References

Berlin, I. (1969). Two Concepts of Liberty’. https://faculty.www.umb.edu/steven.levine/Courses/Action/Berlin.pdf

Foner, E. (2016). Give me liberty! (6th AP). W W Norton.

Franklin, B. (1753). Letter to Peter Collinson. Teaching American History; Ashbrook Center. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-to-peter-collinson/

Franklin, B. (1784). Founders Online: Remarks concerning the Savages of North America, [before 7 Jan …. Founders.archives.gov. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-41-02-0280

Gowdy, J. M. (1998). Limited wants, unlimited means : a reader on hunter-gatherer economics and the environment. Island Press.

Green, H. (2025, October 2). You are probably underestimating Jane Goodall’s impact. YouTube; Vlogbrothers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_FzzLeA6pk

Harris, M. (1995). Cultural Anthropology. Good Year Books.

Peterson, D. (2006). Jane Goodall : the woman who redefined man. Houghton Mifflin Co.

Ronda, J. P. (1977). “We are well as we are”: An Indian critique of seventeenth-century Christian missions. The William and Mary Quarterly, 34(1), 66. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/1922626

Sahlins, M. (1981). Stone age economics. Aldine.

Thwaites, R. G. (Ed.). (1896–1901). The Jesuit relations and allied documents: Travels and explorations of the Jesuit missionaries in New France, 1610–1791; the original French, Latin, and Italian texts, with English translations and notes (Vols. 1–73). Burrows Bros. Co. https://archive.org/details/jesuit-relations-allied-documents

Westover, T. (2018). Educated: A memoir. Random House.

The story of the picnic table comes from Draft No. 4. It was retold in Cal Newport's Slow Productivity where some of the stories in this episode also originated. Research on the relationship between work quantity and quality is summarized in Scott Young's book, Get Better at Anything.

References

Mcphee, J. (2018a). Draft No. 4 : On the Writing Process. Farrar, Straus And Giroux.

Mcphee, J. (2018b). Pine Barrens. Daunt Books.

Newport, C. (2023, April 28). Danielle Steel and the Tragic Appeal of Overwork - Cal Newport. Study Hacks. https://calnewport.com/danielle-steel-and-the-tragic-appeal-of-overwork/

Newport, C. (2024). Slow Productivity. Penguin.

Pema Chödrön. (2018). The wisdom of no escape : and the path of loving-kindness. Shambhala Publications, Inc.

quoteresearch. (2013, September 16). Quote Origin: “To Be Is To Do” “To Do Is To Be” “Do Be Do Be Do” – Quote Investigator®. Quoteinvestigator.com. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/16/do-be-do/

Young, S. H. (2024). Get Better at Anything: 12 Maxims for Mastery. HarperCollins UK.

Here's a link to Tovar Cerulli's The Mindful Carnivore. You should check it out. You could order it online ... but it would be more awesome if you ordered it through your local bookshop.

#astronomy facts

#spacemystery

#moonscience

In this episode, I tell you that this story is a legend because it did not happen exactly as it was told. Read on to find out more.

This story was told to Stewart Brand of the Whole Earth Catalog by Gregory Bateson, a linguist and anthropologist who was interested in systems theory and, for a while, the husband of Margaret Mead.

The replacement oaks were not planted at the college's founding but some years later in the 1400s. And they weren't planted expressly for the purpose of replacing the ones in the dining hall ... but they were planted for just that type of thing. The college had been managing its woodlots to provide large timbers for centuries, even if the drama of the scene described here was a little less dramatic.

As I said in the episode. This story is true as many legends are. It is based upon things that actually happened and its lesson is a real one, and one that the nameless foresters of New College knew.

But one night under a Cirque du Soleil tent changed that. In this episode, I reflect on why — and what it taught me about beauty, teamwork, and the fine line between entertainment and art.

https://www.youtube.com/@IHeartThisPodcast

Visit I Heart This on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@IHeartThisPodcast

In this episode, we follow those guys to one of science’s greatest discoveries — and what it has to tell us about the nature of wonder itself. 

This episode is based on a story from: Zaki, J. (2024). Hope for Cynics. Grand Central Publishing.

Find:

I Heart This's Facebook Page.

Our YouTube Channel.

Our Website.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@IHeartThisPodcast

Email: ben@iheartthispodcast.com

You’re thinking, “Are you kidding? Textbooks are the dullest, most lifeless, deepest vortexes of soul-suck known to humankind. Their suck goes down to the sub-atomic level. 

You’re thinking about how you hated your chemistry textbook so much that you literally threw it out the window . . . twice.”  

Okay . . . deep calming breaths . . . I get it . . . but  . . . hear me out. 

I’m willing to bet that I can convince you that the textbook is one of the most underappreciated genres of all time. 

Because the truth is that textbooks are free of some constraints that bind nearly every other genre. Listen on, to find out what they are. 

Email us: ben@iheartthispodcast.com

Our Website: www.iheartthispodcast.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@IHeartThisPodcast

References

Duffin, E. (2022, July 27). Americans with a college degree 1940-2017, by gender | Statista. Statista; Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attainment-of-college-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/

Lancaster, J. (1932). The Practical Parts of Lancaster’s Improvements and Bell’s Experiment. Cambridge University Press. https://constitution.org/1-Education/lanc/practical.htm

Sarma, S. E., & Yoquinto, L. (2020). Grasp : The science transforming how we learn. Doubleday.

Sheposh, R. (2022). Monitorial system (education) | EBSCO. EBSCO Information Services, Inc. | Www.ebsco.com. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/education/monitorial-system-education

Snyder, T. D. (1993). 120 years of American education: A statistical portrait. National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93442.pdf

Southey, R., & Southey, C. C. (1844). The Life of the Rev. Andrew Bell. John Murray. https://archive.org/details/lifeofrevandrewb02sout/page/n1/mode/2up

TED. (2007). Do schools kill creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY&t=2s

Watters, A. (2015, April 25). The invented history of “the factory model of education.” Medium; The History of the Future of Education. https://medium.com/the-history-of-the-future-of-education/the-invented-history-of-the-factory-model-of-education-a069ae3d1e99

Wikipedia Contributors. (2025, March 8). Racial achievement gap in the United States. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_achievement_gap_in_the_United_States

This is the true story of one of the world’s most unexpected libraries and what it has to teach us about libraries, good ideas, community resilience, and  . . . garbage collecting.

Email us: ben@iheartthispodcast.com

Our Website: www.iheartthispodcast.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@IHeartThisPodcast

References

Dorsey, D. (200 C.E., December). Positive deviant. Fast Company, 41, 284–287. https://communication-skills.net/pdf/PositiveDeviant.pdf

Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2010). Switch: how to change things when change is hard. Broadway Books.

Positive Deviance Collaborative. (2018, April 14). The Vietnam story: 25 years later. Positive Deviance Collaborative. https://positivedeviance.org/case-studies-all/2018/4/16/the-vietnam-story-25-years-later

Wikipedia Contributors. (2024, April 9). Positive deviance. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_deviance

In this episode, that story and how it provides hope for all of us facing intractable societal problems.

Email us: ben@iheartthispodcast.com

Our Website: www.iheartthispodcast.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@IHeartThisPodcast

References

Dorsey, D. (200 C.E., December). Positive deviant. Fast Company, 41, 284–287. https://communication-skills.net/pdf/PositiveDeviant.pdf

Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2010). Switch: how to change things when change is hard. Broadway Books.

Positive Deviance Collaborative. (2018, April 14). The Vietnam story: 25 years later. Positive Deviance Collaborative. https://positivedeviance.org/case-studies-all/2018/4/16/the-vietnam-story-25-years-later

Wikipedia Contributors. (2024, April 9). Positive deviance. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_deviance

References

Erick, M. (n.d.). Frances Kathleen Oldham Kelsey. National Women’s History Museum. Retrieved May 13, 2025, from https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/frances-kathleen-oldham-kelsey

Hooper, C. L., & Henderson, D. R. (2024). Two Thalidomide Disasters: Myths about the FDA's role in the thalidomide tragedy have resulted in decades of it obstructing many beneficial drugs. Regulation, 47(4), 8+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A828313658/GPS?u=vol_b733s&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=abff486b

Janik, E., & Jensen, M. B. (2011). Giving them what they want: the Reinharts and quack medicine in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Magazine of History, 94(4), 28–41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41331156

Kean, S. (2024). “Frances Oldham Kelsey, the FDA, and the battle against thalidomide” review: The noble bureaucrat [Review of “Frances Oldham Kelsey, the FDA, and the battle against thalidomide” by C. Warsh]. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/frances-oldham-kelsey-the-fda-and-the-battle-against-thalidomide-review-the-noble-bureaucrat-7f1fc379

Kean. S. (Host). (2024, November 12). The woman who ‘turned back a plague of Old Testament proportions’ [Audio podcast episode]. In The Disappearing Spoon. Science History Institute. 

Knaier, R. G. (2017). Homeopathy on trial: "Allen v. Hyland's, Inc." and a failure of evidentiary gatekeeping. Jurimetrics, 57(3), 361–396. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26322714

Kriplin, N. (2017, February 5). The heroine of the FDA. Discover Magazine. https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/the-heroine-of-the-fda

McFadden, R. D. (2015, August 7). Frances Oldham Kelsey, who saved U.S. babies from thalidomide, dies at 101. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/science/frances-oldham-kelsey-fda-doctor-who-exposed-danger-of-thalidomide-dies-at-101.html

McGovern, James. "Quieter Things: The Tale Of Frances Oldham Kelsey." Boulevard, no. 104-105, spring 2020, pp. 209+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A625413665/GPS?u=vol_b733s&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=8681eca8. Accessed 9 May 2025.

Phillips, S. (2020, March 9). How a courageous physician-scientist saved the U.S. from a birth-defects catastrophe. Forefront. https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/biological-sciences-articles/courageous-physician-scientist-saved-the-us-from-a-birth-defects-catastrophe

Wikipedia Contributors. (2024, August 26). Marion Merrell Dow. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Merrell_Dow

Wikipedia Contributors. (2025a, January 3). Elixir sulfanilamide. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elixir_sulfanilamide

Wikipedia Contributors. (2025b, March 8). Frances Oldham Kelsey. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Oldham_Kelsey

Wikipedia Contributors. (2025c, May 10). Food and Drug Administration. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration#History

Check out our YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/@IHeartThisPodcast

References

Argyle, E. (1971). Ball lightning as an optical illusion. Nature, 230(5290), 179–180. https://doi.org/10.1038/230179a0

Cen, J., Yuan, P., & Xue, S. (2014). Observation of the Optical and Spectral Characteristics of Ball Lightning. Physical Review Letters, 112(3). https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.112.035001

Cooray, G., & Cooray, V. (2008). Could some ball lightning observations be optical hallucinations caused by epileptic seizures? The Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 2(1), 101–105. https://doi.org/10.2174/1874282300802010101

Jennison, R. C. (1969). Ball lightning. Nature, 224(5222), 895–895. https://doi.org/10.1038/224895a0

Neil deGrasse Tyson Videos. (2018, March 6). Neil Tyson Answers “Do You Believe In UFOs?” & Sets The Record Straight!! YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZDjel3dyv0

Parks, J. (2024, September 19). Is ball lightning real? The science behind nature’s strangest light show. Discover Magazine. https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/is-ball-lightning-real-the-science-behind-natures-strangest-light-show

PowerfulJRE. (2021, May 26). Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Skepticism Over UFO’s. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u0VDFppCI4

Sagan, C. (2008). Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle In The Dark. Paw Prints. (Original work published 1995)

Stephan, K. D., Sonnenfeld, R., & Keul, A. G. (2022). First comparisons of ball-lightning report website data with lightning-location-network data. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 240, 105953. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jastp.2022.105953

Weeks, L. (2015, May 28). The windshield-pitting mystery of 1954. Npr.org. https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/05/28/410085713/the-windshield-pitting-mystery-of-1954

Wikipedia Contributors. (2025a, April 29). Sprite (lightning). Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_(lightning)#History

Wikipedia Contributors. (2025b, May 3). Ball lightning. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning#Historical_accounts

Image Credit: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

• two different teens whose lives were changed by the internet in very different ways
• the story of how Hank and John Green built a social media empire out of curiosity, empathy, and hope
• and what we can learn from them about building an internet that we really want to be part of

Esther Earl's YouTube Channel

The Vlogbrothers

Rebecca Black's YouTube Channel

References

Earl, E. (2010). cookie4monster4. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdZb9xjim9qjnIwAuQpvWJA

Earl, W. (2013, January 16). Dying is Inevitable. Living is Not: Wayne Earl at TEDxYouth@SanDiego. YouTube; TEDxYouth@SanDiego. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqqh5KhYhGM

Holmes, L. (2011, March 18). Ridiculed YouTube singer Rebecca Black grabs a mountain of bull by the horns. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2011/03/18/134652534/ridiculed-youtube-singer-rebecca-black-grabs-a-mountain-of-bull-by-the-horns

Moss, C. (2014, June 8). Esther Earl inspired The Fault In Our Stars. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/esther-earl-inspired-the-fault-in-our-stars-2014-6

Paunil, J. (2021, February 10). The “Friday” music video went viral 10 years ago. Rebecca Black has spent the last decade recovering.. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/gender-identity/the-friday-music-video-went-viral-10-years-ago-rebecca-black-has-spent-the-last-decade-recovering/

Talbot, M. (2014). The teen whisperer. The New Yorker, 90(16), 60. Gale. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A370885126/GPS?u=vol_b733s&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=2206e864

Image Credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Vlogbrothers_2021.jpg

In this episode we look for clues to answer this question in the story of the world’s newest language, how it arose, and what it tells us about what it means to be human. 

References

Blunden, A. (1990). The invention of Nicaraguan sign language . Www.ethicalpolitics.org. https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/works/nsl.htm

Bouchard, K. (2018, March 19). Seeing the signs: Renowned USM professor reflects on life-changing language discovery. Portland Press Herald. https://www.pressherald.com/2018/03/19/seeing-the-signs-renowned-usm-professor-reflects-on-life-changing-language-discovery/

Fitch, W. T. (2010). The evolution of language. Cambridge University Press.

Niemann, S., Greenstein, D., & David, D. (2025). Women’s health can damage or protect children’s hearing . In Hesperian.org. Hesperian Health Guides. https://en.hesperian.org/hhg/Helping_Children_Who_Are_Deaf:Women%E2%80%99s_health_can_damage_or_protect_children%E2%80%99s_hearing

Polich, L. (2005). Chapter 11. The diagnosis of deafness in Nicaragua. In Diagnosis as Cultural Practice (pp. 223–240). Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110199802.223

Wikipedia Contributors. (2019, November 11). Nicaraguan sign language. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language

Wikipedia Contributors. (2025a, January 26). Judy Shepard-Kegl. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Shepard-Kegl

Wikipedia Contributors. (2025b, March 30). Education in Nicaragua. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Nicaragua#Education_during_the_Sandinista_era

Wikipedia Contributors. (2025c, April 9). Nicaraguan Revolution. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Revolution#Contras

Williams, L. (2018). Nicaraguan Sign Language - Language Stories: Episode 11║Lindsay Does Languages Video [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6Wtwz1P7zI

References

Ali Maow Maalin. (2025). Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Maow_Maalin

BBC. (2008, March 25). War-torn Somalia eradicates polio. Bbc.co.uk; BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7312603.stm

Berche, P. (2022). Life and Death of Smallpox. La Presse Médicale, 51(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lpm.2022.104117

Breman, J. (2017). Donald Ainslie (D. A.) Henderson, MD, MPH (1928–2016) smallpox eradication: Leadership and legacy. The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 215(5), 673–676. https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiw640

Brink, S. (2019). What’s the real story about the milkmaid and the smallpox vaccine? Npr.org. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/02/01/582370199/whats-the-real-story-about-the-milkmaid-and-the-smallpox-vaccine

CDC. (2024a, November 6). History of Smallpox. Smallpox. https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/about/history.html

CDC. (2024b, November 6). Signs and Symptoms of Smallpox. Smallpox. https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/signs-symptoms/index.html

Diepenbrock, G. (2015, April 21). Book details misconceptions about smallpox’s role in Native depopulation. KU News. https://news.ku.edu/news/article/2015/04/20/book-details-misconceptions-about-smallpoxs-role-native-depopulation-and-european

Gibbons, A. (2016, December 8). Virus found in child mummy suggests recent rise of deadly smallpox. Www.science.org. https://www.science.org/content/article/virus-found-child-mummy-suggests-recent-rise-deadly-smallpox

Institute of Medicine (US) Board on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. (2009). SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND ON SMALLPOX AND SMALLPOX VACCINATION. Nih.gov; National Academies Press (US). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK221063/

Jonathan , J. (2023, June 9). The white lie at the heart of vaccine history. Office for Science and Society. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical-critical-thinking-history/white-lie-heart-vaccine-history

Mayo Clinic. (n.d.). History of Smallpox: Outbreaks and Vaccine Timeline. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/history-disease-outbreaks-vaccine-timeline/smallpox

National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. (2023, May 8). The Triumph of Science: The Incredible Story of Smallpox Eradication - NFID. Https://Www.nfid.org/. https://www.nfid.org/the-triumph-of-science-the-incredible-story-of-smallpox-eradication/

O’Neill, A. (2024, October 7). Number of countries where smallpox was eradicated 1872-1977. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1108182/smallpox-eradication-by-country/

Science Museum. (2019, April 25). Smallpox and the story of vaccination. Science Museum. https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/smallpox-and-story-vaccination

World Health Organization. (1998, March). Building on success. World Health, 51(2), 10–11. https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/331271/WH-1998-Mar-Apr-p10-11-eng.pdf

World Health Organization. (2025). History of Smallpox Vaccination. Www.who.int; World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/history-of-vaccination/history-of-smallpox-vaccination

• Someone Else’s Wedding Vows,
• The Moebius Strip Club of Grief, and
• What is Otherwise Infinite, which won the Vermont Book Award in 2022.

She is also a poetry comic artist who uses illustration to illuminate her own poetry and the poetry of others. Stone is

• the editor-at-large of ITERANT, a quarterly poetry magazine,
• the co-founder of the Ruth Stone House, a poetry-based non-profit,
• the host of her own podcast on poetry and consciousness called Ode & Psyche,
• and is currently serving as Vermont’s poet laureate. 

In this episode: poetry, why we need it, and how a 13th century love affair changed it forever.

Ten Life-changing Poems (For People Who Don't Read Poetry)

1. "A Brief for the Defense" Jack Gilbert
2. "I Imagine the Gods" Jack Gilbert
3. "Lost" David Wagoner
4. "Otherwise" Jane Kenyon
5. "The Guest House" Jalaluddin Rumi
6. "The Summer Day" Mary Oliver
7. "Wild Geese" Mary Oliver
8. "Hope Is The Thing With Feathers" Emily Dickinson
9. "God Says Yes to Me" Kaylin Haught
10. "Dog's Death" John Updike

Mike shares his hopeful take on democracy, lessons learned from his service, stories of a fascist radio priests from the 1930s, and wisdom from Ireland’s history of the Troubles. 

Check out these leaders mobilizing people across the country:

--50501: https://www.fiftyfifty.one/

--Indivisible: https://indivisible.org/

--Common Cause: https://www.commoncause.org/

--Democracy 2025: https://www.democracy2025.org/

--Windham County Action Network (for southern VT locals): https://www.facebook.com/groups/195358497603501

My Get Started Checklist

1.) Carve out a specific regular appointment to work on democracy (e.g. 7:00-8:00 on Thursdays. Put it on your calendar.

2.) Join organizations that are doing the work like the ACLU and media outlets with professional journalists and codes of ethics.

3.) Find (or found) a group of concerned citizens and meet regularly.

4.) Pick one goal. Make it small. Something you can accomplish with the resources you have in three months or less. If you reach it, throw a party, invite more friends and plan a little bit bigger.

This is episode two of our four-part series on democracy. I Heart This, everybody. I’m Ben Lord. Let’s talk about what we love.

Norman Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Speech_%28painting%29

Graph: Autocracy and Democracy by Country

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/countries-democracies-autocracies-row

For more on humanity's democratic origins check out:

Limited Wants, Unlimited Means: A Reader on Hunter-Gatherer Economics and the Environment. Ed. John Gowdy

The Dawn of Everything. by Graeber and Wengrow

Ishmael. by Daniel Quinn

References

Green, T. V. (2021, November 23). Republicans and Democrats alike say it’s stressful to talk politics with people who disagree. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/23/republicans-and-democrats-alike-say-its-stressful-to-talk-politics-with-people-who-disagree/

Josh, L. (2022, January 6). “A republic if you can keep it”: Elizabeth Willing Powel, Benjamin Franklin, and the James McHenry Journal | Unfolding History: Manuscripts at the Library of Congress. Blogs.loc.gov. https://blogs.loc.gov/manuscripts/2022/01/a-republic-if-you-can-keep-it-elizabeth-willing-powel-benjamin-franklin-and-the-james-mchenry-journal/

Jurkowitz, M., & Mitchell, A. (2020, February 5). Almost half of Americans have stopped talking politics with someone. Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2020/02/05/a-sore-subject-almost-half-of-americans-have-stopped-talking-politics-with-someone/

Kolbert, E. (2017, February 19). Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds

Thich Nhat Hanh. (1991). Peace Is Every Step. Toronto Bantam Books.

References

Arranz-Otaegui, A., Gonzalez Carretero, L., Ramsey, M. N., Fuller, D. Q., & Richter, T. (2018). Archaeobotanical evidence reveals the origins of bread 14,400 years ago in northeastern Jordan. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(31), 7925–7930. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1801071115

Bietz, J. A. (1982). Cereal prolamin evolution and homology revealed by sequence analysis. Biochemical Genetics, 20(11-12), 1039–1053. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00498931

Cassidy, C. (2020, May 4). What Do We Know About the Neolithic-Age Woman Who Invented Leavened Bread? Slate Magazine. https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/05/leavened-bread-yeast-invention-history.html

Encyclopedia Brittanica. (2023, December 25). How did Neolithic technologies spread outward from the Fertile Crescent? | Britannica. Www.britannica.com. https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-Neolithic-technologies-spread-outward-from-the-Fertile-Crescent#:~:text=The%20earliest%20farmers%20raised%20barley

Gregory Clark. (2007). A farewell to alms. In Internet Archive. Princeton University Press. https://archive.org/details/farewelltoalmsbr00clar/page/286/mode/2up

Igbinedion, S. O., Ansari, J., Vasikaran, A., Gavins, F. N., Jordan, P., Boktor, M., & Alexander, J. S. (2017). Non-celiac gluten sensitivity: All wheat attack is not celiac. World Journal of Gastroenterology, 23(40), 7201–7210. https://doi.org/10.3748/wjg.v23.i40.7201

Kim, K.-H., & Kim, J.-Y. (2021). Understanding Wheat Starch Metabolism in Properties, Environmental Stress Condition, and Molecular Approaches for Value-Added Utilization. Plants, 10(11), 2282. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10112282

Liu, W., Wu, Y., Wang, J., Wang, Z., Gao, J., Yuan, J., & Chen, H. (2023). A Meta-Analysis of the Prevalence of Wheat Allergy Worldwide. Nutrients, 15(7), 1564. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15071564

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease. (2020, October). Definition & Facts for Celiac Disease | NIDDK. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/celiac-disease/definition-facts#:~:text=gluten%2Dsensitive%20enteropathy.-

Piperno, D. R., Weiss, E., Holst, I., & Nadel, D. (2004). Processing of wild cereal grains in the Upper Palaeolithic revealed by starch grain analysis. Nature, 430(7000), 670–673. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02734

Revedin, A., Aranguren, B., Becattini, R., Longo, L., Marconi, E., Lippi, M. M., Skakun, N., Sinitsyn, A., Spiridonova, E., & Svoboda, J. (2010). Thirty thousand-year-old evidence of plant food processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(44), 18815–18819. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1006993107

Shewry, P. (2019). What Is Gluten—Why Is It Special? Frontiers in Nutrition, 6(101). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2019.00101

The Serious Eats Team. (2021, March 7). What Is Gluten? The Science Behind Great Dough. Serious Eats. https://www.seriouseats.com/what-is-gluten-free-bread-dough-pasta

Urade, R., Sato, N., & Sugiyama, M. (2017). Gliadins from wheat grain: an overview, from primary structure to nanostructures of aggregates. Biophysical Reviews, 10(2), 435–443....]]>Bread might seem like the boring food, the backdrop for the stuff you put in the sandwich. But actually, in a world of strange foods, bread may be the strangest, most unlikely substance that humans have ever ingested. The story of what bread is and how we came to eat it, is one of alien biology and lost civilizations. It turns out that we only have bread because of a long chain of bizarre and unlikely coincidences.

References

Arranz-Otaegui, A., Gonzalez Carretero, L., Ramsey, M. N., Fuller, D. Q., & Richter, T. (2018). Archaeobotanical evidence reveals the origins of bread 14,400 years ago in northeastern Jordan. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(31), 7925–7930. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1801071115

Bietz, J. A. (1982). Cereal prolamin evolution and homology revealed by sequence analysis. Biochemical Genetics, 20(11-12), 1039–1053. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00498931

Cassidy, C. (2020, May 4). What Do We Know About the Neolithic-Age Woman Who Invented Leavened Bread? Slate Magazine. https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/05/leavened-bread-yeast-invention-history.html

Encyclopedia Brittanica. (2023, December 25). How did Neolithic technologies spread outward from the Fertile Crescent? | Britannica. Www.britannica.com. https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-Neolithic-technologies-spread-outward-from-the-Fertile-Crescent#:~:text=The%20earliest%20farmers%20raised%20barley

Gregory Clark. (2007). A farewell to alms. In Internet Archive. Princeton University Press. https://archive.org/details/farewelltoalmsbr00clar/page/286/mode/2up

Igbinedion, S. O., Ansari, J., Vasikaran, A., Gavins, F. N., Jordan, P., Boktor, M., & Alexander, J. S. (2017). Non-celiac gluten sensitivity: All wheat attack is not celiac. World Journal of Gastroenterology, 23(40), 7201–7210. https://doi.org/10.3748/wjg.v23.i40.7201

Kim, K.-H., & Kim, J.-Y. (2021). Understanding Wheat Starch Metabolism in Properties, Environmental Stress Condition, and Molecular Approaches for Value-Added Utilization. Plants, 10(11), 2282. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10112282

Liu, W., Wu, Y., Wang, J., Wang, Z., Gao, J., Yuan, J., & Chen, H. (2023). A Meta-Analysis of the Prevalence of Wheat Allergy Worldwide. Nutrients, 15(7), 1564. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15071564

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease. (2020, October). Definition & Facts for Celiac Disease | NIDDK. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/celiac-disease/definition-facts#:~:text=gluten%2Dsensitive%20enteropathy.-

Piperno, D. R., Weiss, E., Holst, I., & Nadel, D. (2004). Processing of wild cereal grains in the Upper Palaeolithic revealed by starch grain analysis. Nature, 430(7000), 670–673. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02734

Revedin, A., Aranguren, B., Becattini, R., Longo, L., Marconi, E., Lippi, M. M., Skakun, N., Sinitsyn, A., Spiridonova, E., & Svoboda, J. (2010). Thirty thousand-year-old evidence of plant food processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(44), 18815–18819. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1006993107

Shewry, P. (2019). What Is Gluten—Why Is It Special? Frontiers in Nutrition, 6(101). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2019.00101

The Serious Eats Team. (2021, March 7). What Is Gluten? The Science Behind Great Dough. Serious Eats. https://www.seriouseats.com/what-is-gluten-free-bread-dough-pasta

Urade, R., Sato, N., & Sugiyama, M. (2017). Gliadins from wheat grain: an overview, from primary structure to nanostructures of aggregates. Biophysical Reviews, 10(2), 435–443. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12551-017-0367-2

Wikipedia Contributors. (2019, March 12). Injera. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injera

Yang, H., Li, Y., Li, D., Liu, L., Qiao, Y., Sun, H., Liu, W., Qiao, W., Ma, Y., Liu, M., Li, C., & Dong, B. (2022). Wheat Escapes Low Light Stress by Altering Pollination Types. Frontiers in Plant Science, 13(924565). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.924565

Zeder, M. A. (2011). The Origins of Agriculture in the Near East. Current Anthropology, 52(S4), S221–S235. https://doi.org/10.1086/659307

Introduction

In October of 2022, I decided to start a podcast about things that I loved. At the time, this seemed like a not-terrible idea. It turns out that I am the world’s foremost authority on things that I love, so I was actually somewhat qualified to speak on the subject. And seeing how it was focused on my own obsessions,it was also pretty much guaranteed to interest me . But mostly, in a media world populated with trolls, cynics, and conspiracy-pedaling gadflies … well … talking about delightful things seemed like a novelty. Like I said, all in all, a not-so-terrible idea. 

The next thing I probably should have asked myself was “Who would want to listen to hours and hours of some random guy talking about the things that he loves?” But I kinda skipped that part. 

Instead, I asked myself, “What do I love? What do I want to talk about?” I liked that question better because it meant I got to write a list. And I really love writing lists. In fact, “making lists” is #20 on my list of things that I like, and it will probably end up with its own episode at some point. I put this list in a spreadsheet, because, well, I also really like spreadsheets. (They’re #65). 

But now that I Heart This has reached the end of its first season, it seems like it's probably time to ask the existential questions that I avoided asking at the beginning.

Because, y’all know, the last thing the world needs is a new podcast. We’ve got enough “influencers” and “personalities” and hucksters and reminders to like and subscribe. We’ve got enough people feeding the algorithms, thank you very much. What good could it possibly do to add yet another voice to the media circus. It’s like shouting into the void. 

Why spend hours of a good life scripting and revising and recording and listening to the same sentence over and over again to edit out all the weird noises my voice makes? 

And … why listen? There are a thousand other things you could tune into to right now. You could listen to the news … or someone who will make you laugh … or financial advice … or, y’know, like nine out of ten podcast listeners, you could tune into an endless and moderately disturbing stream of true crime. 

So, even it is a bit belatedly,  let’s go there. “Who would want to listen to hours and hours of some random guy talking about the things that he loves?” Why gratitude? Why a project like this at all? 

Move over Karl Marx.  It’s a Thanksgiving I Heart This manifesto. 

I’m Ben Lord. You’re listening to “I Heart This.” 

Story of me. 

Kamana Naturalist Training Program. 

First, let me tell you a bit about how I came to be such a gratitude cheerleader in the first place. 

In my mid-twenties, I enrolled in a nature study correspondence course for cavemen. Okay, it wasn’t really a course for aspiring cavemen … but it was for people interested in wilderness survival and wild edible plants and stalking around in the woods and getting close to wildlife. So … y’know … cave man stuff. And it really was a good old-fashioned, pre-Zoom correspondence course. Assignments would arrive in my literal IRL mailbox. And I would use these things called stamps to send envelopes full of my work back to the school. 

About half of these assignments had me researching local animals and plants in books. But the other half were a kind of in-the-woods practicum. The approach was simple. Go to the same spot in the woods every single day. Sit there until all the things I’d scared away relaxed and returned to going about their business. And then … watch. 

Does that sound boring? I guess that sometimes it was. And sometimes it...]]>Thanksgiving: An “I Heart This Manifesto”

Introduction

In October of 2022, I decided to start a podcast about things that I loved. At the time, this seemed like a not-terrible idea. It turns out that I am the world’s foremost authority on things that I love, so I was actually somewhat qualified to speak on the subject. And seeing how it was focused on my own obsessions,it was also pretty much guaranteed to interest me . But mostly, in a media world populated with trolls, cynics, and conspiracy-pedaling gadflies … well … talking about delightful things seemed like a novelty. Like I said, all in all, a not-so-terrible idea. 

The next thing I probably should have asked myself was “Who would want to listen to hours and hours of some random guy talking about the things that he loves?” But I kinda skipped that part. 

Instead, I asked myself, “What do I love? What do I want to talk about?” I liked that question better because it meant I got to write a list. And I really love writing lists. In fact, “making lists” is #20 on my list of things that I like, and it will probably end up with its own episode at some point. I put this list in a spreadsheet, because, well, I also really like spreadsheets. (They’re #65). 

But now that I Heart This has reached the end of its first season, it seems like it's probably time to ask the existential questions that I avoided asking at the beginning.

Because, y’all know, the last thing the world needs is a new podcast. We’ve got enough “influencers” and “personalities” and hucksters and reminders to like and subscribe. We’ve got enough people feeding the algorithms, thank you very much. What good could it possibly do to add yet another voice to the media circus. It’s like shouting into the void. 

Why spend hours of a good life scripting and revising and recording and listening to the same sentence over and over again to edit out all the weird noises my voice makes? 

And … why listen? There are a thousand other things you could tune into to right now. You could listen to the news … or someone who will make you laugh … or financial advice … or, y’know, like nine out of ten podcast listeners, you could tune into an endless and moderately disturbing stream of true crime. 

So, even it is a bit belatedly,  let’s go there. “Who would want to listen to hours and hours of some random guy talking about the things that he loves?” Why gratitude? Why a project like this at all? 

Move over Karl Marx.  It’s a Thanksgiving I Heart This manifesto. 

I’m Ben Lord. You’re listening to “I Heart This.” 

Story of me. 

Kamana Naturalist Training Program. 

First, let me tell you a bit about how I came to be such a gratitude cheerleader in the first place. 

In my mid-twenties, I enrolled in a nature study correspondence course for cavemen. Okay, it wasn’t really a course for aspiring cavemen … but it was for people interested in wilderness survival and wild edible plants and stalking around in the woods and getting close to wildlife. So … y’know … cave man stuff. And it really was a good old-fashioned, pre-Zoom correspondence course. Assignments would arrive in my literal IRL mailbox. And I would use these things called stamps to send envelopes full of my work back to the school. 

About half of these assignments had me researching local animals and plants in books. But the other half were a kind of in-the-woods practicum. The approach was simple. Go to the same spot in the woods every single day. Sit there until all the things I’d scared away relaxed and returned to going about their business. And then … watch. 

Does that sound boring? I guess that sometimes it was. And sometimes it was wicked cold or wet. In June there were swarms of mosquitoes. But not a day went by without something miraculous happening. I found ovenbird nests and watched mother birds feign broken wings to lure me away from their eggs. I watched from a few yards away as a black bear mauled a hemlock sapling to mark its territory. One time, I nearly stepped on an hours-old white-tailed deer fawn, curled into a little oval of spots and legs in the ferns. 

But watching was only the first half of the assignment. Every day, before I left my sit spot, I was supposed to give a litany of thanks. I wouldn’t have to say anything out load. And there was nothing to memorize like the catechisms I had to learn in Catholic school. All I had to do was start with the Earth  and think of the good things it had given me. Then move out in concentric circles. I’d send thanks to the waters, the crawling things, the plants, the trees, the animals … all the way out to the stars. The guiding principle was to treat everything as if it had a wish to be appreciated. 

I wasn’t really looking for a gratitude practice. Mostly I wanted to get good at tracking and and getting close to wildlife. But the effect that this ritual had on my life was unmistakable. 

For years, I’d wrestled with painful anxieties …  repetitive thoughts that would keep me awake for hours each night, afraid of things I knew to be irrational but that I just couldn’t tune out. And over the course of several months, I began to notice that the little thanksgiving prayer that I said on my little pine stump by the sphagnum bog was providing some breathing room. A daily respite from my own neurotic mind.

I remember one afternoon in particular.  I went out with this cloying tension in my gut, feeling like my life would never be right and that there was no escape from the fears that followed me wherever I went. I could hardly pay attention to the woods around me at all. But as I sat on my stump stumbling through my thanksgivings, I was struck by an idea. If I was supposed to “treat everything as if it had a wish to be appreciated,” then wouldn’t that also include my fears. Was there even a reason to be thankful for something so miserable? And even if there was, could I do it? Could I find it in myself to be thankful about something I just  wished … so badly …  to go away. 

The answer, it turned out, was ‘no.’ on both counts. 

The thought didn’t make any of the fears disappear. But they did allow me this moment where I could see more than just my anxieties … a moment where I could be both anxious and grateful at the same time. 

BOSS course. 

Some years later, while on a wilderness survival trip in the high altitude deserts of southern Utah, I leaned on years of gratitude practice, as I faced thirst and hunger and cold. On days when every step felt impossible, I found myself turning my mind explicitly to thankfulness. I would intentionally imagine how much worse my situation could be. And through that, I could feel the discomfort ease. I would turn my eyes to the small beauties. The cacti and birds for whom thirst and hunger were ever-present. 

I remember one evening crawling out of the pile of pine needles that was my only bed to pee. The sun had not yet set, but the clouds were thick with distant storm, and everything had this odd grey light. And I kept thinking of Laura, two thousand miles away and pregnant with our first child. Thunder rumbled and I thought of how fatherhood, was, for me, like the threat of that impending storm. I had so many things I wanted to do in life. And I was afraid of the sacrifices that being a parent would entail. What things would I have to give up? Was I ready to do this biggest, most commonplace thing? And looked at the pine trees in that eerie light as if they would somehow give me the answer. A bolt of lightning flashed to the west. And at first, I thought that the grumbling buzz that I heard was thunder. 

But the sound swooped down over my shoulder like a helicopter. And there, just inches from my nose was a hummingbird, its long needle of a beak pointed right at my face. It was so close, I could feel the air thrown from its wings against my cheek, and I looked into its tiny black eye. 

It must have been only a few seconds, but it felt like an hour. That hummingbird hovered face-to-face with me like it was some kind of messenger. And all I could think about was the baby girl who, in a few short months, would change everything about my life. 

And then it was gone.  

My friends, the world is a big and mysterious place, and I cannot pretend to understand what happened that night or what it had to do with parenthood, but when I packed my few belongings and headed out the next day at noon, I knew that I was ready to be a dad. 

I know that in a previous episode of I Heart This, I’ve told a version of this story--how upon my return to civilization and to home and to family, the fears that had dogged me for years seem to have lost their power over me. They were still there, of course, but I had learned that I could carry them. 

This too, I think, was due to a kind of thankfulness. Those weeks in the desert, when I had done without so much, helped me to see the abundance of my everyday life for what it was. My tiny ramshackle house was so warm and so bright. The water was hot at the turn of a knob. There were people there who loved me. I was rich beyond measure. I had walked in the footsteps of our human ancestors for only a few weeks, but that was all it took to see the extravagance of modern life for what it is. Gratitude wasn’t just a way to endure hardships or soothe anxiety. It was the secret to seeing the world for what it really was. 

Surface reasons

Gratitude is kind of a thing in certain circles right now. It’s not like a Harry-Potter-like sensation or anything, but gratitude evangelists have carved out their own little pop culture niche. There are books and TED talks and the occasional inspirational quotes that make their rounds in the social media meme confetti. There are several reasons that people tout for cultivating an attitude of thankfulness. But most of the discourse centers around one big reason, the promise that gratitude makes you happy. 

Surface reasons 1: Happiness 

In a much-cited 2003 study, Robert Emmons et al. asked their subjects to write stuff down in a journal. They asked some to write down five things that they were thankful for, others to write down five hassles, others to write just five major events from the week. They did this for ten weeks, and at the end of each week, the subjects reported on a whole battery of things: their life satisfaction, their health, etc. And what did they find? Not just that the gratitude-journalers said they were happier, but they also said that they had fewer headaches and coughs, fewer symptoms of any kind. They even reported that they did more exercise. Other studies have replicated these results. 

In one of them, Martin Seligman compared a battery of different happiness interventions. His sample included more than 400 people. (And, incidentally, their control assignment, to write about early memories, was very clever.) The intervention with, by far, the greatest effect was for a subject to write and deliver a letter of appreciation and thanks to someone who had been kind to them. Even a month later, without any other interventions, the letter-writers still reported being happier than any of the other groups. 

There’s a growing body of such studies, and they’ve led some people to claim that a regular gratitude practice is a kind of happiness panacea, a good life wonder drug. But… it’s devilishly hard not to fool yourself about such things. There are placebo effects. The line between correlation and causation is often unclear. And how does someone really measure happiness? It is easy to exaggerate and over extrapolate. 

Real progress has been made in positive psychology, but no one has yet found a secret to happiness. Mostly, and quite usefully, psychologists have corroborated common sense:  Exercise, get enough sleep, spend time with friends, and be grateful for the good things you have. It’s a mundane list … But gratitude is on that list! Based on the evidence, it really does seem that a regular habit of being grateful for your blessings will make you happier.

The evidence might be limited. But, limited evidence is all we’ve got. And I, for one, am not about to sit around and wait for certainty that will never come. Thankfulness seems as likely as anything to make me happy. And it seems to be a surer bet for my long-term well-being than making more money, nabbing more likes or followers, getting nicer things … surer even than finding a loving romantic partner.  

In short, gratitude seems to be a critical ingredient to a happy life.   

Surface Reasons Counterargument 

Distraction 

But, hold on just a second there, Mr. crunchy granola Vermont guy! You might live in your little hippy, yoga commune. Happy or not, the rest of us have other things to do besides updating our gratitude journals. Sitting in the woods and doing your little Thanksgiving ritual isn’t going to pay the bills or keep the lights on. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the world outside your little Christmas ski village is in trouble. Fascist and demagogues are rising to power around the world. Democracy is eroding. The rich are getting richer on the backs of the poor. Even the Earth systems that our whole civilization relies on are imploding. And the suits who are in charge do little more than wave their arms and make empty promises. 

What if gratitude is a distraction from the fact that shit is going down? What if the bumper sticker is right? If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.  

Pollyanna-ism 

Are you going to be just another voice in the chorus of toxic positivity that tells everyone to “consider their own self-care” while simultaneously assigning them more uncompensated responsibilities? That is the kind of thing that shames people for not being happy and cheery all the time… for not being grateful enough. 

‘Cause news flash, Pollyanna, we shouldn’t have to be glad all the time. Sometimes we have really good reasons to NOT be grateful. To complain about things that really ARE unfair. And you don’t get to tell other people, especially people who’ve inherited centuries of disadvantage, that they should be “grateful for what they have.” 

Surface Reasons Rebuttal

And, yeah, I wouldn’t argue with any of that. They are all good cautions. But I would say this. 

I once attended a conference of yoga teachers who had gathered to talk about the environmental disaster. Everyone there was terribly earnest in their concerns. Some were angry. Some were afraid. Some were hopeful. Some were full of despair. Some people seemed to want to get beyond the feelings and just get down to work  … to do something, though it was seldom clear just what exactly that was. But the voice that struck me most was of one teacher who had, only a few months before, sat by her mother’s hospice bed and watched her die. And amidst all of the discussion of what to do about an ill and maybe even dying earth, she said … very quietly … when my mom was dying … I did what I could to make her comfortable and then I held her hand … and I told her that I loved her … even when she couldn’t hear. 

Gratitude isn’t an emotional eraser. It’s never going to replace grief or our anger. But it can exist right alongside them. Inviting thankfulness into our hearts doesn’t mean that the other guests have to leave.  

And there is no reason to be inauthentic about that. I don’t look for reasons I “should” be grateful. I just pay attention to what I am grateful for. There are lots of moments when I’m too sad or grumpy to sing the praises of anything … And that’s okay … But it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye out for blessings when the come. 

Nor do I think it’s my place to tell other people that they “should” be grateful. Hell, if I know what anyone should do. 

Yes, there is work to do. Yes, the world needs us. Maybe it even needs our righteous anger and our complaints. But it also needs our admiration. And it needs us to hold its hand … and remember the good things that it has done for us, and for us to tell it we love it … whether it can hear us or not. 

Deeper Reasons: Meaninglessness, Nihilism, Relativism

So, yes, I do believe that paying attention to and praising the things we love is good for us, even in a world that needs more than just our gratitude. But there are other, and I think, more important reasons to live a life of thanksgiving. Happiness is wonderful. But most of us would give it up for something greater. People do it all the time--for the prosperity of their children, for creative work that will enrich the lives of others, for faith, for justice … for love. Meaning trumps happiness. 

Several years ago, I wouldn’t have given much thought to this. But since then, I have seen something that makes “meaning” impossible to ignore. A widespread and spreading despair among the teens that I work with. I see it in their faces. But it isn’t something that I need to infer. They are frank about their hopelessness. More kids than ever come from homes damaged by drug addiction. They live in a world that seems to be quickly unraveling, and the adults who hold the reigns seem unable or unwilling to try and hold it together. They tell me things like, “Human destroy everything they touch.” “Nobody’s going to stop it as long as there’s money to be made.” and worst of all “It doesn’t matter, the world I want to live in will be gone by the time I get there.” 

And then they turn their faces back to the screens of their phones and feed that despair with news of the latest outrage, the latest shooting, the latest war. 

Those kids need meaning right now. Desperately. And we are experiencing a global deficit of it--right at a time when the last thing we can least afford the paralysis it brings. Where do we find the meaning we so desperately need. 

The world IS meaningless

I took a few philosophy classes in college. But instead of following the normal sequence and starting with a survey course, I skipped all of the pre-requisites and jumped straight into classes on Heidegger and Wittgenstein. I mean, what pre-requisites did you really need for a philosophy class? I’d had some pretty intense conversations with my scouting buddies. Like-- 

“Hey, man, did you ever think about the fact that right now there might be some aliens from that star looking up at our sun and wondering whether there might be alien life? Think about it.” 

“Dude. That’s deep.” 

“Hey, pull my finger.” 

Needless to say, when I got into said classes, I was clearly in over my head. I’d expected to be talk about how to live a good life and what its meaning might be. But mostly we talked about the nature of being and time, rules of formal and...]]>4b0028f7-2702-4d51-8caf-51bf48cf8570Sun, 19 Nov 2023 05:00:00 -050041:52falsefull112121Field Guides: Voices of the AncestorsColin Tudge's amazing book, The Variety of Life is not a field guide, but it is a survey and celebration of all the things that have ever lived. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Newcomb's Wildflower Guide truly is the most effective key that I have ever used. Positively genius.

A Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs by George Petrides is the best guide to woody plants in my region.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's first widely distributed field guide was Flore Francaise.

Lawrence Griffings paper about Richard Waller's rediscovered key can be found in its entirety here.

The National Library of Medicine has this amazing series of blog posts on the history of herbals and floras, books that were the precursors to field guides in medieval Europe.

Cornell Ornithology Lab's Merlin app really is amazing and is available to download for free.

Fresh Notebooks

When I was a kid, the best thing about school was getting new notebooks. Man, I loved ‘em. All those crisp, blank pages just called out to be filled. Some kids like to draw, and yeah, I had a fair number of doodles in the lined leaves of my Steno 5-subject, but that wasn't the real reason I loved all that fresh paper. And, yeah, I also wrote the occasional story in the back pages of my math or my science notebooks, but that wasn’t really it either. The big reason I got so stoked every August for back to school shopping was  … for actually taking notes.

I know, right? Nerd from the womb.

But it's true. I took notes on everything--my classes, of course, but not just them. I'd take notes on library books about the rise of the Roman Empire, on the birds I saw at the feeder. I took notes on what Garfield did in the Sunday comics, and schemes for the most efficient way to clean my room … and dinosaurs, of course, lots and lots of dinosaurs.

That might seem like a weird thing to love, I know, but it’s not that different from those fans of Mary Kondo or the self-help section of Barnes and Noble. There is something deeply satisfying, about everything having its place, something seductive about the thought that this wild and contradictory and complicated life could all somehow make sense if we could just get it organized. I just happen to have always been the guy who liked to organize ideas into instead of towels and linens into closets. 

After buying fresh office supplies, my second favorite thing about school was getting textbooks, especially if they were new, and I was the first person to write my name on the little plate on the inside front cover. “Name Ben Lord, Condition: new.” I had barely gotten them covered with those trusty paper shopping bags before I’d start flipping through the pages, looking at the math symbols I didn't understand, or the diagrams of a cell or the timelines of world history. Now here were some programs you could sink your teeth into. You could learn everything there was to know, all you had to do was start at page one and work your way through step-by-step. 

All of this is to say, I guess, that if anyone was ever set up to love school, it was me. Maybe it’s destiny or maybe it’s DNA but there is something in me that is uniquely and inherently built for school. What better place for a guy who loved programs and systems and step-by-step directions. 

So why for most of my schooling was I so abjectly miserable?

This episode of “I Heart This,” like all of our episodes, is a love story--the story of my love affair with school. But this story is a troubled one. It’s not just the feel-good rom-com kind of tale; it's less Bridget Jones diary and more Charles and Camilla. It’s a story of youthful dreams and disappointment. Of being excluded and of finding my place. And it’s a story about what happens when one of your favorite things … is taking notes. It took me a long time to appreciate school for what it really was. Here’s how I got there. I’m Ben Lord. You’re listening to “I Heart This.”

Middle School

On my first day at Joseph A. DePaulo Junior High School, eleven-year-old me walked into an auditorium so full that I couldn't see an open place to sit. My last school had been a tiny affair. Its entire student body would have easily fit in the first few rows here. And, on top of that, it had been in another town. So … in all of that giant room’s hormonal pandemonium … in that crowd of hundreds and hundreds of teenagers, I saw not a single  … familiar  … face. I knew nobody. I’m sure I was standing there, frozen, wondering what to do, when a deep-voiced teacher bellowed over at me to hurry up and find a seat instead of clogging up the aisle. 

Once the staff had finally...]]>IHT Ep 010 School

Fresh Notebooks

When I was a kid, the best thing about school was getting new notebooks. Man, I loved ‘em. All those crisp, blank pages just called out to be filled. Some kids like to draw, and yeah, I had a fair number of doodles in the lined leaves of my Steno 5-subject, but that wasn't the real reason I loved all that fresh paper. And, yeah, I also wrote the occasional story in the back pages of my math or my science notebooks, but that wasn’t really it either. The big reason I got so stoked every August for back to school shopping was  … for actually taking notes.

I know, right? Nerd from the womb.

But it's true. I took notes on everything--my classes, of course, but not just them. I'd take notes on library books about the rise of the Roman Empire, on the birds I saw at the feeder. I took notes on what Garfield did in the Sunday comics, and schemes for the most efficient way to clean my room … and dinosaurs, of course, lots and lots of dinosaurs.

That might seem like a weird thing to love, I know, but it’s not that different from those fans of Mary Kondo or the self-help section of Barnes and Noble. There is something deeply satisfying, about everything having its place, something seductive about the thought that this wild and contradictory and complicated life could all somehow make sense if we could just get it organized. I just happen to have always been the guy who liked to organize ideas into instead of towels and linens into closets. 

After buying fresh office supplies, my second favorite thing about school was getting textbooks, especially if they were new, and I was the first person to write my name on the little plate on the inside front cover. “Name Ben Lord, Condition: new.” I had barely gotten them covered with those trusty paper shopping bags before I’d start flipping through the pages, looking at the math symbols I didn't understand, or the diagrams of a cell or the timelines of world history. Now here were some programs you could sink your teeth into. You could learn everything there was to know, all you had to do was start at page one and work your way through step-by-step. 

All of this is to say, I guess, that if anyone was ever set up to love school, it was me. Maybe it’s destiny or maybe it’s DNA but there is something in me that is uniquely and inherently built for school. What better place for a guy who loved programs and systems and step-by-step directions. 

So why for most of my schooling was I so abjectly miserable?

This episode of “I Heart This,” like all of our episodes, is a love story--the story of my love affair with school. But this story is a troubled one. It’s not just the feel-good rom-com kind of tale; it's less Bridget Jones diary and more Charles and Camilla. It’s a story of youthful dreams and disappointment. Of being excluded and of finding my place. And it’s a story about what happens when one of your favorite things … is taking notes. It took me a long time to appreciate school for what it really was. Here’s how I got there. I’m Ben Lord. You’re listening to “I Heart This.”

Middle School

On my first day at Joseph A. DePaulo Junior High School, eleven-year-old me walked into an auditorium so full that I couldn't see an open place to sit. My last school had been a tiny affair. Its entire student body would have easily fit in the first few rows here. And, on top of that, it had been in another town. So … in all of that giant room’s hormonal pandemonium … in that crowd of hundreds and hundreds of teenagers, I saw not a single  … familiar  … face. I knew nobody. I’m sure I was standing there, frozen, wondering what to do, when a deep-voiced teacher bellowed over at me to hurry up and find a seat instead of clogging up the aisle. 

Once the staff had finally gotten everyone’s attention, an administrator in a suit welcomed us from a podium on the stage and proceeded to lay down the law. Junior high school was different, he informed us. It was more serious. And we were expected to step up. No irresponsibility would be tolerated. This junior high school had rules to encourage us to do what was right. And if you didn’t do what you were supposed to, there were punishments. Fail to bring a pencil to class? Detention. Homework not turned in? Detention. Late to class? Detention. And to be clear, you were late to class if you weren’t in your seat ready to go when the bell rang. Maybe this approach actually worked to curb the delinquency of my peers. I don't know. What I do know is that the terrified gerbil of my heart was so scared that for all of 7th grade I ran through the halls to my next class for fear of being late.

To be honest, I don't remember much of seventh grade … at least, not in terms of actual events. What I do remember is the tight, writhing, clawing anxiety that radiated out from my abdomen for six and half hours straight almost every single day. And I remember how much energy it took to hide just how frightened I really was. It wasn’t the fact that there were rules that made me anxious. I liked a program. I was so with the program. The problem was the draconian punishment for making mistakes that I knew I would inevitably make. I lost my pencils all the time. And sometimes I left my homework on my desk at home instead of remembering to put it in my backpack. I was eleven, after all! 

And that’s why I ran from class to class. And everybody else noticed. 

I’d always been a social misfit. In elementary school, I was the kind of kid who tried so hard to make friends that I tended to make a fool of myself. But in 7th grade, I reached a new pinnacle of awkwardness. I was nearly a year younger than any other 7th graders and six inches shorter than most. I wore glasses and was in desperate need of orthodontics that I wouldn't wear until high school. And most damningly, I’d spent the last seven years wearing a button down dress shirt and clip-on tie to school as part of Our Lady of Mercy’s uniform. So, in the early days, I wore collared shirts and plaids and sweatshirts with wolves on them. I had no idea how to dress myself like an American teenager in the late 1980s. And everybody noticed that too.  

There were a million reasons to make fun of me and my fellow students who found every goddamn one.

The cruelty that these things inspired in the kids around me was on a scale that I had a hard time comprehending. It was like a vast conspiracy. Somehow, every single one of the six hundred kids in that school seemed to know that I was an acceptable target for whatever frustration they were feeling. How that could happen when most of them didn’t even know my name still mystifies me. 

Kids would point and laugh and jeer at me in the halls for no reason I could fathom. They would grab my backpack as I raced through the halls to trip me up. They would knock piles of textbooks out of my hands. Name your stereotype of a bullied kit, and I experienced it. Right down to the kick me sign taped to my backpack and the thumbtacks on my chair

I was so friendless and alone that in 8th grade … when, for the first time in over a year, a few kids started talking to me like I was a human being … at first, I didn't even answer them because I was so sure that they were just setting me up for some kind of torment.

I should have been loving school. It was a well-equipped school on a nice campus in a prosperous town. My classes were mostly good. My teachers were mostly kind. I was working hard and learning a lot. But a school isn’t a building or a curriculum. It’s a group of people. No matter how good your attitude or how much you’re a team player … no matter how much you might love to learn, or how willing you are to go with the program … school is miserable if people are cruel to you. It is its own kind of hell.

Another Reason

But even though that isolation was the most painful part of junior high school, there was another conflict growing between me and school as well. One that would grow over time. One that would cut right to the very purpose of school. 

It started with types of conversation that adults would have with me. Neighbors and extended family and acquaintances of my parents who would ask me about school, and then, in short order, ask me “So what are you thinking about doing?” And by this they only meant one thing. What are you going to be doing for work? 

This wasn’t unique to me, of course. The messages were everywhere. Some classmates would get paid for every A they earned. Parents exhorted kids to take school seriously because, they said, “school is your job right now.” The message was clear … all of those classes and rules were there for one thing--to turn us into workers. I was awakening to a suspicion that school was just one incarnation, one facet, of a society that destroyed its environment and treated its members like cogs in a great money-making machine. 

I don't really know what my fellow students felt about this plan, but I found this collective obsession about my work destiny to be maddening. I was not excited to join the workforce. Most of the adults around me seemed stuck in lives of meaningless drudgery. They were consumed by worries and schedules and responsibilities. It was like a hypnotic spell that had somehow captured all the grown-ups around me. 

But I didn’t want to grow up only to molder away in a soulless job to pay for an oversized house, only to spend the weekend mowing the lawn and worrying about what the neighbors might think. I wanted to travel light. I wanted to follow my heart. I wanted to see beautiful places. I would stay true to myself. I wanted to read great books and maybe write some of my own. I wanted to find a life of adventure. 

If school was about the terribly serious business of making a living, I wasn’t sure that I wanted much to do with it. 

Tom Brown 

As you can probably tell, my relationship with school about halfway through my 7th grade year, was at a low point. That’s when I was admitted to the school's gifted and talented program. I’m not exactly sure how it was determined that I was gifted, or what I was gifted with. But the fact that I was had ramifications for the rest of my life. Practically what it meant was that I could go twice a week to hang out with Mr. Cipollini, (whom everyone called Cip) a good humored computer geek who would give us codes and ciphers and math puzzles to solve. Or Mrs. Bourjian, who would help me write stories, and tell me about how much she loved Mark Twain.

It was Cip who gave me a copy of the book that would have the most profound influence on my young life, and most importantly for this tale, deeply affect the way I thought and felt about school. 

“I bet this would be right up your alley,” he said one spring day and handed me Tom Brown's field guide to nature observation and tracking

That night, I settled into bed to read it. By the second paragraph of the introduction, I had thrown off my covers. And … omigosh … By the third, I was jumping up and down like I had found a secret map to Shangri La.

The book was a wild mix of tall tales, old fashioned natural history, Boy Scout skills, and homespun new age philosophy, all dressed up in a bunch of appropriated Indian tropes. But the way Tom Brown tells it, he was taken on as an apprentice by an Apache tracker who he met in the pine barrens of southern New Jersey. He studied under this mentor for ten years, and learned from him how to stalk so stealthily that he could creep up on and touch a deer … how to track animals and people so well that he could find the traces of their passage across bare rock … and how to survive so effortlessly in the wild that he could be at home anywhere with nothing but a pocketknife. And by following the exercises in his books and putting in enough dirt time, I could learn all of that too. 

Someone else might have read that same introduction and written him off as a huckster or a cult leader. But I was not someone else. I was a lonely outcast 12 year old boy who loved nature and books and notetaking and methods. And here was this method, this perfect method. As badass as any secret shaolin kung fu training. 

If I followed this method I could become a magician. I could be the Daniel-san to Tom Brown’s, Mr Miyagi or the young Skywalker to a master Yoda … and I could climb my way out of an ordinary life to become somebody wise and powerful. But this wasn’t just about mastery. It was also about purpose and meaning and … most of all … freedom. 

Freedom. 

This was an escape route from the soulless destiny of the Connecticut suburbs. If I could live “at one with the Earth” as Tom promised I could, then I’d never need to get a job. I would always be able to get what I needed. I would be free in a way that the people around me could scarcely imagine. 

Over the next few weeks a plan formed in my mind. 

With Tom Brown’s magical books in hand, I would practice my outdoor skills until I became the veritable Kwai Chang Cain of wilderness lore. I would free myself of the wage slavery that everyone else assumed was destiny. I'd use the woods behind my house as a training group and build secret, camouflaged shelters back there and learn to hunt and forage for my food. And then, when it came time for me to leave home, just like the David Karradine character from the old Kung Fu series, I would wander like the wind wherever my heart was moved to go. 

And I wouldn’t just do this for myself. I would do it like some wilderness bodhisattva for the liberation of all. I would be a wilderness evangelist, a traveling missionary of the woods, teaching people the things that would make them just as free as I was. 

I asked my mom to buy every single one of his field guides, and then the books that were sold as memoirs and, as you do, I filled notebook after notebook with outlines of each one.

I recognized this as a kind of education too, but the education that Tom Brown described was so different from what I was experiencing in school. This wasn’t about earning a mark or remembering some words for a quiz. This wasn’t about bells or schedules or course sequences or prerequisites. According to the stories, Tom’s mentor guided him with hints and tricks. He would teach Tom only when he was certain that he burned with a need to know. As Tom says in the Tracker, “When [he] gave us a test, it was not a test in the sense that it could be graded. It was a way of knowing what to work on next. The importance of the test was not the results, but what we did with them.” 

As you might guess, this new aesthetic was not exactly sympatico with the reality of my school life. And as junior high school gave way to high school, the tension between my view of education and society’s view of schooling would grow into one of the biggest fights of my life. 

School as Control & Domestication

With this new perspective, I began to notice all kinds of things about school that I’d previously taken for granted. 

And I began to see that school wasn’t just about learning. It was also about control Its bells. Its hall passes. It’s prison-like plan for exactly where every single student would be at every second of the day. Its endless lists of rules which were as inflexible as they were absurd. When my wife, Laura, was in school, she ended up in detention because she'd been absent when the new sign in procedure to the library had been introduced. And so she hadn’t signed the right paper at the right time while she was there, she’d was marked as having “cut” her class. Which, I have to point out, wasn’t even a class. It was the freaking library. And despite the fact that 10 other students and both librarians could testify to the fact that she was there and had been there for the whole period … no exceptions could be made. While serving this detention, she sat next to a kid who was there because he was setting the pocket of his lacrosse stick with a butter knife to hold the ball in place. He was there … Get this … for bringing a weapon to school.

My brother, one of the quietest and most compliant kids who has probably ever lived. Once got detention for being late to school … when he had taken the bus. I have no idea if the bus-driver had to serve a detention for this, but everyone else on the bus he drove had to serve one … despite the incredulous calls of our frustrated parents … rules are rules you know. 

Meanwhile, in an act of Orwellian doublespeak that would have made Big Brother proud.The high school administration instituted a program for continuous school improvement called Q + … designed to “give students a voice in their school.” This radical and progressive policy basically amounted to … a glorified suggestion box, which of course students stuffed with profane and frivolous suggestions. A few heartfelt ones that called for sensible changes (like maybe it would be nice if students could eat their lunch outside once in a while) were summarily ignored without official comment, and one idea (I think about motorcycle parking) which.was easy because it only involved painting some lines in the parking lot was actually implemented. Our principal could trot it out every time he talked to the school board about our blue ribbon school.

School, it turned out, was easy to criticize. It would have been so simple just to hate school in a storm of teenaged pique. But as my high school career progressed, it was a place that I increasingly enjoyed … despite myself … and for reasons that I could scarcely have predicted. First, high school just wasn’t junior high school. It was huge and anonymous. But now these very things that had terrified me about junior high were now golden opportunities to remake myself. Suddenly I was surrounded by kids who didn't know that I was the designated nerd and whipping post. And in high school, gods be praised, all of my classes were tracked. AP. honors. standard. and  remedial. We all got sorted into levels based on test scores and last year's grades. Say what you want about the classist injustices of the system. I have no doubt that they are true, but being in honors classes saved my life. Most of the bullies who had tormented me for three long years (20% of my short life) ended up somewhere else. And I found myself in classrooms full of smart, ambitious kids who weren't afraid to take school seriously and didn't see those things as a fault in me. For the first time since the 6th grade, I had people who would talk to me, whose company I enjoyed, and as the semesters went by, I even came to call friends. 

And on top of it  … I loved learning things and reading and writing essays and taking notes. I was good at learning. And that, as it does for most people, it made me feel good about myself. 

My heart was perplexed on the matter. On the one hand, what a sublime delight it was to have friends after years of being shunned and humiliated. On the other hand, we were also stuck in this atmosphere of rigid...]]>932a115e-d398-4716-956e-954b3b833423Fri, 15 Sep 2023 05:00:00 -050001:03:14falsefull110101Mount Desert Island or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love TourismRobin Hood: I cannot find the version of the legend of Robin Hood that I read on my grandfather's shelves when I was young. The book was old, maybe over a hundred years. The glue in the binding had long since crumbled. I remember that the one that I read was written in verse. But you know how memory is. All of this information is suspect. Anyway, if you're interested in this older version of the story, it made its way into the popular novelization of the story written by Howard Pyle called The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood which was published in 1883 and can be found here in both print and audio.

Park History: I highly recommend The National Parks: America's Best Idea, which includes the story of Acadia as well as many other iconic parks.

Tourism and Rolf Potts: My thoughts on travel, tourism, and tourists has been greatly influenced by a small but remarkable book by Rolf Potts called Vagabonding. If you are a traveler, you've got to read this book. If you aren't, this book will make you one.

Public Piano: Here's some pics.

Special thanks to my daughter, Eva Lord, for providing the voice of America's voicemail message.

Tisallee

Actually, this is my wife, Laura's, story. She went for years believing that Tisallee was America's other name before someone straightened her out in the third grade.

Mountains of California

When I was 15, I got to fly across the country to work in the backcountry of the Sierra National Forest with a Student Conservation Association trail crew. I would recommend it to any young person who loves wild places. And while the over-the-top eroticization of the landscape here is hyperbolic, I really did swoon over mountains and waterfalls all summer. I like to think that I was exuberant. My fellow trail crew members, however, usually described me as giddy.

Africa

This is a true story as best as I (and my wife who accompanied me) can remember it. This particular excursion was a kind of "bonus" to a safari that we'd gone on through Kruger National Park. Neither of us had any idea that it was part of the package. But it was as influential in my life as seeing one of the greatest wildlife parks in the world.

Farmstand

This farmstand is also a real place, a place that is still just down the road from the town where I now live. Walker Farm is a 250 year old organic farm. Their heirloom tomatoes are amazing.

American Poetry

"The Gold of Her Promise" is from Maya Angelou's poem "America." "Let America be the dream" is from Langston Hugh's poem "Let America be America Again." Both of these poems manage to celebrate America and indict her at the same time. And they are both beautiful. "I Hear America Singing" is from the eponymous poem by Walt Whitman. The re-imagining of "My Country, Tis of Thee" was written by Libby Roderick, the Alaskan folk singer. Her 1990 album, "If You See a Dream" is passionate and wise and was the soundtrack to my first summer in Vermont. The final track on that album, "America, America" ends with this lyric.

Check out:

• some video footage of an imploding tanker car.
• this famous illustration of Otto Von Guericke's magical Magdeburg sphere.

You can watch Captain Fantastic on Amazon Prime Video if you already subscribe. Or you can rent or buy it on iTunes or Google Play.

I owe a great debt to Sheila O'Malley. Her review led to so many insights about art. story, politics, the way we think about "raising" children, and the way we think about movies. You can read her review of Captain Fantastic on rogerebert.com.

My thinking about how we parent and school our children has been greatly influenced by the Sudbury Valley School and their radical experiments in democratic education as well as my own experiences with democratic education at College of the Atlantic, a place that I am profoundly grateful to have been a part.

Do you love Captain Fantastic? Do you NOT love it? Send me a message at ben@iheartthispodcast.com. Tell me about your thoughts on the movie.

Don't forget to visit iheartthispodcast.com to find more things to love.

Visit iheartthispodcast.com to find more things to love.

This story about John Muir can be found in many sources, but my favorite is the one as told by Lee Stetson in his Evening with John Muir one-man stage production that I first saw in Yosemite Valley when I was 12 years old.

Carlos Castaneda, for those who don't know, was a cult-leader who passed off a fictional account of an apprenticeship with a "sorcerer" as fact. Originally published as a master's thesis at UCLA (ha!), The Teachings of Don Juan centered on peyote-induced hallucinations and captured the imaginations of the 1960s counterculture. But I still love this quote. Just goes to show that even charlatans can get it right sometimes … even if just by accident.

And, of course, visit iheartthispodcast.com to find more things to love.

Root beer is the tastiest thing ever! But like all comforts and pleasures, it comes with a cost. How do we love something that's not good for us or for our planet?

For an account of my adventures brewing my own traditional root beer with foraged ingredients check out this article that wrote for the fantastic Northern Woodlands magazine. And if you want to read more about my early adventures in foraging, check out my old blog, The Foraging Family.

If you're interested in foraging yourself, I highly recommend the incomparable works of Samuel Thayer as a place to get started.

Check out this New York Times Magazine article on the barbaric history of sugar.

Here's a source for John Muir's quote, "Eat bread in the mountains ..."

Check out some of my favorite libraries:

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library: Check out the wild architecture of this place--an enormous glass-encased tower of rare books and manuscripts (including the Voynich Manuscript), housed in an exoskeleton of translucent marble.

The library where I grew up--Southington Public.

The library where I had the best job ever (and where I still go to work and write)--Landmark College Library.

My current library--Putney Public.

And of course the magical library that starts off this episode--the Williston Library at Mount Holyoke College.

Send me a message at ben@iheartthispodcast.com. Tell me your stories of library love.

Visit iheartthispodcast.com to find more things to love.

It's the easiest thing to take for granted. But there is no guarantee that a planet gets a blue sky. How did we get so lucky? We look at the science behind our blue sky and end up amazed and grateful.

For more information check out That Time Oxygen Almost Killed Everything from the awesome folks at PBS Eons.

Carbon dioxide deepens the color of the atmosphere in the infrared portion of the spectrum (both by increasing the atmosphere's opacity and reradiating energy in the infrared part of the spectrum). Check out this cool data visualization to see how carbon dioxide and other gases affect the "color" of the atmosphere.

Send me a message. (ben@iheartthispodcast.com) Tell me what you love about Earth's blue sky.

Visit iheartthispodcast.com to find more things to love.

Thanks for checking out "I Heart This." I hope you find lots of things to love here.

I'm always on the look-out for new things to be thankful for. Want to share one with me? Send me a message at ben@iheartthispodcast.com and tell me your stories.

You can also visit iheartthispodcast.com to find more things to love. hopefully by the time you do, there will actually something there.