POETRY - The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast

How do the works of Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin continue to influence our understanding of nature, ecological interdependence, and the human experience? How does understanding history help us address current social and environmental issues. How can dialogues between the arts and sciences foster holistic, sustainable solutions to global crises?

Renée Bergland is a literary critic, historian of science, and educator. As a storyteller, Bergland connects the lives of historical figures to the problems of the present day. As an educator, she emphasizes the interdisciplinary connections between the sciences and humanities. A longtime professor at Simmons University, where she is the Program director of Literature and writing, Bergland has also researched and taught at institutions such as Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and MIT. Bergland’s past published titles include Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer Among the American Romantics and The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects. Her most recent book, Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science, was published in April of 2024. It explores Dickinson and Darwin’s shared enchanted view of the natural world in a time when poetry and natural philosophy, once freely intertwined, began to grow apart.

Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in December 1859. In the years that followed, he would often be at the center of public debate, subjected to bitter denunciations and  passionate advocacy. At times, his allies' misguided defenses of his ideas would be as excruciating as the condemnations. Darwin would try again and again to explain that the adaptation and change at the heart of natural selection could offer consolation and inspire hope. Darwin had hoped his ideas would be important in scientific circles, but he had never dreamed that they would have such a widespread impact. Indeed, he was startled by his sudden scientific fame. As it turned out, Few aspects of life or death remain untouched by Darwin's thought. His ideas were quickly woven into the fabric of the modern world. Across the Atlantic, Emily Dickinson's response to Darwin helped her to write the poetry that speaks to us today. Emily Dickinson loved a wild experiment just as much as Darwin, who was one generation ahead of her. Darwin's remarkable ideas about the natural world would influence her thought profoundly. She did not have the same impact on Darwin as he had on her. In fact, since she published almost nothing during her lifetime, her circle of influence was very small until after her death. But being in the next generation also conferred some benefits. Able to read Darwin, consider his ideas at leisure, and record her responses for posterity, Dickinson usually got the last word. In this account, I have taken the liberty of giving her the first word, too. For me, this book started with the puzzling realization that many of Dickinson's poems seemed profoundly Darwinian. Although she never mentioned Darwin by name in her poems. She rarely mentioned anyone by name in her poetry, so this absence did not rule him out of her important influences. She did name Darwin in two letters, which confirmed that she knew about his work. Still, there was not much to go on. She returned again and again to the topics that fascinated Darwin, but was that enough to demonstrate that she was responding to his thoughts? Did Dickinson write about Darwinian ideas simply because she was his contemporary? Did her writing seem to apply to Darwin merely because she was a great poet whose writings were almost universally applicable? Both explanations are valid as far as they go, but neither goes far enough. There is a stronger connection between Dickinson and Darwin than the proximity of history. Or the universality of literature. They both understood natural science and the natural world in ways that seem strange and somewhat surprising in the 21st century. Their 19th century attitudes to nature and the study of it are so different from ours that when we trace their stories, a vanished world begins to emerge. The more I consider these figures together, the more I feel their world and my world. come alive. Darwin and Dickinson illuminate each other. By reading them together, we can start to understand the interconnected relationships that animated 19th century poetry and science.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

Many of us only think of Darwin’s work as being about survival of the fittest, and nature competing for limited resources, but you open this view up. You write about how Dickinson and Darwin refused to accept the separation of art and science. As you go through their writings, they're both talking about the awesome possibilities of the new sciences and at the same time striving to preserve the magic of nature. And today more than ever, we too need to reclaim these two discipline’s connections, and our shared sense of ecological wonder, especially as we're on the crest of the Anthropocene.

RENÉE BERGLAND

Yes, absolutely. Probably many geologists and stratigraphers would say that even Darwin and Dickinson both lived during the Anthropocene, that they lived during a time when human activity  had really started to change the planet. But I don't know that they lived during the self-conscious Anthropocene as we do now, where we're suddenly aware of it and we're like, “Oh, no, what have we done?” But they were fascinated, both of them, by human beings in the whole biosphere. 

The reason that people responded to Darwin as if he were theologically radical was because his vision of the great tree of life was not a ladder. It was not hierarchical at all. His metaphor of the tree has lots of intertwined branches and roots. There's not a single apex to a tree, and the way that Darwin described humans, they were not the top of the whole chain, the whole ladder. That was an insight that was upsetting to many people. It seemed humiliating for humans not to be the very best living creature. And that was one of the reasons that many people reacted negatively to Darwin. But for Dickinson, that idea was just liberating and exciting and fascinating, such that in many of her poems about the natural world, she blurs the human and the animal and the plant. One of the poems of Dickinson's that I think explains Darwin the best starts out, “There is a flower that bees prefer / and butterflies desire.” She's talking about the clover, and in that poem she describes the clover and the grass as kinsmen. They're related to each other, but they're contending, she says, for sod and sun. They are competing to see who can get the most soil, the most nutrients, but she calls them “sweet litigants for life.” And that interpretation of Darwinism, where they're sweet and they're struggling, but they're both actually litigants for life, they're both arguing for the biosphere and advocates—that takes us back to the first lines of the poem. “There's a flower that bees prefer / and butterflies desire.” The way that the clover and the grass compete is by trying to see who can be more beautiful, who can be more brightly colored, who can smell better, who can lure  more pollinators, more insects and birds and collaborate better with them, and have a better chance of  surviving. That is certainly a version of survival of the fittest, but it's not a dog eat dog violent version. It's a version where the way you get a generational advantage, and perhaps have more little clovers following in your footsteps, is by collaborating better, by making yourself more beautiful, more alluring, and more inviting, inviting pollinators to work with you. That's straight from Darwin. Darwin's very clear in On the Origin of Species that when he talks about the struggle for life, he's primarily talking about co-adaptation and collaboration between species that can learn to work together. He's the one who actually, as he explains the struggle for life,  says it's nothing like two dogs fighting over a bone. That's not what it is. But unfortunately, a lot of that co-adaptation language got lost in the popular imagination. And that's one of the reasons that turning to Dickinson can help us understand—because she so beautifully depicts a Darwinian world where, yes, there's death, but there's more than anything, there's life.

How can music challenge systemic oppression and bring about social change? How can we envision alternative paths while avoiding the pitfalls of past paradigms?

Jake Ferguson is an award-winning musician known for his work with The Heliocentrics and as a solo artist under the name The Brkn Record. Alongside legendary drummer Malcolm Catto, Ferguson has composed two film scores and over 10 albums, collaborating with icons like Archie Shepp, Mulatu Astatke, and Melvin Van Peebles. His latest album is The Architecture of Oppression Part 2. The album also features singer and political activist Jermain Jackman, a former winner of The Voice (2014) and the T.S. Eliot Prize winning poet and musician, Anthony Joseph.

JAKE FERGUSON

I think as humans, we forget. We are often limited by our own stereotypes, and we don't see that in everyone there's the potential for beauty and love and all these things. And I think the architecture of oppression, both parts one and two, are really a reflection of all the community and civil rights work that I've been doing for the same amount of time, really – 25 years. And I wanted to try and mix my day job and my music side, so bringing those two sides of my life together, but because I'm not a spoken word person...well, I can write a good story. I can write a good essay, but my ability to write stories or write lyrics is very limited, hence why I was so keen to get Anthony and Jermain involved.

And Jermain is somebody I've worked with for probably about six, seven years now. He's also in the trenches of the black civil rights struggle. We worked together on a number of projects, but it was very interesting to then work with Jemaine in a purely artistic capacity. And I think the bringing together those two worlds really created the album. You know, I wanted to create a platform for black artists, black singers, and poets who I really admire. And it was a no-brainer to give Anthony a call for this second album because I know of his pedigree, and he's much more able to put ideas and thoughts on paper than I would be able to.

How can music challenge systemic oppression and bring about social change? How can we envision alternative paths while avoiding the pitfalls of past paradigms?

Jake Ferguson is an award-winning musician known for his work with The Heliocentrics and as a solo artist under the name The Brkn Record. Alongside legendary drummer Malcolm Catto, Ferguson has composed two film scores and over 10 albums, collaborating with icons like Archie Shepp, Mulatu Astatke, and Melvin Van Peebles. His latest album is The Architecture of Oppression Part 2. The album also features singer and political activist Jermain Jackman, a former winner of The Voice (2014) and the T.S. Eliot Prize winning poet and musician, Anthony Joseph.

JAKE FERGUSON

I think as humans, we forget. We are often limited by our own stereotypes, and we don't see that in everyone there's the potential for beauty and love and all these things. And I think the architecture of oppression, both parts one and two, are really a reflection of all the community and civil rights work that I've been doing for the same amount of time, really – 25 years. And I wanted to try and mix my day job and my music side, so bringing those two sides of my life together, but because I'm not a spoken word person...well, I can write a good story. I can write a good essay, but my ability to write stories or write lyrics is very limited, hence why I was so keen to get Anthony and Jermain involved.

And Jermain is somebody I've worked with for probably about six, seven years now. He's also in the trenches of the black civil rights struggle. We worked together on a number of projects, but it was very interesting to then work with Jemain in a purely artistic capacity. And I think the bringing together those two worlds really created the album. You know, I wanted to create a platform for black artists, black singers, and poets who I really admire. And it was a no-brainer to give Anthony a call for this second album because I know of his pedigree, and he's much more able to put ideas and thoughts on paper than I would be able to.

What is the future of literature in the age of generative AI? How can bookstores build community and be engines for positive social change? What does it mean to try to have a meaningful human life?

Danny Caine is the author of the poetry collections Continental Breakfast, El Dorado Freddy's, Flavortown, and Picture Window, as well as the books How to Protect Bookstores and Why and How to Resist Amazon and Why. His poetry has appeared in The Slowdown, Lit Hub, Diagram, HAD, and Barrelhouse.  He's a co-owner of The Raven Bookstore, Publisher's Weekly's 2022 Bookstore of the Year.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Before we go into the different bookstore stories you recount in  How to Protect Bookstores and Why, tell us about your journey. You were a teacher before you became a bookseller at The Raven.

DANNY CAINE

I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, but moved to Lawrence, Kansas to get an MFA in poetry at the University of Kansas. And while I was working on that degree, I had the honor of getting a part time job bookselling at The Raven bookstore, which I just fell in love with as soon as I got to Lawrence. And then, once I started working at it, I fell in love with it even more, and fell in love with the bookselling industry in general. Then, as I worked towards finishing my degree, it became clear that the owner of the store was thinking about retiring, and it just felt like an undeniable opportunity for me, a chance to do something really, really cool that I had never even dreamed of. And so we worked out a way for me to take over the store. And then that was it. It was off to the races. I had planned on being a teacher for the rest of my life or a writer. I still am a writer, but I kind of fell into bookselling, and it captured my imagination and my heart as soon as I started working at the bookstore because I could see the potential for this great, amazing community-oriented work.

Of course, it's a thrill to be around books, to meet authors, to read all this stuff, and to spend all day with people who love books, but what I think I really fell in love with was the sense of community, the people behind it, and the way a bookstore can really be an engine for positive social change within its community and in a broader sense as well.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

How can we start discussing bookstores with our families and friends who default to buying books on Amazon because of convenience or pricing, and how do we talk to loved ones who might be losing hope in the practicality and future of bookstores? Particularly, how might we respond to the possible reply that I'm just one customer, so I can't influence the market anyway?

DANNY CAINE

My whole nonfiction book project started with a tweet thread. It was about how every bookseller has to be prepared to have this discussion: a customer comes in, and they're like, this book is 50 percent off on Amazon. Why should I buy it here? When this tweet thread five years ago went viral, I started to think about ways to create a resource for that discussion so people will at least have a model for talking about it, some easy source material that they can use. I first self-published a zine that I stapled and sent to bookstores for them to put on their front counters to sell for a couple bucks, as a way to help bridge that gap—booksellers are really good at having this discussion among themselves, but I was interested in if I could provide any resource that could help that discussion happen across the front counter in a way that doesn't alienate people or make them feel ashamed.

And you're right. If I withhold all my purchases from Amazon, statistically, it doesn't make a difference. They're not going to feel that pinch, because they have 170 million other customers. But, if you look at that through a positive stance, who will feel my business is the local bookstore. If I switch from buying a book a month on Amazon to a book a month at the local bookstore, that business is small enough and community-oriented enough that they absolutely will notice the difference of another regular person in their community.

So, I don't think about it quite as withholding from Amazon as much as contributing to these local community-oriented businesses. That's why the book is called "how to resist" and not "how to boycott." Because I think part of the resistance is putting your positive involvement and your money into places that are actively fighting to create the world that Amazon is trying to destroy.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

One thing I noticed about your poems is that a lot of them have this proliferation of very banal objects, like headlights, dishwashers, tennis balls, shoes, spoons, bacon, etc. There are so many of them arranged in such interesting succession and interesting syntaxes that they really "people" the space of the poem. What relationships do your poems have with objects? How do objects make their way into your poems and live in them?

CAINE

The thing that unites my poetry and the nonfiction writing is my main obsession as a writer. It's the question of, how do you live meaningfully in late capitalism? As corporations and global capitalist forces take over the world, what does it mean to try to have a meaningful human life? I think the proliferation of objects might reflect that. A lot of what we do in this world is collect objects, and regardless of whether it's good or bad, you build a nest. I think that in Picture Window in particular, I wanted to write about the domestic in a way that I hadn't written in so far. And then the pandemic happened, so I was forced into this weird, uneasy, claustrophobic domesticity. When your attention is so focused within your own home and within your own family, every object in your house takes on a new resonance. So, when a tennis ball that you've never seen somehow shows up in your house, that's weird. It's poetic. It feels dreamlike.

What is the future of literature in the age of generative AI? How can bookstores build community and be engines for positive social change? What does it mean to try to have a meaningful human life?

Danny Caine is the author of the poetry collections Continental Breakfast, El Dorado Freddy's, Flavortown, and Picture Window, as well as the books How to Protect Bookstores and Why and How to Resist Amazon and Why. His poetry has appeared in The Slowdown, Lit Hub, Diagram, HAD, and Barrelhouse.  He's a co-owner of The Raven Bookstore, Publisher's Weekly's 2022 Bookstore of the Year.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Before we go into the different bookstore stories you recount in  How to Protect Bookstores and Why, tell us about your journey. You were a teacher before you became a bookseller at The Raven.

DANNY CAINE

I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, but moved to Lawrence, Kansas to get an MFA in poetry at the University of Kansas. And while I was working on that degree, I had the honor of getting a part time job bookselling at The Raven bookstore, which I just fell in love with as soon as I got to Lawrence. And then, once I started working at it, I fell in love with it even more, and fell in love with the bookselling industry in general. Then, as I worked towards finishing my degree, it became clear that the owner of the store was thinking about retiring, and it just felt like an undeniable opportunity for me, a chance to do something really, really cool that I had never even dreamed of. And so we worked out a way for me to take over the store. And then that was it. It was off to the races. I had planned on being a teacher for the rest of my life or a writer. I still am a writer, but I kind of fell into bookselling, and it captured my imagination and my heart as soon as I started working at the bookstore because I could see the potential for this great, amazing community-oriented work.

Of course, it's a thrill to be around books, to meet authors, to read all this stuff, and to spend all day with people who love books, but what I think I really fell in love with was the sense of community, the people behind it, and the way a bookstore can really be an engine for positive social change within its community and in a broader sense as well.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

How can we start discussing bookstores with our families and friends who default to buying books on Amazon because of convenience or pricing, and how do we talk to loved ones who might be losing hope in the practicality and future of bookstores? Particularly, how might we respond to the possible reply that I'm just one customer, so I can't influence the market anyway?

DANNY CAINE

My whole nonfiction book project started with a tweet thread. It was about how every bookseller has to be prepared to have this discussion: a customer comes in, and they're like, this book is 50 percent off on Amazon. Why should I buy it here? When this tweet thread five years ago went viral, I started to think about ways to create a resource for that discussion so people will at least have a model for talking about it, some easy source material that they can use. I first self-published a zine that I stapled and sent to bookstores for them to put on their front counters to sell for a couple bucks, as a way to help bridge that gap—booksellers are really good at having this discussion among themselves, but I was interested in if I could provide any resource that could help that discussion happen across the front counter in a way that doesn't alienate people or make them feel ashamed.

And you're right. If I withhold all my purchases from Amazon, statistically, it doesn't make a difference. They're not going to feel that pinch, because they have 170 million other customers. But, if you look at that through a positive stance, who will feel my business is the local bookstore. If I switch from buying a book a month on Amazon to a book a month at the local bookstore, that business is small enough and community-oriented enough that they absolutely will notice the difference of another regular person in their community.

So, I don't think about it quite as withholding from Amazon as much as contributing to these local community-oriented businesses. That's why the book is called "how to resist" and not "how to boycott." Because I think part of the resistance is putting your positive involvement and your money into places that are actively fighting to create the world that Amazon is trying to destroy.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

One thing I noticed about your poems is that a lot of them have this proliferation of very banal objects, like headlights, dishwashers, tennis balls, shoes, spoons, bacon, etc. There are so many of them arranged in such interesting succession and interesting syntaxes that they really "people" the space of the poem. What relationships do your poems have with objects? How do objects make their way into your poems and live in them?

CAINE

The thing that unites my poetry and the nonfiction writing is my main obsession as a writer. It's the question of, how do you live meaningfully in late capitalism? As corporations and global capitalist forces take over the world, what does it mean to try to have a meaningful human life? I think the proliferation of objects might reflect that. A lot of what we do in this world is collect objects, and regardless of whether it's good or bad, you build a nest. I think that in Picture Window in particular, I wanted to write about the domestic in a way that I hadn't written in so far. And then the pandemic happened, so I was forced into this weird, uneasy, claustrophobic domesticity. When your attention is so focused within your own home and within your own family, every object in your house takes on a new resonance. So, when a tennis ball that you've never seen somehow shows up in your house, that's weird. It's poetic. It feels dreamlike.

It is said that people never die until the last person says their name. In memory of the writer and director Paul Auster, who passed away this week, we're sharing this conversation we had back in 2017 after the publication of his novel 4 3 2 1. Auster reflects on his body of work, life, and creative process.

Paul Auster was the bestselling author of Winter Journal, Sunset Park, Invisible, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. He has been awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, the Prix Médicis étranger, an Independent Spirit Award, and the Premio Napoli. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has also penned several screenplays for films such as Smoke (1995), as well as Lulu on the Bridge (1998) and The Inner Life of Martin Frost (2007), which he also directed.

We apologize for the quality of the recording since it was not originally meant to be aired as a podcast. 

PAUL AUSTER

But what happens is a space is created. And maybe it’s the only space of its kind in the world in which two absolute strangers can meet each other on terms of absolute intimacy. I think this is what is at the heart of the experience and why once you become a reader that you want to repeat that experience, that very deep total communication with that invisible stranger who has written the book that you’re holding in your hands. And that’s why I think, in spite of everything, novels are not going to stop being written, no matter what the circumstances. We need stories. We’re all human beings, and it’s stories from the moment we’re able to talk.

*

It’s shocking how little young people know about the past. I sometimes tremble when I am confronted by this absolute ignorance and, even say Americans, not knowing anything about the American past which is a new country with only about 300 years to talk about. It’s surprising. Or meeting young people, and they say “old movies”. Old movies for a young person is something like Pulp Fiction. And that for them is old. And so they ignore the whole history of movies, which again, it’s a very short history, and it’s very easy to master a great deal of film history in a short period of time if you make an effort to look at the films. But people are not looking back. They’re looking forward. So we’ll see. We’ll see what happens.

*

I like collaborating with people. I find it very enjoyable and at various times people have taken my word and used it for other works. The theatre adaptation of a novel or someone has turned one of my books I’m going to do a little opera. There have been dance pieces based on my work. There was a ballet based on one of my novels. I find that so interesting that one form can inspire someone working on another form to do something. My actual belief collaboration with people, I suppose, well, writing a few songs. I mean literally only about a handful. It’s not something I’ve made a practice of, but the few times I did do it, I enjoyed listening to the results, and the heaviest collaboration I’ve done...of course, is in movies, and that is an exhausting experience to direct film. I can tell you that it’s also a satisfying one. I loved the camaraderie of all the people on the crew, and the actors, and every stage of making a movie is fascinating. I’m glad I had the chance to do this a few times. It taught me a lot about myself and about other people and very important experiences really.

Listen, for some reason, I don’t know why the stubborn old goat has resisted the digital world. I don’t work with the computer. I don’t own a computer. I don’t have a mobile phone. I just haven’t wanted to do e-mail or any of those things. You know, I have a helper, and that’s how you communicated with me through Jen, but I don’t want to do this. And I don’t do it. If I had a job, I would have to participate in all this, but I don’t. So I have the luxury of being able to choose, and I choose not to. I think essentially this digital revolution is a mixed phenomenon it has its positive side and also its negative side. And I’m afraid more and more the negative side to be dominating. And I can tell you there’s nothing more depressing to me than to say go out to lunch in my neighborhood in Brooklyn and go to a little diner a simple little restaurants a sandwich and see a family of four people or six people at the next table grandfather, parents, children. All three generations today they’re looking at their cell phones not talking to one another. It kills me to look at this, and I think the smartphone has made people feel so huge they feel so much the center of the universe by holding that thing in your hand as if they own the universe and it theoretically it connects everybody, but I think in the end it’s separating us from one another. And so I’m worried about it. And then there’s the whole political side of this, and you know the hacking and the the the the possibility for real serious mischief. And sometimes you wonder why governments don’t we just go back to using typewriters and filing cabinets because everything is hackable and used to be a spy would get with a camera a seal one document and then put it back in the filing cabinet But now if you can push the right, you can get the entire correspondence like you know the State Department, or the Democratic Party or whatever it is your trying to do or you can hack into a company the way apparently how the North Koreans hacked into Sony. Everyone is so vulnerable now. So you can see them. And so I’m very very worried about it. I don’t know what’s going to happen. It seems as if there’s no turning back. But we have to figure out how to use this stuff, in a better way. Otherwise, you’re going to really do harm to ourselves.

Environmentalists, writers, artists, activists, and public policy makers explore the interconnectedness of living beings and ecosystems. They highlight the importance of conservation, promote climate education, advocate for sustainable development, and underscore the vital role of creative and educational communities in driving positive change. Enjoy this Special Series with music courtesy of composer Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.

World Ocean Day episode features music by Erland Cooper

Voices on Part 1:

MAX RICHTER

INGRID NEWKIRK, Founder & President of PETA- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

BERTRAND PICCARD, Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation

CARL SAFINA, Ecologist, Founding President of Safina Center

CLAIRE POTTER, Designer, Lecturer, Author of “Welcome to the Circular Economy”

ADA LIMÓN, U.S. Poet Laureate, Host of The Slowdown podcast

CYNTHIA DANIELS, Grammy and Emmy award-winning producer, engineer, composer

JOELLE GERGIS, Lead Author of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Author of “Humanity’s Moment”

KATHLEEN ROGERS, President of EARTHDAY.ORG

ODED GALOR, Author of “The Journey of Humanity”, Founder of Unified Growth Theory

SIR GEOFF MULGAN, Fmr. Chief Executive of Nesta, Fmr, Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit Director & Downing Street’s Head of Policy, Author of “Another World is Possible”

ALAIN ROBERT, Rock & Urban Climber known for Free Solo Climbing 150+ of the World’s Tallest Skyscrapers using no Climbing Equipment

NOAH WILSON-RICH, Co-founder & CEO of The Best Bees Company

CHRIS FUNK, Director of the Climate Hazards Center at UC Santa Barbara
Author of Drought, Flood, Fire: How Climate Change Contributes to Recent Catastrophes

DAVID FARRIER, Author of “Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils”

DR. SUZANNE SIMARD, Professor of Forest Ecology, Author of “Finding the Mother Tree”

PETER SINGER, “Most Influential Living Philosopher”, Author, Founder of The Life You Can Save

JENNIFER MORGAN, Fmr. Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Special Envoy for International Climate Action, German Foreign Ministry

Almond blossom, vincent van gogh

Voices on Part 2:

MANUELA LUCÁ-DAZIO - Executive Director, Pritzker Architecture Prize - Fmr. Exec. Director of Venice Biennale, Visual Arts & Architecture Dept.

BRITT WRAY - Author of “Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis”, Researcher Working on Climate Change & Mental Health, Stanford University

WALTER STAHEL - Architect, Economist, Founding Father of Circular Economy - Founder-Director, Product-Life Institute

MATHIS WACKERNAGEL - Founder & President of the Global Footprint Network - World Sustainability Award Winner

JAY FAMIGLIETTI, Fmr. Senior Water Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Exec. Director, Global Institute for Water Security, Host of "What About Water?" Podcast

RICHARD VEVERS - Founder & CEO of The Ocean Agency

ARMOND COHEN - Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force

PAULA PINHO - Director of Just Transition at the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy

MARTIN VON HILDEBRAND - Indigenous Rights Activist - Winner of Right Livelihood & Skoll Awards - Founder of Fundacion Gaia Amazonas, named #40 NGOs of the World by The Global Journal

HAROLD P. SJURSEN - Professor of Philosophy - Science, Technology, the Arts - NYU, Beihang University, East China University

BILL HARE - Founder & CEO of Climate Analytics, Physicist, Climate Scientist

SIR ANDY HAINES - Tyler Prize Award-winner for Environmental Achievement - Professor of Environmental Change & Public Health

LISA JACKSON PULVER - Deputy Vice-Chancellor of University of Sydney's Indigenous Strategy & Services

beneath the ice, mia funk

Voices on Part 3:

PAULA PINHO, Director of Just Transition at the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy

PIA MANCINI, Co-founder/CEO of Open Collective - Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation, YGL World Economic Forum

JENNIFER MORGAN, Fmr. Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Special Envoy for International Climate Action, German Foreign Ministry

WALTER STAHEL, Architect, Economist, Founding Father of Circular Economy, Founder-Director, Product-Life Institute

MERLIN SHELDRAKE, Biologist & Bestselling Author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, Winner of the Wainwright Prize 2021

RON GONEN, Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners, Former Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling & Sustainability, NYC

MANUELA LUCÁ-DAZIO, Executive Director, Pritzker Architecture Prize, Fmr. Exec. Director of Venice Biennale, Visual Arts & Architecture Dept.

NICHOLAS ROYLE, Co-author of "An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory”, Author of “Mother: A Memoir”

MARK BURGMAN, Director, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, Editor-in-Chief, Conservation Biology

MIKE DAVIS, CEO of Global Witness

JAY FAMIGLIETTI, Fmr. Senior Water Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Exec. Director, Global Institute for Water Security, Host of "What About Water?" Podcast

BRITT WRAY, Author of “Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis”, Researcher Working on Climate Change & Mental Health, Stanford University

RICHARD VEVERS, Founder & CEO of The Ocean Agency

ARMOND COHEN, Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force

BILL HARE, Founder & CEO of Climate Analytics, Physicist, Climate Scientist

DAVID PALUMBO-LIU, Activist, Professor & Author of “Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back”, Host of Speaking out of Place Podcast

IBRAHIM ALHUSSEINI, Founder & CEO of FullCycle Fund

GAIA VINCE, Science Writer, Broadcaster & Author of “Transcendence” & “Adventures in the Anthropocene”

INGRID NEWKIRK, Founder & President of PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

Saudade, Mia Funk

Voices on Part 4:

INGRID NEWKIRK, Founder & President of PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

JEFFREY D. SACHS, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Director of Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University, Economist, Author

JENNIFER MORGAN, Fmr. Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Special Envoy for International Climate Action, German Foreign Ministry

MERLIN SHELDRAKE, Biologist & Bestselling Author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, Winner of the Wainwright Prize 2021

WALTER STAHEL, Architect, Economist, Founding Father of Circular Economy, Founder-Director, Product-Life Institute

ARMOND COHEN, Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force

PIA MANCINI, Co-founder/CEO of Open Collective - Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation, YGL World Economic Forum

RON GONEN, Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners, Former Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling & Sustainability, NYC

AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL, Poet & Author of World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks and Other Astonishments

ANA CASTILLO, Award-Winning Xicana Activist, Editor, Poet, Novelist & Artist

Voices on World Environment Day Episode

BRITT WRAY
Author of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis Researcher Working on Climate Change & Mental Health, Stanford

JEFFREY SACHS
President of UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
Director of Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University

EVELINE MOL, Participating Student Barnard College

BERTRAND PICCARD, Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation

AVA CLANCY, Participating Student, Bates College

MIRA PATLA, Participating Student, Colby College

DARA DIAMOND, Participating Student, King's College London

ARIELLE DAVIS, Participating Student, Barnard College

CLAIRE POTTER, Designer, Lecturer, Author of Welcome to the Circular Economy

MEGAN HEGENBARTH, Participating Student, University of Minnesota

GRACE PHILLIPS, Participating Student, Pitzer College

BIANCA WEBER, Participating Student, Syracuse University

ELLEN EFSTATHIOU, Participating Student, Oberlin College

SURYA VIR, Participating Student, University of Wisconsin-Madison

MACIE PARKER, Participating Student, Boston University

BEILA UNGAR, Participating Student, Columbia University

CARL SAFINA, Ecologist, Founding President of Safina Center, Author of Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace

Photos courtesy of Unsplash
Photo credit: Kyle Johnson, Sebastian Unrau, Abner abiu Castillo diaz, Deepak Nautiyal

Songs of Nature - Musicians, Writers, Ecologists, Philosophers on the Mysteries of the Natural World
Excerpts of interviews from One Planet Podcast & The Creative Process

Voices on this episode are:

SY MONTGOMERY
NYTimes Bestselling Author of Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell, Secrets of the Octopus, The Hawk’s Way: Encounters with Fierce Beauty, and other books

MAX RICHTER
Award-winning Composer, Pianist & Environmentalist (The Blue Notebooks, Waltz with Bashir, Arrival, Ad Astra) His album SLEEP is the most streamed classical record of all time.

MERLIN SHELDRAKE
Biologist & Bestselling Author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, Winner of the Wainwright Prize 2021

THOMAS CROWTHER
Ecologist - Co-chair of the Board for UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration - Founder of Restor

TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE
Founder/Host of First Voices Radio - Master Musician of the Ancient Lakota Flute

ERLAND COOPER
Nature’s Songwriter - Composer of “Folded Landscapes”

RICK BASS
Environmentalist & Story Prize Award-winning Author of “Why I Came West”, “For a Little While” - Fmr. Geologist - Organizer of Climate Aid: The Voice of the Forest

PETER SINGER
“Most Influential Living Philosopher” - Author, Founder of The Life You Can Save

KATHLEEN ROGERS - President of EarthDay.ORG - Planet vs. Plastics Campaign 2024

artworks by mia funk

Artworks by Mia Funk

GIULIO BOCCALETTI
Author of Water, A Biography
Natural Resource Security & Environmental Sustainability Expert
Chief Strategy Officer 2016–2020, The Nature Conservancy

PAULA PINHO
Director of Just Transition at the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy

RON GONEN
Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners
Fmr. Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling & Sustainability, NYC

MARCIA DESANCTIS
Journalist, Essayist,
Author of A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life

JEAN WEINER
Goldman Environmental Prize Winner
Founder of Fondation pour la Protection de la Biodiversité Marine, Haiti

DERRICK EMSLEY
Co-founder & CEO of veritree - Data-driven Restorative Platform & tentree Apparel Co.

DR. FARHANA SULTANA
Co-author: Water Politics: Governance, Justice & the Right to Water
Fmr. UNDP Programme Officer, United Nations Development Programme

NEIL GRIMMER
Brand President of SOURCE Global · Innovator of the SOURCE Hydropanel: Drinking Water Made from Sunlight and Air

ALAN JACOBSEN
Director of Photography
Emmy & Sundance Special Jury Award-Winning & Oscar Nominated Documentaries

RICHARD VEVERS
Founder & CEO of The Ocean Agency

BRIAN WILCOX
Chief Engineer & Co-founder of Marine BioEnergy
Grows Kelp in the Ocean to Provide Carbon-neutral Fuels

SETH M. SIEGEL
Entrepreneur, Public Speaker & NYTimes Bestselling Author
Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World
Troubled Water: What's Wrong with What We Drink

JOELLE GERGIS
Lead Author of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Author of Humanity’s Moment

JAY FAMIGLIETTI, Fmr. Senior Water Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Exec. Director, Global Institute for Water Security, Host of "What About Water?" Podcast

ROB BILOTT
Environmental Lawyer, Partner Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP
Author of Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont

JILL HEINERTH
Explorer, Presenter, Author of Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver

OSPREY ORIELLE LAKE
Founder & Executive Director of the Women's Earth & Climate Action Network International
Author of Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature & Artist

JESS WILBER
International Outreach Citizens’ Climate Lobby
Coordinator, Senior Stewards Acting for the Environment

BERTRAND PICCARD
Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation

IBRAHIM ALHUSSEINI
Founder & CEO of FullCycle Fund

GARY GRIGGS
Global Oceans Hero Award-Winner · Distinguished Professor of Earth Sciences
Director Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz 1991 to 2017

Sample Credits:

BBC News Excerpt, Public broadcast, 19th July. Fair usage, courtesy Simon Gurney, BBC Studios Limited.

BBC News Excerpt, Public broadcast, 19th July. Fair usage, courtesy Simon Gurney, BBC Studios Limited.

UN Broadcast Excerpt, Greta Thunberg, Young Climate Activist at the Opening of the Climate Action Summit 2019, United Nations license 24 October 2022.

CBS News Excerpt 1970. Fair usage, archive courtesy Leah Hodge, CBS

Voices of the Earth: Reflections on Nature, Humanity & Climate Change

00:00 "The Conditional" by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón

01:27 The Secret Language of Animals: Ingrid Newkirk, President of PETA

03:03 A Love Letter to the Living World: Carl Safina, Ecologist & Author

04:11 Exploring the Mysteries of Soil and Coral Reefs: Merlin Sheldrake, Biologist, Author of Entangled Life

04:47 Exploring Coral Reefs: Richard Vevers, Founder of The Ocean Agency

05:56 The Importance of Climate Education: Kathleen Rogers, President of EarthDay.org

07:02 The Timeless Wisdom of Turtles: Sy Montomery, Naturalist & Author

07:38 Optimism in the Face of Environmental Challenges: Richard Vevers

08:32 Urban Solutions for a Sustainable Future: Paula Pinho, Director, Just Transition, Consumers, Energy Efficiency & Innovation, European Commission

08:57 The Circular Economy: Walter Stahel, Founder & Director of the Product-Life Institute

09:39 The Power of Speaking Out for Sustainability: Paula Pinho

10:16 Empowering the Next Generation Through Education: Jeffrey Sachs, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network

This episode was created by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).

What is the true meaning of the pursuit of happiness? What can we learn from the Founding Fathers about achieving harmony, balance, tranquility, self-mastery, and pursuing the public good?

Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; on NPR; in The New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor; and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. His latest book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.

JEFFREY ROSEN

That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

Can you describe the overall organizing principle of The Pursuit of Happiness, the 12 virtues, and how you went about selecting the Founding Fathers that you chose to write about?

ROSEN

I was moved to organize the book according to 12 virtues by noting the incredible synchronicity that both Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson made lists of 12 or 13 virtues for achieving happiness. And I knew about Franklin's famous system for achieving moral perfection, which he writes about in his autobiography, where he made a list of virtues for self-mastery. But I was just struck by the coincidence of seeing on the wall of The Boar's Head Inn in Charlottesville, Virginia, on the UVA campus, a list of 12 virtues that Jefferson had drafted for his daughters. And they were almost identical to Franklin's. And then, of course, I wanted to tell the stories through people because that's the best way to relate to and attempt to practice self-mastery and see how people achieved it in their own lives. Then, I chose different founders to associate with different virtues. You could have chosen a different organization there, but it seemed like a good way of telling the stories through their life's journeys.

The Importance of Deep Reading

The habits of deep reading are themselves the most tangible expression of the virtues. In that sense, the virtue of industry is the one that I still take with me. So many of the Founders did, too. They fell short of so many virtues, as we all do every day. But it was the habits of deep reading and writing, keeping up a consistent daily schedule, and setting aside time for deep reading and writing that they maintained until the end of their lives.

And that's the most tangible way in which the project changed my life. The pandemic is over, but each morning, I'm still setting aside time for deep reading and writing and creative work as well, where I'm not allowed to look at screens or to browse or do all the things that I'm tempted to do, of course, every, every minute. And that habit of industry is something that I'm really grateful for. 

Writing Sonnets for Personal Transformation and Reflection

Being moved to write the sonnets was an unexpected gift that I was given. I certainly didn't expect that unusual practice, but I found myself moved to sum up the wisdom in concise and distilled form just by taking notes on the daily reading that I'd done each morning after watching the sunrise. And I was surprised to learn after starting the project that many people who read this wisdom during the Founding Era were also moved to write sonnets, including Phillis Wheatley, the great poet, Mercy Otis Warren, Alexander Hamilton, and John Quincy Adams, who would read the Tusculan Disputations in the original and read Cicero in the original in the White House for consolation, write sonnets, and watch the sunrise and walk along the Potomac. That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

Despite being aware of these virtues, the Founding Fathers, when faced with issues of slavery and abolition, couldn't find it within themselves to have that level of self-mastery.

ROSEN

Slavery is the most glaring, notorious, and important hypocrisy to discuss. How was it possible that these Founders, all of whom acknowledge that slavery violated natural rights and natural justice, themselves owned slaves? And it was striking to discover that they didn't even try. That Patrick Henry quote is so significant. He said: is it not amazing that I myself who believe that slavery is immoral, myself own slaves? I will not justify it. I won't attempt to. It's simple avarice or greed. I can't do with the inconvenience of living without them.

And that idea that these men who insisted that virtues like industry and frugality were so important and that avarice or ambition were such sins themselves just couldn't be bothered to give up the lifestyle, that it was indeed their addiction to the ease that enslavement made possible that led to this hypocrisy.

Practicing the Classical Virtues

When I tried to practice the Franklin 13 virtues, which I did a couple of years ago at the recommendation of a rabbi who suggested the Hebrew version. A Hasidic rabbi in the 19th century had translated Franklin's virtues into Hebrew. And a friend and I tried to practice them without actually knowing that they came from Franklin. I found that separating them or disaggregating them, as Franklin recommends, focusing on temperance one week, for example, and industry another, is less successful than thinking of them holistically. Really practicing the virtues, it's more of a vibe, if I can use that word, than a checklist. And in that sense, it's a feeling of alignment, harmony, balance, tranquility, self-mastery that you achieve once you've internalized the wisdom.

Personal Self-government and Political Self-government

The Founders thought it was imperative that people seek out information, listen to arguments of different perspectives, and deliberate with their fellow citizens before making up their own minds. That crucial right is also a duty to think as you will and speak as you think.

Challenges of Modern Media to Democracy

The idea of being moved by opinion rather than fact and expressing allegiance to an ideology rather than being open-minded to evidence is the definition of a faction. A faction is any group, either a majority or a minority, animated by passion rather than reason, devoted to self-interest rather than a public good. And that's exactly what the algorithmic rabbit holes and filter bubbles and echo chambers encourage. And it's a serious threat. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

It’s interesting to hear you write about that note of beauty and harmony, which seems to be lost in political discourse these days. We’re so in conflict that the idea of being like artists all working together for a collective vision seems to be lost.

ROSEN

I love Leonard Bernstein's excitement in talking about how he says, for Beethoven, was he the best harmonist? No. Was it his orchestral abilities? Absolutely not. It was just that each note that he chose was exactly the right note to follow the note that proceeded it as if he had "a private telephone wire to Heaven" and that he was channeling the note that created and mirrored the divine harmonies of the universe.

And it was so striking to see John Adams compare the harmonies of a great piece by Handel to the harmonies of the State. And harmony is truth, which is reason, which is the Divine, according to the classical authority. And we have not only a right, but a duty to live according to reason in order to align ourselves with the divine harmonies of the universe.

And that's why seeking that kind of harmony through art and nature is as important, more important than trying to achieve harmony through politics. And that's why the quest for individual and collective self-mastery is really a search for harmony. 

*

Well, it's important that although you can disaggregate the virtues, they're really clusters of the same quest that they're all glosses on the four classical virtues of temperance, prudence, courage, and justice. And they're all attempts to achieve self-mastery, and in that sense, tranquility, moderation, these are different ways of expressing the ideas of prudence and temperance. It's striking that Adam Smith translated the Roman word temperance with virtue as a kind of tranquility of the soul.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

What are your reflections about the beauty and wonder of the natural world and how does that inspire you as you plant trees for the next century?

ROSEN

There's no more beautiful experience in the world than watching the sunrise and the daily practice of waking up to watch the sunrise and being full of wonder at the extraordinary beauty that awaits us each day. Recapitulating each morning the harmony of Creation, it's incredibly exciting. And then, I just developed these practices of trying to do something creative along with the sunrise. During COVID, it was writing sonnets. Before that I'd been writing other kinds of poems. Recently, I've started writing songs, and there's just something about the golden hour of the sunrise that waits for us each day and, whatever else is going on in the world or in our lives, allows us to recommit to and experience once more the glorious beauty and harmony of the universe. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

Given the way that you designate time away from technology for creative pursuits or the kinds of activities that strengthen self-mastery, to what extent do you believe that owning our attention makes us autonomous?

ROSEN

There's no more empowering act for me than simply turning the devices off. The simple rule that I'm not allowed to browse in the morning until I've done my reading has opened up worlds. So much of tech and the net are designed to capture our attentions, to turn us into consumers rather than citizens, to fan our base passions and emotions, and to send us down rabbit holes. That the best thing we can do is to turn it off.

"The pictures in our minds", I guess that was Walter Lippmann, are confirmed by the enlightenment empiricists like John Locke, who insists that our reality is shaped by our external sensations and what we put into our minds. And then, of course, we are what we think. Life shaped by the mind, as The Dhammapada states. And then, the great injunction that my dad used to quote from Paracelsus, "As we imagine ourselves to be, so shall we be." So it's so important to exercise autonomous self-control over the pictures and images that we put into our minds. And the best thing we can do is to turn them off.  

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

Who have been the important teachers in your life?

ROSEN

I'm so grateful to these great teachers every day. They are with me every day. My father, the great hypnotherapist guru, who died at 95, just as I was finishing the book, was with me at every stage and his empowering message helped me see the connections between the hypnotherapy that he practiced and the great wisdom traditions. And then in college, I just had the extraordinary privilege of studying with great humanists in history and literature. Walter Jackson Bate, who wrote the towering biography of Samuel Johnson and taught the age of Johnson, insisted that the humanities could be put to use and could teach us how to live. And, through his love of poetry and prose of the 18th century, both taught me how to write and hear the music and language and also inspired in me this urgent belief in the necessity of the humanities to teach us how to live.

These interview highlights have been edited for clarity and concision.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and and Virginia Moscetti with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sophie Garnier and and Virginia Moscetti. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Katie Foster.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What is the true meaning of the pursuit of happiness? What can we learn from the Founding Fathers about achieving harmony, balance, tranquility, self-mastery, and pursuing the public good?

Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; on NPR; in The New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor; and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. His latest book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.

JEFFREY ROSEN

That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

Can you describe the overall organizing principle of The Pursuit of Happiness, the 12 virtues, and how you went about selecting the Founding Fathers that you chose to write about?

ROSEN

I was moved to organize the book according to 12 virtues by noting the incredible synchronicity that both Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson made lists of 12 or 13 virtues for achieving happiness. And I knew about Franklin's famous system for achieving moral perfection, which he writes about in his autobiography, where he made a list of virtues for self-mastery. But I was just struck by the coincidence of seeing on the wall of The Boar's Head Inn in Charlottesville, Virginia, on the UVA campus, a list of 12 virtues that Jefferson had drafted for his daughters. And they were almost identical to Franklin's. And then, of course, I wanted to tell the stories through people because that's the best way to relate to and attempt to practice self-mastery and see how people achieved it in their own lives. Then, I chose different founders to associate with different virtues. You could have chosen a different organization there, but it seemed like a good way of telling the stories through their life's journeys.

The Importance of Deep Reading

The habits of deep reading are themselves the most tangible expression of the virtues. In that sense, the virtue of industry is the one that I still take with me. So many of the Founders did, too. They fell short of so many virtues, as we all do every day. But it was the habits of deep reading and writing, keeping up a consistent daily schedule, and setting aside time for deep reading and writing that they maintained until the end of their lives.

And that's the most tangible way in which the project changed my life. The pandemic is over, but each morning, I'm still setting aside time for deep reading and writing and creative work as well, where I'm not allowed to look at screens or to browse or do all the things that I'm tempted to do, of course, every, every minute. And that habit of industry is something that I'm really grateful for. 

Writing Sonnets for Personal Transformation and Reflection

Being moved to write the sonnets was an unexpected gift that I was given. I certainly didn't expect that unusual practice, but I found myself moved to sum up the wisdom in concise and distilled form just by taking notes on the daily reading that I'd done each morning after watching the sunrise. And I was surprised to learn after starting the project that many people who read this wisdom during the Founding Era were also moved to write sonnets, including Phillis Wheatley, the great poet, Mercy Otis Warren, Alexander Hamilton, and John Quincy Adams, who would read the Tusculan Disputations in the original and read Cicero in the original in the White House for consolation, write sonnets, and watch the sunrise and walk along the Potomac. That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

Despite being aware of these virtues, the Founding Fathers, when faced with issues of slavery and abolition, couldn't find it within themselves to have that level of self-mastery.

ROSEN

Slavery is the most glaring, notorious, and important hypocrisy to discuss. How was it possible that these Founders, all of whom acknowledge that slavery violated natural rights and natural justice, themselves owned slaves? And it was striking to discover that they didn't even try. That Patrick Henry quote is so significant. He said: is it not amazing that I myself who believe that slavery is immoral, myself own slaves? I will not justify it. I won't attempt to. It's simple avarice or greed. I can't do with the inconvenience of living without them.

And that idea that these men who insisted that virtues like industry and frugality were so important and that avarice or ambition were such sins themselves just couldn't be bothered to give up the lifestyle, that it was indeed their addiction to the ease that enslavement made possible that led to this hypocrisy.

Practicing the Classical Virtues

When I tried to practice the Franklin 13 virtues, which I did a couple of years ago at the recommendation of a rabbi who suggested the Hebrew version. A Hasidic rabbi in the 19th century had translated Franklin's virtues into Hebrew. And a friend and I tried to practice them without actually knowing that they came from Franklin. I found that separating them or disaggregating them, as Franklin recommends, focusing on temperance one week, for example, and industry another, is less successful than thinking of them holistically. Really practicing the virtues, it's more of a vibe, if I can use that word, than a checklist. And in that sense, it's a feeling of alignment, harmony, balance, tranquility, self-mastery that you achieve once you've internalized the wisdom.

Personal Self-government and Political Self-government

The Founders thought it was imperative that people seek out information, listen to arguments of different perspectives, and deliberate with their fellow citizens before making up their own minds. That crucial right is also a duty to think as you will and speak as you think.

Challenges of Modern Media to Democracy

The idea of being moved by opinion rather than fact and expressing allegiance to an ideology rather than being open-minded to evidence is the definition of a faction. A faction is any group, either a majority or a minority, animated by passion rather than reason, devoted to self-interest rather than a public good. And that's exactly what the algorithmic rabbit holes and filter bubbles and echo chambers encourage. And it's a serious threat. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

It’s interesting to hear you write about that note of beauty and harmony, which seems to be lost in political discourse these days. We’re so in conflict that the idea of being like artists all working together for a collective vision seems to be lost.

ROSEN

I love Leonard Bernstein's excitement in talking about how he says, for Beethoven, was he the best harmonist? No. Was it his orchestral abilities? Absolutely not. It was just that each note that he chose was exactly the right note to follow the note that proceeded it as if he had "a private telephone wire to Heaven" and that he was channeling the note that created and mirrored the divine harmonies of the universe.

And it was so striking to see John Adams compare the harmonies of a great piece by Handel to the harmonies of the State. And harmony is truth, which is reason, which is the Divine, according to the classical authority. And we have not only a right, but a duty to live according to reason in order to align ourselves with the divine harmonies of the universe.

And that's why seeking that kind of harmony through art and nature is as important, more important than trying to achieve harmony through politics. And that's why the quest for individual and collective self-mastery is really a search for harmony. 

*

Well, it's important that although you can disaggregate the virtues, they're really clusters of the same quest that they're all glosses on the four classical virtues of temperance, prudence, courage, and justice. And they're all attempts to achieve self-mastery, and in that sense, tranquility, moderation, these are different ways of expressing the ideas of prudence and temperance. It's striking that Adam Smith translated the Roman word temperance with virtue as a kind of tranquility of the soul.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

What are your reflections about the beauty and wonder of the natural world and how does that inspire you as you plant trees for the next century?

ROSEN

There's no more beautiful experience in the world than watching the sunrise and the daily practice of waking up to watch the sunrise and being full of wonder at the extraordinary beauty that awaits us each day. Recapitulating each morning the harmony of Creation, it's incredibly exciting. And then, I just developed these practices of trying to do something creative along with the sunrise. During COVID, it was writing sonnets. Before that I'd been writing other kinds of poems. Recently, I've started writing songs, and there's just something about the golden hour of the sunrise that waits for us each day and, whatever else is going on in the world or in our lives, allows us to recommit to and experience once more the glorious beauty and harmony of the universe. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

Given the way that you designate time away from technology for creative pursuits or the kinds of activities that strengthen self-mastery, to what extent do you believe that owning our attention makes us autonomous?

ROSEN

There's no more empowering act for me than simply turning the devices off. The simple rule that I'm not allowed to browse in the morning until I've done my reading has opened up worlds. So much of tech and the net are designed to capture our attentions, to turn us into consumers rather than citizens, to fan our base passions and emotions, and to send us down rabbit holes. That the best thing we can do is to turn it off.

"The pictures in our minds", I guess that was Walter Lippmann, are confirmed by the enlightenment empiricists like John Locke, who insists that our reality is shaped by our external sensations and what we put into our minds. And then, of course, we are what we think. Life shaped by the mind, as The Dhammapada states. And then, the great injunction that my dad used to quote from Paracelsus, "As we imagine ourselves to be, so shall we be." So it's so important to exercise autonomous self-control over the pictures and images that we put into our minds. And the best thing we can do is to turn them off.  

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

Who have been the important teachers in your life?

ROSEN

I'm so grateful to these great teachers every day. They are with me every day. My father, the great hypnotherapist guru, who died at 95, just as I was finishing the book, was with me at every stage and his empowering message helped me see the connections between the hypnotherapy that he practiced and the great wisdom traditions. And then in college, I just had the extraordinary privilege of studying with great humanists in history and literature. Walter Jackson Bate, who wrote the towering biography of Samuel Johnson and taught the age of Johnson, insisted that the humanities could be put to use and could teach us how to live. And, through his love of poetry and prose of the 18th century, both taught me how to write and hear the music and language and also inspired in me this urgent belief in the necessity of the humanities to teach us how to live.

These interview highlights have been edited for clarity and concision.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and and Virginia Moscetti with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sophie Garnier and and Virginia Moscetti. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Katie Foster.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

How can we create positive change? What does it mean to have an ecological mind? How can interdisciplinary collaborations help us move beyond educational silos and create sustainable futures?

Paola Spinozzi is Professor of English Literature at the University of Ferrara and currently serves as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Internationalisation. She is the coordinator of the PhD Programme in Environmental Sustainability and Wellbeing and the co-coordinator of Routes towards Sustainability. Her research encompasses the ecological humanities and ecocriticism, utopia and sustainability; literature and the visual arts; literature and science; cultural memory. She has co-edited Cultures of Sustainability and Wellbeing: Theories, Histories and Policies and published on post/apocalyptic and climate fiction, nature poetry, eco-theatre; art and aesthetics, imperialism and evolutionism in utopia as a genre; the writing of science; interart creativity.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

You were a lead organizer of the conference of the European Consortium for Humanities Institutes and Centres European (ECHIC) with Silvana Colella. Tell us a little bit about the purpose of the conference and the importance of the humanities.

PAOLA SPINOZZI

So, to be able to develop an ecological mind, one must be ecological minded and really understand what it means to be interdependent and interconnected. So that brings together every kind of species we can think of, and we need to filter this way of thinking because when we are in a natural environment, we feel energized and uplifted. But how long does it last? And what do we do with it? To me, ecological mindedness, the topic of ECHIC (European Consortium for Humanities Institutes and Centres) is exactly this: being committed, developing a commitment towards the environment and towards well-being. It's only when we are really interdependent that we can thrive. And this was the core of this conference from various perspectives in an attempt to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue.

The Importance of Interdisciplinary Collaboration

The humanities are all about representing the world, while the sciences are all about knowing the world. But I believe the roles are deeply intertwined, and that literature, the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts are all ways of knowing the world. They do exactly the same thing in our understanding of the world. And it is really important to try to put these things together to bring people closer in talking to each other. 

The Humanities and Sustainability

I started as a scholar of English literature in particular. And then I realized I didn't like boundaries. I've always tried to explore other domains and areas of knowledge. So I moved on to the relationship between literature and science because what has always fascinated me is how science is written, circulated, and understood and how science is popularized and narrativized.

The Role of Utopian Studies in Sustainability led me straight to sustainability and to envision possible future societies. For example, the sciences and the humanities coexist and thrive on and sustain each other. And if you think about the best or the worst possible futures, then after a while, you come to think about whether futures may be sustainable or not. More importantly, we should try to envision ways of living in the future that may be acceptable and, above all, enjoyable for everyone.

I want to quote a poem because it's not only a poem. It's a poem rethought by and revisited by a conceptual artist. It's called "All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace". So this originally is a 1967 poem by an American author Richard Brautigan, but then in 2021, it became a video by Turkish artist Memo Akten. This video brings together an amazing array of images in which you see different natural environments and artificial intelligence. Gradually, they come to blend, and then they melt, and then they become one.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

–Richard Brautigan

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Virginia Moscetti and Sam Myers. One Planet Podcast & The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Katie Foster.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Listen on  Spotify   Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.