We live in a world obsessed with tracking. From our sleep scores to our social media engagement, invisible systems constantly quantify our worth. But when we replace our deepest values with these thin, easily measurable numbers, we lose a part of our humanity. It is time to step outside the magic circle of optimization and reclaim the unstructured joy of being alive.
C. Thi Nguyen is a philosopher whose work gets to the heart of the invisible structures that define modern life. He first established himself as a food writer, exploring the sensory world, before turning his intellectual gaze toward the philosophy of games and agency. He’s the author of Games: Agency As Art. His new book is The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game. He argues that when we simplify our values for the sake of a leaderboard, something inside the human spirit begins to die. In it, he explores a concept called "value capture"—the moment we stop caring about the experience and start obsessing over the metric. He joins me now to discuss how we can lead a playful, spontaneous life without getting lost in the scoring systems of the 21st century.
(0:00) THE MEANING OF LIFE IS THE CREATIVE PROCESS Why the most valuable parts of life are impossible to measure
(6:46) VALUE CAPTURE DEFINED How external metrics and institutional scoring systems take over our personal values
(11:38) THE METRICS WE LIVE BY The invisible toll of screen time, credit scores, and daily optimization
(19:44) THE LOGIC OF QUANTIFICATION Why simple numbers travel well but strip away vital human context
(24:13) THE MAGIC CIRCLE OF PLAY Understanding the difference between a gamified life and the true beauty of struggle
(31:56) ART AS A GAME How taking the hard way and avoiding efficiency leads to genuine creative expression
(38:48) THE POLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY Why tools and systems like factories and databases are never truly value-neutral
(44:23) AI AND HUMAN CREATIVITY Navigating the tension between automated efficiency and expressive human art
(50:44) THE POLITICS OF IQ Questioning the assumption that complex human traits can be measured on a single scale
(1:01:12) NARRATIVE SCAFFOLDING How structured constraints in role-playing games can actually boost collaborative storytelling
(1:10:00) THE SPIRIT OF PLAY Stepping lightly between different rule worlds and reclaiming our agency
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
@creativeprocesspodcast
"The thing that puzzled him was why people don't agree to be fully expressed while they're alive. Why does it only happen in their last moment? Why wouldn't you live being fully expressed?"
My guest today is AL Kennedy. She is one of Britain’s most acclaimed and versatile literary voices, a writer who can inhabit the internal life of a soldier in a POW camp, as she did in her Costa Book Award-winning novel Day, as easily as she can navigate the "professional lying" of a modern civil servant.
Her latest novel, Alive in the Merciful Country, takes place during the 2020 lockdown. It tells the story of a primary school teacher who receives a confession from an undercover police officer who infiltrated her life decades earlier. It’s a provocative investigation into state power, the "Spy Cops" scandal and the search for mercy in an age of surveillance. It’s a book about the breakdown of trust. We talk about her life, her activism, and why she believes fiction is the only way to tell the truth when the facts are forbidden and how she balances the truth of her novels with the relief of stand-up comedy.
(0:00) Finding Your Voice
On the Alfred Wolfsohn voice method and the power of being fully expressed
(2:30) Reading from Alive in the Merciful Country
Kennedy shares a passage from her latest novel, exploring hope and resilience in dark times.
(4:43) The Myth of Shrinking Attention Spans
Challenging the narrative that modern audiences cannot focus, and the importance of engaging storytelling.
(6:22) Education and the Foundation of Democracy
The dangers of dismantling education and how critical thinking protects us from fascism.
(10:26) The Spy Cop Scandal and State Surveillance
Unpacking the reality of undercover police infiltrating peaceful protests and intimate lives.
(13:59) Lockdown: A Global Pause and the Inrush of Empathy
The fleeting moment of unified humanity during the pandemic and how it was ultimately betrayed.
(17:34) Writing Without Theft: The Ethics of Character Creation
Kennedy explains her imaginative process and why she refuses to steal details from real people's lives.
(28:16) AI, Digital Slop, and the Loss of Trust
Reflections on artificial intelligence as an unstable plagiarism machine and its impact on truth.
(30:03) Nature, Spirituality, and the Merciful Country
Finding healing in the natural world and navigating the future with love and awareness.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
What happens when the state infiltrates your most intimate relationships? How do we protect the innocence and imagination of children in an increasingly authoritarian world? “"If you have love, eventually you're going to win. It's not that people aren't going to die. It's not terrible things aren't going to happen. But if you stay with that and you stay centered in that, you'll get through and you will not have turned into a monster in order to overcome monsters.”
My guest today is AL Kennedy. She is one of Britain’s most acclaimed and versatile literary voices, a writer who can inhabit the internal life of a soldier in a POW camp, as she did in her Costa Book Award-winning novel Day, as easily as she can navigate the "professional lying" of a modern civil servant.
Her latest novel, Alive in the Merciful Country, takes place during the 2020 lockdown. It tells the story of a primary school teacher who receives a confession from an undercover police officer who infiltrated her life decades earlier. It’s a provocative investigation into state power, the "Spy Cops" scandal and the search for mercy in an age of surveillance. It’s a book about the breakdown of trust. We talk about her life, her activism, and why she believes fiction is the only way to tell the truth when the facts are forbidden and how she balances the truth of her novels with the relief of stand-up comedy.
(0:00) Finding Your Voice
On the Alfred Wolfsohn voice method and the power of being fully expressed
(2:17) Education and the Foundation of Democracy
The dangers of dismantling education and how critical thinking protects us from fascism.
(5:14) The Myth of Shrinking Attention Spans
Challenging the narrative that modern audiences cannot focus, and the importance of engaging storytelling.
(8:23) Reading from Alive in the Merciful Country
Kennedy shares a passage from her latest novel, exploring hope and resilience in dark times.
(17:45) The Spy Cop Scandal and State Surveillance
Unpacking the reality of undercover police infiltrating peaceful protests and intimate lives.
(22:07) AI, Digital Slop, and the Loss of Trust
Reflections on artificial intelligence as an unstable plagiarism machine and its impact on truth.
(28:29) The Power of the Powerless: Radical Whimsy
How absurdity, humor, and inflatable costumes can disrupt authoritarian mindsets and potential violence.
(33:13) Lockdown: A Global Pause and the Inrush of Empathy
The fleeting moment of unified humanity during the pandemic and how it was ultimately betrayed.
(42:53) Writing Without Theft: The Ethics of Character Creation
Kennedy explains her imaginative process and why she refuses to steal details from real people's lives.
(1:29:40) Nature, Spirituality, and the Merciful Country
Finding healing in the natural world and navigating the future with love and awareness.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“Grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. It wasn't unrequited in the past. Usually, we think of unrequited love as you never got to do it, you never had it for yourself. But, in fact, there can be requited love, which is then unrequited love in the paroxysms of grief.”
Today, we are honored to welcome a writer whose work has long explored the intimate landscapes of the mind, memory and the heart. Siri Hustvedt’s writing moves between the personal and the philosophical, the literary and the deeply human. Her work bridges collections of essays, non-fiction, poetry, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the Gabarron Prize for Thought, her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, is a reflection on forty-three years shared with her late husband, the writer and filmmaker Paul Auster. In its pages, we encounter not only love and loss, but the quiet persistence of presence, memory, and language itself.
(0:00) “We were hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives”
(2:04) Grief as Unrequited Love
Siri explores the emotional reality of living without Paul Auster, noting that grief occurs because love does not stop when a person dies.
(3:19) The Shared Space of a 43-year Marriage
(4:36) Reading from Ghost Stories
Siri reads the opening passage of her memoir, detailing how the loss of her husband deranged her sense of time and bodily rhythms.
(7:02) How Loss Changes Our Sense of Time
(11:24) How Powerful Emotions and a Person's Life Can Play a Role in Illness
(13:04) Believing in a Reality that Transcends the Individual
(20:06) Physical Love in Marriage
On the importance of physical intimacy in long-term marriages, a reality often left out of grief memoirs.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“Grief happens because you don't stop loving the person who died. The person doesn't exist in your reality anymore. The everyday is not colored and shaped by this other human being, but you don't stop loving the person. So grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. And probably without that dynamic relationship with this person, I would be someone else. And he would've been someone else. I mean, Paul died before me. But we were, I think, hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives.”
Today, we are honored to welcome a writer whose work has long explored the intimate landscapes of the mind, memory and the heart. Siri Hustvedt’s writing moves between the personal and the philosophical, the literary and the deeply human. Her work bridges collections of essays, non-fiction, poetry, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the Gabarron Prize for Thought, her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, is a reflection on forty-three years shared with her late husband, the writer and filmmaker Paul Auster. In its pages, we encounter not only love and loss, but the quiet persistence of presence, memory, and language itself.
(0:00) Grief as Unrequited Love
Siri explores the emotional reality of living without Paul Auster, noting that grief occurs because love does not stop when a person dies.
(4:00) Facing Death with Courage
The importance of not hiding from mortality and how discussing end-of-life wishes offered a necessary perspective.
(12:37) Reading from Ghost Stories
Siri reads the opening passage of her memoir, detailing how the loss of her husband deranged her sense of time and bodily rhythms.
(18:41) The Phantom Limb: ” The beloved is taken away and it feels as if you're amputated or gutted.”
(21:50) Grandfather, Father and Son: Generational Traumas Behind Paul Auster's Writing
(24:11) How Powerful Emotions and a Person's Life Can Play a Role in Illness
(30:09) Feeding the Earth
"Paul very pointedly told me that he wanted to be buried in the Jewish mode. And the phrase he used was, “I want my body to feed the earth.”
(44:23) Physical Love in Marriage
On the importance of physical intimacy in long-term marriages, a reality often left out of grief memoirs.
(54:00) The Philosophy of the Between
How relational existence is foundational to life.
(1:00:16) The Hubris of Controlling Nature
(1:12:00) The Dark History of Statistics
(1:32:12) The Art of Learning vs. AI and Automated Outcomes
“I think we have to ask ourselves, what is education? What do we want from it? How do we want people to learn?
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
Can curiosity and empathy be taught? How can we expand our sense of solidarity through stories? In this episode, we explore the internal dialogues of artists, actors and writers to ask what it means to step into someone else's shoes.
(0:00) Novelist Jim Shepard discusses Literature as a Tool for Emotional Education and Exploring History
(2:05) Tony Award-winning Actor Neil Patrick Harris on Being Moved by Theater and its Ability to Bridge Worlds
(3:55) Novelist Katie Kitamura on How a Book is Made in Collaboration with the Reader
(5:00) Screenwriter, Playwright Laura Eason on Inhabiting the Hearts of Characters Different from Ourselves
(6:03) Academy Award-winning Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on the Art of Visual Storytelling
(6:37) Cinematographer, Director Benoit Delhomme on the Freedom of Handheld Cinematography
(7:19) Author Etgar Keret on Looking for Humanity through Shared Intention
(8:18) Viet Thanh Nguyen – Opposing Power through Expansive Solidarity
(9:27) Adam Moss – Author, Fmr. Editor New York magazine on “The Work of Art”
(10:29) John Patrick Shanley – Tony & Academy Award-winning Writer, Director on Finding Value in Ordinary Experiences and the Creative Power of Daydreaming
(11:56) Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist Nicholas Kristof on Why Individual Stories are Necessary to Generate Connection
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
"Within society, we seem to have separated the arts out, so they're not so much a part of our daily lives. Often there's something that we feel we should do as a kind of leisure activity or hobby if we have enough time or if we have enough money to engage in them. And this is so fundamentally different to how humans engaged with the arts. When we look back thousands of years, it just was part of the everyday, and I feel like that's a major loss within contemporary societies."
Daisy Fancourt is a Professor of Psychobiology & Epidemiology at UCL and the author ofArt Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health. A pioneer in the field of psychoneuroimmunology, she directs the WHO Collaborating Center on Arts and Health, where her research influences global health policy and the integration of the arts into medical care.
(0:00) The Healing Power of the Arts: Longevity, Immunity & Wellbeing
(1:17) Singing to Daphne: How Daisy used singing to comfort her premature daughter in the ICU
(2:47) The Story of Russell: How a stroke survivor used art classes to reclaim his life, health, and identity
(5:23) A Planet of 8 Billion Artists: Tracing the evolutionary origins of creativity back 40,000 years
(8:58) Psychoneuroimmunology. Defining the biological mechanisms: how art reduces inflammation and cortisol
(12:42) Art & Longevity. How arts engagement can slow biological aging and alter gene expression
(18:24) Safeguarding Creativity. Why we should use AI for routine tasks but protect the human joy of the creative process
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
Did you know that visiting a museum can lower your cortisol levels? Or that singing can bond a group faster than almost any other activity? We tend to think of the arts as entertainment, but science tells a different story. Today, we explore why creativity is hardwired into our biology and how it can be used to treat everything from postnatal depression to stroke recovery.
Daisy Fancourt is a Professor of Psychobiology & Epidemiology at UCL and the author of Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health. A pioneer in the field of psychoneuroimmunology, she directs the WHO Collaborating Center on Arts and Health, where her research influences global health policy and the integration of the arts into medical care.
(0:00) The Healing Power of the Arts: Longevity, Immunity & Wellbeing
(4:14) The Story of Russell: How a stroke survivor used art classes to reclaim his life, health, and identity
(9:01) A Planet of 8 Billion Artists: Tracing the evolutionary origins of creativity back 40,000 years
(15:30) The Chemistry of Connection. Why singing evolved before language and how it accelerates group bonding
(20:32) Psychoneuroimmunology. Defining the biological mechanisms: how art reduces inflammation and cortisol
(25:57) The Professional Paradox: Balancing the wellbeing benefits of art with the pressures of a creative career
(30:03) Predictive Coding & Play: Why the human brain needs improvisation and why we shouldn't outsource creativity to AI
(33:26) Singing to Daphne: How Daisy usedsinging to comfort her premature daughter in the ICU
(37:55) World Health Organization, Public Policy & Social Prescribing
(46:04) Art & Longevity. How arts engagement can slow biological aging and alter gene expression
(58:17) Finding Artistic Reverence in Nature
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“They're kind of like a hidden superhero in your body and we just didn't know they existed. Muse cells eat the damaged cells, and they can actually turn into new cells using the cellular machinery.”
Dr. Adeel Khan is a global thought leader in regenerative medicine. He is the CEO and Founder of and founder of Eterna Health, whose work with MUSE cell therapy—developed in collaboration with its discoverer, Professor Mari Dezawa—has made him the go-to expert for world leaders, athletes, and celebrities Chris Hemsworth, Kim Kardashian, and Tony Robbins. In this episode, we move beyond the hype of "anti-aging" to explore the hard science of Muse cells (Multilineage-differentiating Stress-Enduring cells). Dr. Khan breaks down how these unique cells differ from the "medicinal signaling cells" (MSCs) found in most clinics and how they act as a bridge to a future where tissue regeneration is standard care.
(0:00) The "Repair Guys" & The Muse Difference Dr. Khan explains why traditional stem cells (MSCs) often disappoint and how Muse cells offer the "best of both worlds": safety and pluripotency.
(2:19) Smart Cells: How They Find the Damage Understanding the "homing mechanism" that allows Muse cells to sense inflammation and instinctively travel to injured areas like the brain or heart.
(3:11) Curing the Incurable: Diabetes & Alzheimer's The potential of the "cure triad"—stem cells, gene therapy, and FMT—to treat complex autoimmune diseases within the next decade.
(4:40) Biological Noise & The Symphony of Health How "static" in our gene expression indicates aging, and how cellular therapy can reduce this noise to restore the body's harmony.
(6:40) The Viral Monkey Study Dr. Khan discusses a recent study showing significant de-aging in monkeys through high-frequency cell dosing.
(7:32) Unshakeable Foundations: Lifestyle as Medicine
Why advanced therapies must be paired with purpose, community, and mindfulness to create a "bulletproof" body.
(8:44) From Sketchy to Standardized
Navigating the regulatory landscape: why Muse cells are being classified as a drug in regions like the UAE and the path toward FDA approval.
(12:24) A Personal Mission
Dr. Khan shares the origin of his journey: trying to find solutions for his mother's chronic illness when traditional medicine failed.
(14:16) The Cancer Hunter
Unlike other pluripotent cells that risk tumor growth, Muse cells have a unique mechanism that can detect cancer cells and trigger their death.
(18:30)Future Outlook: AI, Nature & Blue Zones Reflections on the risks of AI, the importance of "Blue Zone" city design, and reconnecting with nature in a post-human world.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
"The repair mechanisms don't work as well as you get older... The whole idea was: if we can give you more of the 'repair guys,' maybe we can reverse disease."
Dr. Adeel Khan is a global thought leader in regenerative medicine. He is the CEO and Founder of and founder of Eterna Health, whose work with MUSE cell therapy—developed in collaboration with its discoverer, Professor Mari Dezawa—has made him the go-to expert for world leaders, athletes, and celebrities Chris Hemsworth, Kim Kardashian, and Tony Robbins. In this episode, we move beyond the hype of "anti-aging" to explore the hard science of Muse cells (Multilineage-differentiating Stress-Enduring cells). Dr. Khan breaks down how these unique cells differ from the "medicinal signaling cells" (MSCs) found in most clinics and how they act as a bridge to a future where tissue regeneration is standard care.
(0:00) The Future of Regenerative Medicine
(6:13) The Muse Difference: Why these cells are "pluripotent" (able to become any tissue) without the cancer risks of Yamanaka factors.
(10:29) Curing the Incurable: Diabetes & Alzheimer's
(11:27) The Cure Triad: How combining stem cells, gene therapy, and Fecal Microbial Transplants (FMT) could cure complex autoimmune diseases within a decade.
(12:56) Biological Noise: Measuring the "mistakes" in our gene expression to quantify aging.
(16:42) Lifestyle as Medicine: Why Dr. Khan prescribes community, mindfulness, and nature immersion alongside advanced therapies.
(18:13) From Sketchy to Standardized: The Regulatory Landscape
(23:25) A Personal Mission: Trying to Save Mom
(25:38) The Cancer Hunter: How Muse cells naturally detect and trigger cell death in tumors.
(29:02) Quantum Biology & Healing Frequencies
(41:13) The AI Pessimist: Planning for a Post-Human World
(44:03) Reconnecting with Nature
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
From the publisher's feed
Philosophy episodes of the popular The Creative Process podcast. We speak to philosophers, writers, educators, spiritual leaders, environmentalists, bioethicists, artists & creative thinkers in other. disciplines To listen to ALL arts & education episodes of “The Creative Process · Arts, Culture & Society”, you’ll find our main podcast on Apple: tinyurl.com/thecreativepod, Spotify: tinyurl.com/thecreativespotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Exploring the fascinating minds of creative people. Conversations with writers, artists & creative thinkers across the Arts & STEM. We discuss their life, work & artistic practice. Winners of Oscar, Emmy, Tony, Pulitzer, leaders & public figures share real experiences & offer valuable insights. Notable guests and participating museums and organizations include: Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Neil Patrick Harris, Smithsonian, Roxane Gay, Musée Picasso, EARTHDAY.ORG, Neil Gaiman, UNESCO, Joyce Carol Oates, Mark Seliger, Acropolis Museum, Hilary Mantel, Songwriters Hall of Fame, George Saunders, The New Museum, Lemony Snicket, Pritzker Architecture Prize, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine Galleries, Joe Mantegna, PETA, Greenpeace, EPA, Morgan Library & Museum, and many others.
The interviews are hosted by founder and creative educator Mia Funk with the participation of students, universities, and collaborators from around the world. These conversations are also part of our traveling exhibition. www.creativeprocess.info
For The Creative Process podcasts from Seasons 1, 2, 3 visit: tinyurl.com/creativepod or creativeprocess.info/interviews-page-1, which has our complete directory of interviews, transcripts, artworks, and details about ways to get involved.
INSTAGRAM @creativeprocesspodcast
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