers we need for the world we are walking into. 

Origins Podcast Website

Flourishing Commons Newsletter

Show Notes:

• vulnerability (11:30)
• problem with the 'follow your passion' path (14:20)
• Ganymede (15:00)
• what she tells her students (15:50)
• art-science collaboration (16:00)
• Santa Fe Institute (21:20)
• James (Jim) Ahrens (24:00)
• Craig Tweedie (25:20)
• visual structure to see the complexity in data (29:00)
• Isaac Asimov 'that's funny' (30:20)
• the need for scientific breakthrough (31:20)
• Lia Halloran - your hand will physically guide you the way to breakthrough (31:30)
• the only mark that you determine as an artist is the first one (33:00)
• delivery-oriented society (34:30)
• "Stewardship of Global Collective Behavior" by Joseph Bak-Coleman et al. (40:00)
• visual vocabulary work (42:00)
• Art-Sci-Vis Lab at UT Austin (43:20)
• flourishing (47:00)
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (51:45)
• lightning round (48:00)
  • Artist: Jon McCormick (work called "Fifty Sisters")
  • Passion: geoscience and the complexity you find when you walk out of the door
  • Heart sing: fused glass, ice, and rock
  • Screwed up: obliviousness to colleagues
• Find Francesca online:
  • Website 
  • UT Austin

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez

Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Malka Older makes a life at the crossroads of our existing and future worlds. Between research into the sociology of organizations, on-the-ground work in humanitarian aid and disaster risk reduction, and acclaimed writing of speculative and science fiction, Older brilliantly, beautifully, uncommonly lives the great paradox in front of us all: to hold at once the two truths of lived experience and imagined future. 

Origins Podcast Website

Flourishing Commons Newsletter

Show Notes:

• the immigrant sensibility (05:00)
• belonging (07:20)
• exile (09:00)
• Danielle Allen's theory of justice (15:00)
• A Paradise Built in Hellby Rebecca Solnit (16:00)
• Malka's work in the international space (16:20)
• Global Voices (19:15)
• Where are you REALLY from? (19:40) 
• The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (20:30)
• 'Great Asking' (22:30)
• Positionality (23:00)
• Mu - unask the question (23:20)
• the opportunity in disaster (27:10)
• 2004 Boxing Day Indian Ocean Tsunami (31:00)
• psychological distance (34:40)
• Malka's book ...And Other Disasters(35:30)
• the importance of improvisation (43:00)
• David Whyte - the conversational nature of reality (46:30)
• Malka's book Infomocracy (49:00)
• the adjacent possible (53:45)
• The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han (59:15)
• The Sociological Imaginationby C Wright Mills (59:30)
• what does it mean to flourish? (59:45)
• the generative narrative of our time (01:08:30)
• Lightning round (01:02:00)
  • Book: The Lord of the Rings
  • Passion: Hearing a new language
  • Heart sing: Global Voices
  • Screwed up: relationship
• Find Malka online:
  • Wikipedia
  • Arizona State Profile
  • LinkedIn

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez

Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Biologist, philosopher, educator, facilitator, and historian of science Mette Miriam Böll is embodiment of the kind of life that emerges when we accept, recognize, and revere our profound interconnectedness. Her scholarship as her life are nourishment for returning to the task we are all called to: to human well, at once simple and complex, individual and civilizational. 

Origins Podcast Website

Flourishing Commons Newsletter

Show Notes:

• Tibetan Book of the Dead (04:20)
• Dzogchen - Tibetan Buddhist Teachings (05:00)
• John P. Milton (05:40)
• drawing her out on interconnectedness (12:30)
• Krishnamurti (17:00)
• Systems awareness and change processes (17:25)
• Polycrisis (17:35)
• life is a creative journey (18:20)
• John Paul Lederach on Origins (19:30)
• systems thinking (20:15)
• Jesper Hoffmeyer (20:30)
• Peter Senge (22:00)
• Why most systems change efforts fail (22:40)
• industrial PhD program Denmark (e.g., here) (32:10)
• Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society by Peter Senge (34:00)
• compassionate systems framework (37:30)
• Otto Scharmer (37:30)
• compassionate systems workshops (42:40)
• generative social fields (44:00)
• Francisco Varela: The Logic of Paradise (53:00)
• "Keeping Quiet" by Pablo Neruda (59:00)
• Lightning round (58:30)
  • Book: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • Passion: Regenerative futures field
  • Heart Sing: Digital detox
  • Screwed up: Practicality 
• Find Mette online:
  • Center for Systems Awareness

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez

Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Dr. Dan Jay has a mission to inspire where art and science meet. His life has been spent in the liminal and generative space between and among these domains of inquiry that are too often considered separate, distinct, even opposing. Yet, it is transformative creativity only possible from the co-mingling and conversation of art and science that we seem to be called to in the 21st century. 

Origins Podcast Website

Flourishing Commons Newsletter

Show Notes:

• Falling Upward by Richard Rohr (05:20)
• Hinduism four stages of life (05:50)
• Society of Fellows (10:00)
• David Hubel (12:20)
• Will Ryman (13:00)
• Dan's hypercube series (20:00)
• self-emptying (24:30)
• Why we need an academic career path that combines science and art (27:00)
• Burroughs Wellcome Fund (28:00)
• Arthur Zajonc - 'something for the light to fall on' (31:00)
• Enfold initiative (32:00)
• collective over community (32:15)
• Ancient Greek symposium (35:00)
• Émile Durkheim - collective effervescence (38:30)
• Joie de vivre (38:30)
• vulnerability and frailty (41:30)
• compassionate leadership (42:40)
• flourishing (45:30)
• TS Eliot "The Four Quartets" (46:30)
• Souq al Arabi (48:20)
•  "all flourishing is mutual" Robin Wall Kimmerer (52:00)
• encounters with flourishing (52:20)
• nuanced conception of flourishing (52:30)
• Lightning round (53:30)
  • Book: Civilisation by Kenneth Clark 
  • Passion: spirituality
  • Heart sing: inspiration for his mission
  • Screwed up: failed marriage 
• Find Dan online:
  • http://www.danjayart.com/
  • https://smfa.tufts.edu/directory/dan-jay

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez

Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Zachary Ugolnik has for years been charting a new path that refuses the tired and inanimate narrative about the separateness of science and spirituality, reason and religion. In his life we find rich possibility when those old illusory dichotomies are discarded, and from that possibility perhaps new wisdom for creating a society full of care and flourishing, one that embraces our inherent needfulness and borrows from theology, ecology, and the social sciences. 

Origins Podcast Website

Flourishing Commons Newsletter

Show Notes:

• locate shared spaces of curiosity across disciplines (11:50)
• Émile Durkheim and collective effervescence (13:45)
• Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University (14:10 and 16:20)
• through lines between religion and social science (13:45)
• Victor and Edith Turner  communitas (15:00)
• Simone Weil decreation (18:30)
• re-membering (22:00)
• Zach's book: The Collective Self (18:30)
• Theater of War (24:00)
• Byzantine iconography and perspective (26:00)
• Picasso "Le Taureau" (26:20)
• The Social Science of Caregiving (27:30)
• Flourishing Knowledge Commons (27:45)
• Margaret Levi communities of fate (27:50)
• "Mobilizing in the Interest of Others" by Levi and Ugolnik (30:00)
• Buddhism and interdependence (31:50)
• Collective action problems (34:40)
• flourishing systems (37:30)
• Ilya Prigogine and dissipative structures (39:30)
• Danielle Allen (42:15)
• philanthropy (44:30)
• Strother School of Radical Attention (52:30)
• Andrei Rublev (52:50)
• Daniel Kahneman (53:50)
• Syriac term Iḥidāyā (55:00)
• Lightning Round (57:30):
  • Book: The Way of the Pilgrimand The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by Matsuo Bashō
  • Passion: travel
  • Heart sing: swimming with my kids
  • Screwed up: eulogy 
• Find Zach online:
  • https://zacharyugolnik.com/

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez

Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Dr. Jennifer Wiseman gives expression to our cosmos, as a pioneering astrophysicist, an outspoken advocate for science within policy and the public, as well as a person of faith. Her's are sensibilities of a scientist, a theologian, and a human being in awe of the universe, recognizing that these parts of ourselves need not be in opposition but rather in beautiful and enriching conversation. 

Origins Podcast Website

Flourishing Commons Newsletter

Show Notes:

• Discovery of comet 114P/Wiseman-Skiff (14:30)
• Maria Mitchell (14:30)
• Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT (15:40)
• Jim Elliot (16:00)
• Needfulness (23:30)
• the 'lone genius' myth of science (26:00)
• the Science of Science (29:40)
• the society of science (30:00)
• "How Prayer Works" by Kaveh Akbar (30:15)
• 'coworkers in the kingdom of culture' W.E.B. Du Bois (35:00)
• The Hubble Space Telescope (37:00)
• Ultra-deep field image (37:00)
• William James and numinous experiences (37:15)
• discovery of exoplanets (43:00)
• "My God, It’s Full of Stars" by Tracy K Smith (43:30)
• what does it mean to flourish? (52:30)
• lightning round (58:30):
  • Book: A Grief Observedby C.S. Lewis & Life, the Universe and Everythingby Douglas Adam
  • Passion: nature and serendipity 
  • Heart sing: the bigger picture, being part of a bigger story
    • a sense of awe and wonder and a sense of hope
    • Jane Hirshfield on Origins
  • Screwed up: worrying about different things in different stages of life
• I am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (01:07:00)
• Find Jennifer online:
  • At NASA
  • Wikipedia

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez

Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Susan Magsamen makes her life at the frontier: the frontier of neuroscience, of institutional change, of the intersection of art and science. Her's is a life full of wisdom for how to live amongst mystery and befriend complexity.

Origins Podcast Website

Flourishing Commons Newsletter

Show Notes:

• spontaneous "you are my sunshine" (02:00)
• T. S. Eliot (08:00)
• implementation science (08:40)
• therapeutic recreation (11:00)
• Trabian Shorters and asset framing (15:00)
• Daniel Kahneman (16:00)
• neuroplasticity (22:30)
• Howard Gardner and Kurt Fisher and Mind, Brain, and Education Program at Harvard (26:15)
• Karl Alexander (27:30)
• Curiosity Kits (28:30)
• NeuroArts (32:00)
• Gileadby Marilynne Robinson (36:00)
• more than scientific knowledge (38:00)
• "Social Support and the Perception of Geographical Slant" (45:00)
• Resmaa Menakem (46:30)
• NeuroArts Blueprint Initiative (46:40)
• "Cirque du Soleil and the neuroscience of awe" on Vox (47:40)
• Global Watering Hole (51:30)
• Renée Fleming Neuroarts Investigator Awards (52:30)
• Rachel Naomi Remen (56:30)
• Lightning Round (01:03:00)
  • Book: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
  • Passion: horseback riding
  • Heart sing: grandchildren
  • Screwed up: articulation in these times
• Find Susan online:
  • International Arts + Mind Lab

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez

Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media