People, Places & Things – A Podcast About Our Lives
I used to host a podcast called The Academy of Miracles (which briefly became The Wide Awake Show), in which I asked people a series of questions about how they navigate their relationships with themselves, the people in their lives and the world around them. It focused quite heavily on the themes of vulnerability and connection and was, by my standards, rather successful, garnering over 20,000 downloads in a year or so, getting a string of 5 star reviews on iTunes and creeping into the top 100 downloads in the world for self-help. By many other standards (Joe Rogan, for example), my little show didn’t even register, but I was blown away by how many people tuned in.
Now, I’ve got an idea to do it again, but with a bit of a twist.
Origins of the idea
During lockdown in 2020, I was inspired by the instagram account @girlsofisolation, in which women around the world who were living alone submitted a black and white self-portrait of themselves. I liked the window it gave into these women’s lives.
A few months later, my friend Allegra (hi Allegra!) suggested I host a podcast around the idea of ‘objects,’ in which I shared stories about some of the physical items in my life and their significance to me. This suggestion coincided with a night at a friend’s home (hi Rosh!) in which I learned some of the backstories to some of her beautiful possessions. (She has a wicked eye for photography by the way – and with her permission I’m delighted to share her instagram account, @roisinthurstan and invite you to follow her!)
Finally, in September 2020, the idea came to me, almost fully formed, but just needing some form of articulation. I used to identify as an addict and was a member of various 12 step fellowships, and the phase “People places and things” would be used all the time to describe the various strategies (the, uh, people, places and things) that people in active addiction would use to fuel their addiction, and the correlating sources of support in recovery.
My idea is not for a show about addiction or recovery, but about what it means to be human. I want to create a frame that will provide a window of insight into the experiences of people from all walks of life. Who made them? Who, in the words of the children’s TV presenter Mr Rogers, “loved them into being”? Which relationships shaped them? Which places stand out in their minds? Which physical, psychic or imagined spaces hold special significance for them? And which objects, items or physical possessions – past or present – feel important to them? What is the story behind the object?
We are far more than just consumers, even though many of us spend a vast amount of our time and money consuming. I believe that despite our many differences, there is a bond between all humans that has the power to unite us if only we would be brave enough to pay attention to it. I believe increasingly in the power of stories. ‘How Tos’ will only get us so far. We are wired to create meaning, and hearing people’s stories is, I believe, one of the most simple, accessible and meaningful things we can do.
On a personal note, I know that in even thinking about creating this show, I am trying to satisfy my thirst for something deeper. I no longer actively study the spiritual material that I used to, and I can feel that my soul has been parched, searching out there for something, finding it piecemeal in poems, nature and other people’s words. But there’s something about actively creating that fills and fulfils me in a way that consuming things other people have created can’t. There is no going back to what I used to do. I need to forge a way forward, one that takes some of what I used to do (dancing, writing, yoga, podcast hosting) and to do it once again in a new way, as the woman I am now, not the woman I was then.
I want to connect and to feel connected to the people and the world around me. I want to explore what connection means for lots of different people so that I might come to better understand it in myself. And I want to feel alive, to create something meaningful and feel the sense of satisfaction from turning an idea into a tangible ‘thing’. I am 37 years old right now and going through more major shifts and changes in my life (do they ever end?!)), and I’m pretty near constantly dogged by a sense that there’s something more I could be doing. This podcast is an attempt to do something more so that I can put my head on the pillow at night – not every night perhaps, but more often – knowing that I showed up to my life in a way that speaks to my soul.
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Here are some further thoughts on each of the three pillars I’m thinking of building this show around. I warn you now, some of this is quite bleak! As I said above, I’ve gone through a big shift in recent years, and some of that has entailed letting go of a romantic, slightly Polly-Anna-ish way of looking at the world. You don’t study at the Tavistock for two years and come out all sweetness and light. In Jungian terms, perhaps I’m in a season of ‘the shadow side’. Anyway, you can probably tell I’m slightly ashamed of some of my thoughts, and slightly nervous that they’re judgemental/uninformed/too ‘negative’, hence the explanation. But it helps me to even explain where I’m coming from, so I’m not going to delete these words.
People
Without people, the world around us wouldn’t exist. Even the most self-proclaimed of loners are inextricably dependent on people they’ll never meet – on the buildings other people designed and built, on the food other people have grown and harvested, on the clothes other people have sewn, packaged, distributed and sold, and on the things other people have produced that we use every day. Even the most self-sufficient human beings can only live their extremely self-sufficient lives because of the ancestors who came before them. None of us can get through this life thing alone. We all need each other.
For most of us, of course, the situation is far less extreme. I’ve read (sorry, that should say ‘quickly googled) that we know an average of 600 people. It is people who sit at the centre of our lives.
To be a person is to be destined for both immeasurable beauty and heartbreak because of other people. We are hardwired for connection, and yet it is because of connection that we experience some of the most brutal pain of our lives – loss, betrayal, trauma, anxiety, rejection, separation, anger, rage, envy, loneliness, guilt and shame. The pain caused by other people is second to almost none in terms of the pain we experience throughout our lives, with the possible exception of illness and disease. But the same is true of the beauty we experience, too. If you have ever felt awe at a gig or concert, or had your heart cracked open with overwhelming joy and love because of a child, or have felt a profound sense of union with a friend or lover, or been moved to tears because of the plight and struggle of a refugee, addict or someone suffering in some way, then you’ve experienced the kind of connection I’m talking about – and it’s irrepressibly powerful in driving us towards each other.
To be a person is to be filled with the imprints of other people – their voices, their insights, their words and their acts of kindness, spite or fear. In exploring this, I hope to cultivate a sense of ‘common humanity’ that I think we vitally need right now.
Places
I was in the pool earlier this morning – I’m in Cyprus on day 2 of a 9-day holiday with my best mate Hannah, and it’s bloody glorious – thinking about how each of us traces a unique trail through the world, our movements creating a kind of geographical fingerprint with each step and journey we take. Despite the huge number of people alive on this planet, no one has ever taken or will ever take the exact journey through this world that you have. Your experiences here are, in a powerful sense, yours and yours alone.
I was also thinking about the vastly different state my mind and body are in less than 24 hours after arriving here. Being physically located in a foreign country (albeit one that’s familiar to me, having been here twice before with Han) has offered me a desperately needed chance to switch off. A staycation just wouldn’t have done the trick – and just 15 hours before our flight here, we still didn’t know if we could come, Hannah having not yet received her negative Covid-19 test result.
I imagined the week I would have had if I’d stayed at home. It would have been fine, and I also think the monotony would have felt challenging. I’m so grateful for this break, and the chance to be in this different place. Being here has been a reminder of how much places, not just people, can make or break us. Just think of the prisoner in solitary confinement, a refugee in Lesbos right now or a person doing an interview for a job that would measurably change their life. The places where things happen can massively influence our sense of self, our wellbeing and often, the way our lives unfold. I hope I’m not minimising or objectifying anyone here by thinking about their experience from the very privileged position of being on holiday.
The significance of places and spaces – whether physical or psychic – has been reinforced in our minds during the Covid-19 enforced lockdown. As the boundary between work and our personal lives has eroded and our movements have been restricted both locally and globally, where you lived and the kind of indoor and outdoor spaces you had access to had a correlation with the level of impact lockdown had on your mental health. Ellen deGeneres was criticised for joking that self-quarantining felt like being in prison when recording a video from her California home. However, as wildfires rage through the West Coast of the USA right now – and with little empathy to be expected from their leader – I’m sure that for many Oregonians and Californians who physically cannot leave their homes, it probably does feel like being imprisoned.
These are some of the reasons why it feels important to explore places on the podcast. Plus, I’m just interested – in the places people love, in the things people have seen in the places they’ve been to, and in the impact places have had on their psyches.
Things
We are all consumers, and I find the throwaway nature of how we live quite disconcerting. Honestly, sometimes I think we humans are gross. When I worked with Ayahuasca in the jungle just outside of Iquitos in Peru in late 2016, I was shown an image of humanity from the point of view of nature or ‘Mother Earth’ – and we are, from that perspective, parasites. We gobble and suck the life out of the world around us, getting and taking and using and abusing, giving back a fraction of what we extract. It’s not just other people who do this. The difficult thing is to acknowledge that I am like this too. We are slower to call ourselves and each other out on this when we do it to the earth than when we do it to other people, and despite not being anything close to an ethical person in this regard (I often feel quite out of integrity around this side of life in all honesty), it’s something that I’m interested in exploring.
A quick note before you read on: the following paragraph has many parentheses and double-dash sections, each featuring a little aside. Welcome to how my brain works!
Fast fashion and the culture of comparisonitis, unboxing, ‘influencing’ and neophilia (our obsession with ‘newness’) which are all amplified by social media – and not, I believe, the fault of social media itself – actively encourage us (particularly young people, but really, all of us) to buy and discard, buy and discard, buy and discard –sometimes even without using or wearing the thing we purchase. What we do in the microcosm of our individual lives is played out at a larger scale industrially. We cannot blame fossil fuel companies, agriculture or the world’s biggest industries like transport or textiles for the devastating consequences they are bringing about in terms of climate change – you are aware, aren’t you, that scientists say we have just 11 years left to minimise the damage we’ve done and are doing to the Earth? – without also turning the lens on ourselves and our own individual lifestyles.
How many paper cups have I used and thrown away mindlessly? Even when I do so with a bit of awareness and discomfort, why is it still not enough to deter me from getting my daily takeaway latte? How many empty plastic bottles get thrown away after their contents have (partially) hydrated the purchaser? (I say partially because let’s face it, most of what we eat and drink is full of shit.) How many fucking crisp packets does the average person scar the earth with? In every consumption choice we make, there is some kind of impact on the planet. Increasingly, more earth-friendly alternatives are available, but our on-the-go lifestyles keep us running on cortisol and adrenaline, chasing the next momentary dopamine high triggered by a notification on our phone the endless rushing around because our lives are so busy (i.e. ‘important’), leaving us with little time or commitment to making the time to do things differently.
This might sound – probably does sound – both pessimistic and supercilious, and I feel quite clear that in some ways it is both of those things, but there is an earnestness and an urgency in it too. I genuinely care that just living my life means leaving a trail of literal rubbish and pollution on this planet for far, far longer than I am going to be here for. That every packet of Skips, Quavers, Monster Munch, Space Invaders and Walkers I ate as a kid – and there were many – let alone every packet I’ve eaten as an adult, will stay on the planet for hundreds of years, is frightening and disturbing to me. And that’s just one form of packaging from one item of food that one human being has consumed.
That’s part of the reason why I want to explore the subject of ‘things’ on this show. Not just because of the beautiful stories that many of our objects and items hold, but also because I want to remind myself to pay attention to the things I already have, to the choices I make, and to the way I live. My hypothesis is that when we’re disconnected from the stories of our things and why they matter to us, we’re driven to buy and consume more and more. Cheap consumerism allows us to do this mindlessly, but just because a way of life exists, it doesn’t mean we have to live that way. We don’t have to shop in Primark. We don’t have to get all our food on the go (note to self there!). We have a choice, and it’s an important one to make because mindless living will never meet our deepest needs. When, however, we know the stories behind the objects we have in our lives, and when we’re connected to the stories of how these things came into our lives – the gifts we’re given, the items we acquire on our travels, the independent artists and makers and creatives whose products we buy – the things in our lives hold greater weight, greater meaning, and I reckon, we will find ourselves needing fewer of them. Clutter doesn’t look good on anyone. (But I’m not a minimalist, nor am I advocating that as a lifestyle. I own over ten pairs of trainers at this point, and at least as many t-shirts!)
If enough of us are thoughtful, creative and deliberate in our choices, I really see that it could be possible for us to change the systems and structures we’re part of. 2020 forced us all to stay put, but we learned, didn’t we, that even then we don’t necessarily slow down. What some people called the ‘Great Pause’ wasn’t a pause at all for many, many of us. Many of us knee-jerked in reaction to the pandemic by filling our days with Zoom calls and work, and many others were forced into impossible situations through having to suddenly deal with 24/7 childcare and schooling alongside pressure from our employers (ahem, even when furloughed) to keep pushing, producing and going to fucking meetings. It’s left so many of us reeling. We’re working like crazy and trying to pick up the pieces of our frazzled, crashed out nervous systems. Lockdown sort of offered an opportunity to realise that we don’t have to rush around like blue-arsed flies – but in reality, I think what many of us found is how hard it is to change because of the systems we’re part of and the underlying assumptions about what we need to do in our jobs and with our organisations and in our lives. The treadmill didn’t stop because of Covid-19. It just had a load of fucking rocks thrown all over it.
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Now, despite my rather strong feelings about us as a species and my own judgement of myself, I do believe that change is possible.
I believe it’s possible to experience a slower, more deliberate, more intentional, more conscious way of living, and that doing so will feel immensely more satisfying for many of us. Coming down off the adrenaline high is hard, and forces us to confront a lot of stories about the value of a person. But the truth is that our way of life is making so many of us sick. I read just this morning that anxiety disorders in adults have tripled in the last 12 years. 30% of women aged 18-24 now have a diagnosis of anxiety – and let’s remember that this doesn’t include the people like me who battle on with very definite anxiety, but without a formal diagnosis. Climate crises aside, we are in some serious, deep shit here, and we need to find a different and better way to live – much like the people who hit rock bottom in addiction and find themselves in a 12 step meeting hearing about how they need to change the ‘People, places and things’ in their lives.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a ‘Zoombie’ while I’m here, absently present, semi-alive.
What I want is to feel the temperature of the room I’m in, the ground beneath my feet, air entering and leaving my body, the taste of the food I eat, the smells in the air. I want to be here while I’m here. I want to connect. To feel joy and pain, not a constant sense of buzzing anxiety and restlessness. I want to feel a sense of appreciation for the hundreds if not thousands of ‘things’ that make their way into and through my life, and to be in the world with my whole body, not floating around in endless tunnels of heady worry.
And so, through sharing and speaking about some of the things in our lives, my hope is that we might get a little closer to living as William Morris suggested we ought, which is to have nothing in our homes that we do not “believe to be beautiful or know to be useful.” To find a way, as Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, to “Let everything happen to you – beauty and terror.” To remember to “Just keep going,” and that “No feeling is final.”