How should we live in this world when so much is changed? Katherine May, author of Wintering and the Electricity of Every Living Thing, asks those most intimate with the effects of these transformations: what now?
How do we stay soft in a world determined to harden? How can we bear witness to suffering without being dragged into despair? How do we ride the waves of our anger, sorrow and exhaustion, and still find space for wonder, hope and joy? How can we possibly help?
In a series of frank, thoughtful and deeply personal conversations, How We Live Now will explore the cultural, social and spiritual mindset for this long moment.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How should we live in this world when so much is changed? Katherine May, author of Wintering and the Electricity of Every Living Thing, asks those most intimate with the effects of these transformations: what now?
How do we stay soft in a world determined to harden? How can we bear witness to suffering without being dragged into despair? How do we ride the waves of our anger, sorrow and exhaustion, and still find space for wonder, hope and joy? How can we possibly help?
In a series of frank, thoughtful and deeply personal conversations, How We Live Now will explore the cultural, social and spiritual mindset for this long moment.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Pico Iyer’s latest book, The Half Known Life, looks at the ways in which we seek paradise on earth, sometimes in places that are fraught with risk. In this episode, he and Katherine talk about the similarities in their work, particularly the ways in which they explore secular understandings of big spiritual questions, and they touch on the differences, too. Where Katherine is drawn to the local and the known, Pico quests after the insights that come to travellers and strangers. They are two different ways of looking at the same question: that of how to live a good and peaceful life, via the practice of enchantment.
Pico can truly be called a veteran travel writer, having published his first book in 1984, and gone on to publish fourteen more, on subjects ranging from the Dalai Lama to globalism, from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism. They include such long-running sellers as Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul, The Open Road and The Art of Stillness. His writing regularly features in Time, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and the Financial Times among many others, and his four talks for TED have received more than 10 million views so far.
Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK
Links from the episode:
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.