Episodes

  • 07 - DARCIA NARVAEZ, PHD - WHY PARENTS SHOULD START PILLOW FIGHTS

    07 - DARCIA NARVAEZ, PHD - WHY PARENTS SHOULD START PILLOW FIGHTS
    Nov 30 2022
    Parenting in tune with our ancestry Darcia Narvaez, PhD is a professor emerita at Notre Dame, author, and expert in morality, parenting, and neurobiology. Darcia looks to our ancestral roots as Hunter-Gatherers to inform her worldview and her approach to parenting--incorporating essential human qualities like play, cooperation, and sharing. Her work on the "Evolved Nest" can be found at Psychology Today and evolvednest.org Find her academic work on her homepage. Check out her books Neurobiology the Development of Human Morality and Restoring the Kinship Worldview (with Wahinkpe Topa) Watch the Breaking the Cycle Video (youtube) kindredmedia.org Complete topics include: James shares how he encountered Darcia’s work when his firstborn son was 6 months oldWhy Darcia hears from a lot of first-time DadsThe Evolved Nest--a set of human and animal practices with a 75 million years heritageThe 9 components of the Evolved Nest, all supported by neuroscienceThe magic of soothing perinatal experiencesthe adaptive power of breastmilk to feed a babies changing needsWhy we tend to ween our children too earlyDarcia teases her new book “The Evolved Nest: Nature’s way of raising children”how the nest “evolved” and why every species nest is a little differenthow in the last 10 000 years (or in the 1%) of our existence our development course changedThe importance of a warm social climate in Small Band Hunter Gatherers (SBHG)How Mayan’s get their teenagers to take out the trash: let them start helping at 124/7 presence of caregivers in SBHGwhy negative touch is avoided in SBHGJames Prescott study of carrying and breastfeed leading to peaceable societiesWhy the nest is for everyone throughout life, not just for babies or childrena space of play, care, nurturing, and touchimportance of self-directed play and the fostering of cooperative social skills and executive skills Why SBHG never let babies cry -The evolved nest is immersed in nature The Sun Bushman and the regularity of healing practices—scheduled weekly or as often needed Healing practices are how we rebalance and remain connected to the natural worldWhy grandparents can be more in tuned to young children then parentsWhat Rousseau got wrong: no one starts alone—it’s dyadic: mother and childHow parents’ and even grandparents’ stress can be passed on to a childHow can a emotionally disregulated populace raise emotionally regulated offspring?Brain-Based Parenting (book) (link) Playful parenting (book) (link)When parents feel upset or stressed, try to switch into a playful mode as it shifts brain systemsWhy parents should start pillow fights—play is the best thing for disregulation James shares a story about how his son guided him through “big emotions”Hawaiian idea of the spirit as a bowl of light, where unhealed wounds and trauma are like strips of velcro blocking the light examples of indigenous healing practicesRichard Katz - Boiling Energy (book) (link)healing practices as a release—getting back in tune with the greater powershow to integrate healing practices into a modern family setting importance of unstructured outdoor play and wrestling Roughhouse parenting (link book): importance of wrestling for brain development how folk song games develop the right brain and vagus nerve The challenges of creating an evolved nest in modern society, especially contemporary USAWhy parents might need to “want less” to establish an evolved nesthow to create a village feel when you don’t have extended family in townwhy Darcia think the US is “the worst place to raise a child right now”In our ancestral heritage, children were the centre of life—their needs are crucial to ancestral and primal societies, as well as other mammals like BonobosIn traditional societies, a baby’s needs are anticipated, whereas in the west a baby is expected to cry outHow British imperialism spread a culture of competition and scarcity Why abundance, not scarcity, is our ancestral heritage Why Darcia thinks we are on a “trauma inducing pathway” watch Darcia’s 6 min video at Breakingthecycle.org How Darcia stays grounded while facing these immense problems: return to naturehow are we are a intrinsically connected, cooperative organism at biological and microbial levelJames shares a story about growing to enjoy co-sleeping with his childrenWhat thriving looks like in a hunter-gatherer society: a list of traitsAncestral thriving traits provide a guide for Maslow’s process of self-actualizationAncient practices are about honouring our genetic heritageWhy greatness is about being fully human, recognizing our connection within the web of life with creativity, gratitude, and presenceHow the critical, conscious left brain gets us off trackWhat is our niche as humans? Honouring and respecting the natural worldBraiding Sweetgrass (book) (link)The “reverbatory” power of our thoughts, words, and actionsWhat to do if you weren’t properly nested ...
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    54 mins
  • 06 - DR CHARLES RAISON - DEPRESSION AS SURVIVAL

    06 - DR CHARLES RAISON - DEPRESSION AS SURVIVAL
    Nov 18 2022
    DEPRESSION AS EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATION

    Dr Charles Raison is a professor. psychiatrist, and world-renowned expert in depression. His groundbreaking work explores depression from an evolutionary perspective, and argues that the inflammatory response characteristic of depression may have in fact ensured our survival.

    This wide range conversation covers depression, Raison's theory of PATHOS-D, the relationship between autoimmune conditions like allergies and arthritis with depression, and so much more.

    Find out more about Charles' work at Emory Spiritual Health

    TOPICS INCLUDE:

    • Why depression is no longer considered a “broken brain” in the scientific community
    • Why depression is thought of as a syndrome, rather than as a disease—more like a “cloud” or a “cluster” in response to adversity
    • Why do humans, worldwide and across history, share this constellation of immunological reactions in response to stress and adversity? What function could it serve evolutionarily?
    • What purpose could depression serve?
    • How the search for a depression gene has been unproductive: can’t reduce it to a single gene
    • Depression is part of genetic makeup
    • Why would depression hide itself from the person experiencing it?
    • How the “fear of wounding” and infection risk explains the inflammatory response of depression
    • Stress as a “early warning system for wounding,” which may result in infection
    • Evolutionary, stress-activated inflammation proved to be advantageous for survival, which explains why depression may have been selected for
    • Pathos-D helps explain why psychological stress creates a inflammatory response in humans and other animals-
    • James suggests evolutionary underpinnings to why “chicks dig scars”
    • Is depression a calling out for help?
    • Charles’s theory that depression evolved to manage relationships with other humans and the microbial world
    • Why Charles is surprised people like to visit zoos
    • depression as a warning sign that you are failing at your chance of reproduction or survival
    • How unquestionable “must-have” desires are proximally linked to evolutionary survival or reproductive needs
    • Rather than a disease, depression evolved out of sickness
    • Increased core temperature and inhibited sweat-response in depression and why that can’t serve as a diagnostic test for depression
    • Why depression is like an environmental trigger activated by adversity depending on genetic risk factors—kind of like an allergy
    • Depression as reminiscent of an allergy, albeit operating via different systems
    • Depression, Allergies, and high-inflammation subtypes
    • How metaphors are sometimes instantiated in science
    • Why autoimmune disorders of all kinds are on the rise: an impaired relationship with the microbial world
    • Graham Rook “The old friends theory” (link)
    • Why the immune is more like a diplomacy service than an attack squad—it’s about learning what NOT to attack
    • Anti-inflammatory properties of Microbactorium Baci and cancer treatment, research Chris Lowry and others (link)
    • Why bugs were our ancient teachers
    • What if allergies were an evolutionary response as well?
    • How hyperactive immune responses were helpful in the bubonic plague—why survival is best served by a range of genetic variance in a population
    • How might something like hay fever serve an evolutionary purpose?
    • How our response to adversity shapes our perspective and healing.
    • Why environmental interventions offer the best opportunities for treating “regular ol’ depression”
    • Use changes in environment to signal wellbeing to the individual
    • sauna as a treatment for depression
    • The search for treatment that doesn’t involve the constant external stimulus of medication
    • Why depression is a catch-22 in modern times—would it be crazy
    • Psychedelics as a mode of restoring environmental connection
    • Charles reflects on his English Lit studies and how discovering Freud led him to psychiatry
    • How Charles read Siddartha at the perfect time in his adolescence
    • analysis as a double-edge sword for the depressed
    • Why Freud’s efforts to understand how our minds and world works constitute greatness for Charles
    • Charles’ page Emory dept of spiritual health

    FIND OUT MORE AT GREATLIFEWORK.COM
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    Less than 1 minute
  • 05 - MARC LEWIS, PHD - ADDICTION AS LEARNING

    05 - MARC LEWIS, PHD - ADDICTION AS LEARNING
    Nov 10 2022

    Marc Lewis is a professor, neuroscientist, author, and psychiatrist whose own personal struggle with opiate addiction continues to inform his groundbreaking work in the field.

    In this wide-ranging discussion, Marc explains how addiction isn't actually a disease, but rather a highly motivated form learning--and how this understanding accounts for the ways in which people ultimately overcome addiction: often spontaneously and without external treatment.

    To find out more about Marc's work, check out his website or buy one of his books (I highly recommend them!)

    Other Topics include:

    • Why Marc Lewis believes the “disease model” of addiction should be challenged
    • Why the brain changes in addiction resembles the brain changes in other issues, like binge eating, porn, and internet addiction
    • How the progress of addiction differs from that of a disease
    • Reconsidering if “hijacking the brain” is useful metaphor for the addicted brain
    • Depression as a strategy of self-regulation
    • The feedback cycle of addiction and the relief of “Now appeal”
    • Comparing an addicted brain to a brain in love
    • Lisa Diamond: Research on Pair bonding
    • How desire, not drugs themselves, “hijack the brain”
    • The Biology of Desire
    • Why addictions happen “despite the bad news they bring into a person’s life”
    • Marc reflects on a recent career change to Clinical Psychology
    • How can we meaningfully intervene into a person’s reward system?
    • Internal Family Systems approach
    • Is the brain like a morality play?
    • James talks Morning Pages as a loose therapeutic space
    • Freud and the importance of putting things into words
    • Marc reflects on his journals of addiction
    • James Pennebaker - writing to heal (article)
    • why it’s so hard to predict when addicts quit
    • Edward Slingerland - Drunk
    • Huberman Lab - Alcohol
    • weighing the social effects vs the physical effects of alcohol
    • Carl Hart - Drug Use for Grown-Ups
    • fentanyl and the mixing with stimulants
    • Why Marc Lewis think drugs will be integrated into society in future policy
    • Huberman on Nicotine
    • Research into psychedlics, therapy, microdosing
    • Why you have to have done drugs to understand drugs
    • Terance McKenna “when you get the message hang up the phone”
    • How Marc Lewis’ addiction experience became an asset in his career
    • why the “Streets are Talented”
    • if we forget the social, we are missing the whole picture

    Find out more at GreatLifeWork.com
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    1 hr
  • 04 - NAVNEET ALANG - THE CALCULUS OF POKING THE BEAR

    04 - NAVNEET ALANG - THE CALCULUS OF POKING THE BEAR
    Jul 24 2022
    The felling of the (Allison) Roman Empire and the calculus of the moment with tech columnist Navneet Alang.

    If you've read Nav's stuff, you'll be as thrilled as I am to dig into his process, life, work, and, of course, the greatness of Windows phone.

    Readers of the Toronto Star will recognize him as the weekly tech opinion columnist whose nuanced takes on tech and modern life offer a richness seldom seen these days in old fashioned newsprint. (His work is also found in Eater, The New Republic, the Globe and Mail, Macleans, Hazlitt and elsewhere.)

    A Nav column seems to always command complicated material in a way that makes its depths understandable. And what we find is always a surprise.

    In his autobiographical writing, this deftness turns inwards, and the results are at turns raw and personal. Things never stay in one place for long, however. Nav interweaves sophisticated notions of the self, the digital, the psychic implications of capitalism, and sometimes even straight up critical theory, into these unflinching investigations of the self.

    I encourage you to check out his back catalogue!

    GET READWISE FREE FOR 2 MONTHS AND SUPPORT GREAT LIFE WORK!

    We cover a lot in this one!

    Topics include:

    • Nav’s upbringing
    • Moving from London UK at 12
    • Lived in Etobicoke between wealthy predominantly white area and lower income predominantly brown area
    • Why Nav’s parents moved from London to the GTA
    • How the daily racism of London was escaped in Canada
    • Why Nav maintained his english accent in Canada
    • reflecting on the boom period of the personal essay
    • what it’s like to look back on old revealing essays
    • SSRIs and creativity
    • The dirty secret of academics: they are trying to solve their personal problems through their study
    • what brought Nav to the point of working on a dissertation
    • why a masters is academia's gateway drug
    • looking back on the dissertation and the stubbornness to finish
    • why the personal essay era ended
    • integrating teaching into Nav's life
    • teaching journalism vs English
    • how Nav knows he has crackin’ pitch
    • “too good for twitter” test
    • “speed of editor reply” test
    • bodily signals of a pitch
    • constrained format of the column vs the up and down rollercoaster of a longform piece
    • why Nav actually likes writing (mostly)
    • dealing with the “emotional waves of writing”
    • writing as a place to manage idiosyncrasies
    • battle to find and embrace your own writing voice
    • Nav’s drafting process
    • Nav’s appreciation of early editing from Jordan Ginsberg at Hazlitt
    • Nav’s experience with backlash from Jordan Peterson’s fanbase
    • the “calculus of the moment” and when to engage with conflict on twitter
    • Nav’s tendency to “poke the bear” in his written work
    • Allison Roman piece
    • how Nav was way ahead of the game on Alison Roman - stars aligned
    • Nav on the greatness of the windows phone
    • why Microsoft was ahead of apple in innovating on smartphone UI but couldn’t pull it off
    • how network effects limit the ability to drastically alter established smartphone design norms
    • what will the smartphone be replaced with next?

    Thanks for listening!

    Contact: Email greatlifework (at) substack (dot) com Instagram: @GreatLifeWorkPod Newsletter: greatlifework.com
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    1 hr and 12 mins
  • 03 - AARON LAMMER - EMBRACE THE BOUNCE

    03 - AARON LAMMER - EMBRACE THE BOUNCE
    Jul 13 2022

    EMBRACE THE BOUNCE

    Aaron Lammer joins Great Life Work to reflect on CoinTalk, Exit Scam, music, collecting vinyl, and Tokyo audiophile bars (and so much more.)

    GET READWISE FREE FOR 2 MONTHS AND SUPPORT GREAT LIFE WORK!

    We cover a lot in this one!

    Topics include:

    • Reflecting on CoinTalk
    • Working close to the action, crypto obsession deepening
    • Why crypto isn’t a final resting place for Aaron’s brain
    • Why Aaron has no interest in app development anymore
    • Why Aaron has no idea what his interests will be in 5-10 years
    • How Aaron’s laziness helps him avoid certain would-be addictive hobbies (he’ll never fly fish)
    • Wistfully remembered being addicted to video games
    • Why Aaron is getting into review culture
    • James explains renunciation (No TV/No Movies)
    • Aaron is getting into condensed edits of soccer games
    • Aaron’s reading habits
    • Learning other people canon’s - books, rare records
    • Thoughts on record collecting
    • What Aaron likes in HiFi
    • A basic starter set up: 2 speakers + an amp + a high-quality source
    • Aaron talks the role of music-making in his life now and how he currently approaches it
    • Explains his longstanding musical collaboration
    • Why Aaron focuses on playing with the tools rather than creating a finished product
    • Aaron digs into his music making workflow
    • hoarding bits? Hard drive space is cheap
    • How to embrace the stereo bounce
    • Why computer interfaces are not particularly creative
    • Why you should make decisions and bounce out bits
    • Aaron’s recommended music gear
    • Why knobs are infinitely better
    • A readinbg of John Berryman’s Dream Song #14
    • The Difference between music and poetry to aaron
    • James talks about late night “freak show” game
    • Aaron talks about visiting an audiophile bar in Tokyo
    • Exit Scam and writing for podcasts

    Thanks for listening!

    Contact: Email greatlifework (at) substack (dot) com Instagram: @GreatLifeWorkPod Newsletter: greatlifework.com
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    1 hr and 17 mins
  • 02 - JENNIFER E. SMITH - THE BIG SCREEN MAGIC OF QUIET CONFIDENCE

    02 - JENNIFER E. SMITH - THE BIG SCREEN MAGIC OF QUIET CONFIDENCE
    Jul 6 2022

    THE BIG SCREEN MAGIC OF QUIET CONFIDENCE

    11 books in 14 years. Two major films coming to Netflix (with more adaptations to come). Bestselling Author Jennifer E. Smith is having a moment right now, but it wasn't always that way.

    Old friend of the show, Jennifer E. Smith, reflects on her "irrational (quiet) confidence era," before Hollywood came knocking, and the rejections that laid the groundwork for her remarkable success across formats.

    We reach Jennifer on the cusp of the release of the film of her novel, "Hello Goodbye and Everything in Between," to talk about the wonder of seeing a small village build out your fantasy world, the difference between film and novels, how she handled James' ribbing at St Andrews, and so much more.

    GET READWISE FREE FOR 2 MONTHS AND SUPPORT GREAT LIFE WORK!

    Thanks for listening!

    Contact: Email greatlifework (at) substack (dot) com Instagram: @GreatLifeWorkPod Newsletter: greatlifework.com
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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • 01 - JUSTIN MILLION - POETRY FOR THE PEOPLE

    01 - JUSTIN MILLION - POETRY FOR THE PEOPLE
    Jun 29 2022

    WELCOME TO GREAT LIFE WORK! Investigations in Going For it

    Episode - 01 - Justin Million - Poetry for the People!

    Have you ever wondered where poetry fits in the modern world?

    or

    Simply, what are all these poets on about??

    Then this invigorating conversation with an old friend--Canadian Poet Justin Million--has answers.

    In the inaugural episode of Great Life Work, we delve deep into his Justin Million's unique approach to poetry. His is a confessional, popular, and uproarious style that speaks to the complexity simmering just under the surface of the everyday.

    Highlights include:

    • Why you should be writing on a typewriter (and not your phone)
    • KEYBOARDS! "the most accessible poetry reading in the world"
    • Formative High School moments in Justin's poetic development
    • The four elements of greatness in poetry
    • Why you should (once again) embrace paper (and trash)

    GET READWISE FREE FOR 2 MONTHS AND SUPPORT GREAT LIFE WORK!

    Links:

    • Buy Justin Million's Ejecta at APT 9 PRESS (ETSY)
    • Billy Collins Live reading (YOUTUBE)
    • KEYBOARDS! short film by perfectpencil (YOUTUBE)
    • Bird, Buried Press (HOMEPAGE)

    Thanks for listening!

    Contact:

    Email greatlifework (at) substack (dot) com Instagram: @GreatLifeWorkPod Newsletter: greatlifework.com
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    Less than 1 minute