The Creative Process in 10 minutes or less · Arts, Culture & Society: Books, Film, Music, TV, Art, Writing, Creativity, Education, Environment, Theatre, Dance, LGBTQ, Climate Change, Sustainability, Social Justice, Spirituality, Feminism, Technology

How do writers develop their voice, showing us what is important in life?

ADA LIMÓN (24th U.S. Poet Laureate, Startlement, The Carrying) explains that her poetry begins with a bodily sensation or curiosity, not an idea. She values the space and breath poetry offers for unknowing and mystery, finding solace in the making and the mess, not in answers. She discusses being free on the page to be her whole, authentic, complicated self.

JAY PARINI (Author, Filmmaker, Borges and Me) calls poetry the prince of literary arts—language refined to its apex of mem...

How can we use negative spaces in fiction to engage with readers’ imaginations? How are memory and trauma passed onto us through language? How do we become more than the stories we tell ourselves?

KATIE KITAMURA (Author, Audition, Intimacies) emphasizes that a book is created in collaboration with the reader, using negative spaces in the narrative structure to allow for reader interpretation, paralleling the space between audience and actor in performance.

PAUL LYNCH (Booker Prize-winning Novelist, Prophet Song) discusses the richness and slipperiness of the English language in Ireland, shaped by the overlay of English on...

“ I think we're betting on AI as something that can help to solve a lot of problems for us. It's the future, we think, whether it's producing text or art, or doing medical research or planning our lives for us, etc., the bet is that AI is going to be great, that it's going to get us everything we want and make everything better. But at the same time, we're gambling, at the extreme end, with the future of humanity  , hoping for the best and hoping that this, what I'm calling the AI wager, is going to work out to our...

Today’s episode is about something most of us long for: feeling healthy in our bodies and calm in our minds – not by pushing harder, but by letting the body restore itself. Our guest today is LD Chen, an entrepreneur-turned-author who discovered the ancient wisdom that healing doesn’t come from trying harder, but from restoring the body’s natural intelligence. LD believes everyone has the right to live peacefully and free from constant stress and anxiety – to move through life with genuine joy, peace, and appreciation. After quickly building a 1,000-person company and then facing burnout and serious health iss...

“People today are so used to Basquiat's prices being extraordinarily high and rising that it's almost hard for people to understand that wasn't always the case. In the year he died, 1988, a terrific painting by Basquiat might have sold for $30,000. Relative to his other artistic peers, like a great Julian Schnabel painting that cost $800,000. After Basquiat died, some speculative capital entered his market, and his prices did pop, but in the early 1990s, his prices fell apart, and for much of the first half of the 1990s, his work was selling for 80% off what it had been selling before. Au...

“How do you render something interior filmically? How do you communicate the details of the lost child, of the amount of time of the stuck creative process, and even the exterior, or the externalization of the house as a kind of hellish thing that's barely staying together—literally flooding with waste—and that you can't afford? So those are the details that we had to carefully figure out how to weave. But, you know, when you look at the first 10 minutes, it could be a horror movie. From that moment, a lot can happen. But what's important about it is tha...

“I can change my mind. I can reduce anger, hatred. Nothing to do with religion. All religions carry the message of love, loving kindness, and tolerance. With different views, there is a possibility to synthesize new ideas. If majority of the world leaders become female, world become safer. I feel that. Compassion is the key factor. Non-violence, compassion and self-confidence, these are key factors for happy individual, happy community, peaceful world. This century should be century of compassion, century of peace. No more bloodshed. We should develop a big “we,” rather than “we” or “they.” With these wings, you can fly.” -DAL...

“So when we decided to do a documentary to follow Ai Weiwei, we knew, of course, it wouldn't be just a simple opera, and we knew he would bring his own very special and original vision. Because, of course, he is not an opera director. From his point of view, it's a challenge, but from another perspective, it’s probably an enrichment for the opera audience because he doesn't follow the rules of opera. And, of course, once you decide to do a documentary about Ai Weiwei, it's in his DNA to be political. Once I started to follow him...

How do our environments shape who we are and how we care for the world and each other? There are many solutions to climate change, inequality, and poverty around the world. How can we learn from them and transform our society?

Eiren Caffall (All the Water in the World) discusses the importance of embracing complexity and emotional flexibility in facing ecological grief.

Irvin Weathersby Jr. (In Open Contempt) discusses the transformative power of meditation and nature, drawing inspiration from Emerson and Thoreau.

Jay Parini (Biographies of Steinbeck, Frost, Faulkner…) on the significance of pl...

“At Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, I work with a very international team—people from all over the world, around 50 nationalities in this museum. I’ve never worked in such an environment, and it’s inspiring. When you talk to someone from a different country, you can’t help but be inspired. The most important thing for me is to feel fulfilled, and I find fulfillment in learning something new and being inspired every day. Of course, it doesn’t have to be the same for everyone. People can find fulfillment in charity or teaching kids. Everyone chooses what makes them feel fulfill...

“This awe that I feel every time I meet an artist who has the courage to deal with what it means to be in the world as a human being and to tackle it from different ways and through different media. I always feel that through the collaborations I have with artists, I learn a little bit more about the world, myself, my feelings or emotions, and how I reflect on things. Getting another person's perspective and taking that in is extremely generous. What we can take with us from the artistic practices we encounter is significant. Again, I thi...

“I feel that when you don't tell your story, it's as if you have a limited existence. We can always have some kind of choice, but I'm saying that the story we choose may be the most crucial choice that we make, because this story will affect all the other choices.”

Etgar Keret is one of the most inventive and celebrated short story writers of his generation, a voice that captures the absurdities and profound loneliness of modern life with a deceptive, almost casual wit. His work, translated into dozens of languages, uses fantastical premises—from alien visita...

In this time of rapid technological change, how do we hold onto our humanity? How do stories, traditions, and community help us find meaning in loss and face an uncertain future? How can science, art, and spirituality open new pathways to understanding ourselves and the human experience?

PAUL SHRIVASTAVA (Co-President of The Club of Rome) discusses the need for a holistic, eco-civilizational future, emphasizing that science, technology, and economics are important but not the whole picture. He urges us to design our own lives and livelihoods to meet diverse ecological futures, and later highlights the importance of...

"For the last two decades, I've made over 20 films about the environment, starting with oil and carbon emissions. Those films, Kiss the Ground and now Common Ground, talk about how we can stabilize the climate, reverse climate change, grow nutrient-dense food, and help farmers make a profit through biodiversity and regenerative practices and principles.

There's incredible intelligence in nature; it knows how to be resilient. We thought we could do it better, and in trying to mechanize and industrialize the entire system, we created a linear system that doesn’t make sense. We’re growing animals to produce...

“If we look at the entire history of the human experience, if you saw some text or you heard some spoken language, you could 100 percent reliably infer that there was a human who created that. Our experience of having that text or that image generated for us is very akin to the experience of a magic trick, and we sort of pre-subconsciously want to attribute some kind of intelligence to what's going on on the other side.

At the core of the work is that sense of curiosity, that sense of joy, that sense of beauty, and th...

“I had to become the father of my family very young because my parents divorced when I was 12. My situation was a little bit unusual in that my father kind of disappeared, and I had been making a fair amount of money as a kid, doing commercials and television and film. We needed money, and I kind of became the breadwinner. But I had this amazing world that I had access to, which was the world of the entertainment industry. My mom was supportive of my taking over and saying, "This is, I think, what we need to do." Sh...

“We're living in a fascinating time, and unfortunately, to an extent, Europe and, very much so, North America are trying to hold onto the past while other parts of the world, like China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, are looking to the future. As an Italian citizen and an English citizen, I feel that we’ve left ourselves behind and that others are taking leaps forward. This isn't just about climate science; it’s about big geopolitics. It's about who wins the power battle over the dominant economy, economic thinking, and currencies. Do we have a reserve currency in the petrod...

“We as humans can destroy things in a couple of years that have taken thousands or even millions of years to form. So in the snap of a finger, we can destroy so much work. That's an observation I’ve seen in all biomes, and it's pretty scary. On the other hand, nature regenerates pretty fast. It heals itself. If humans help this healing process, it can go even faster.”

Louis De Jaeger has spent years traveling the world, witnessing firsthand the decline of nature. He is an eco-entrepreneur, a landscape designer, co-founder of the Food Forest Institu...

“For us, I think it really is about trust and commitments, and I don't think that has necessarily changed over the years. As we work on that, obviously, we are very much invested in how we can engage an audience and spark the curiosity that people are looking for. The most important thing often is how we can spark that curiosity in ourselves. As a way of working, which I think is the most important framework for an institution, the institution should constantly want to learn and evolve, and it isn't a static place. Particularly coming from the opportunity of...

“As a writer, I do believe that art and literature in and of themselves are important. I'm going to keep on writing novels, and one of the most important reasons why is because, as you mentioned, language is crucial. Part of the way that states and authoritarian regimes exercise their power is not just through physical violence and intimidation, but through a maltreatment of language itself. Trump is a perfect example of this. Everything that comes out of his mouth in terms of language is horrifying for anybody with any sensitivity to language. The excesses of his language in te...

“I guess the book was about giving hope because I realized how much we could do together. I believe that ordinary people are the ones bringing changes here. I believe that the communities gathering together – for example, I am seeing that in this country around the protection of rivers – are the ones that will mark the change. It's not going to come from above; it's going to come from below, up. We all have a role. Working for the protection of what we love the most will make you happy. So get into a positive mindset. Learn all you can. B...

“I guess the book was about giving hope because I realized how much we could do together. I believe that ordinary people are the ones bringing changes here. I believe that the communities gathering together – for example, I am seeing that in this country around the protection of rivers – are the ones that will mark the change. It's not going to come from above; it's going to come from below, up. We all have a role. Working for the protection of what we love the most will make you happy. So get into a positive mindset. Learn all you can. B...

“I'm hopeful for revolution. I'm optimistic. I want radical change. I think there's such a disinterest in education in America that it is sickening. I think we are repeating history. We are going through a cycle of fascism and greed, and I think we're going to see a lot of states collapse. As a result of that, I think people are going to be forced back to their primal needs and concerns, but I think they're going to be forced to think about what makes us human. How do we become more human? Because we've lost that. We've given it...

“I would encourage you, as I do if you're an actor, to know your own equipment, know your own psychology, and use the great teachers that are synthesized in my favorite teacher's book, Moss, who I studied with later. There is a book called Intent to Live that distills down Uta Hagen, Stella Adler, Bobby Lewis, and Stanislavski. The great teachers at the Group Theatre believed that the method needed to be altered to be constructive rather than destructive to artists.

David Milch's mind is so singular because he uses language in a way that defines character. Th...

“I think that it all goes back to childhood. I’ve always really been writing about family. I suppose we always are. I do think that it is the original wound, and it's where we are kind of wired and built from those early years. So I think every other relationship just replicates that. It's very natural for me to go there, I suppose because the feelings are most intense there. We just keep recycling these relationships and dynamics over and over again—until maybe someday we can catch ourselves and try to break the bad patterns. It feels the mo...

“The more that you have that evolving relationship with the natural world, that's dynamic and alive to the moment you're in, and that's not afraid of the feelings of fear, hopelessness, grief, or pain that attend paying close attention to the world as it is evolving around you, the better we are able to be flexible in the relationship we need to form with fixing what we can and holding onto what we have. The more we rely on that black-and-white thinking of either being in grief or being out of it, where we have a loss and we ha...

“The more that you have that evolving relationship with the natural world, that's dynamic and alive to the moment you're in, and that's not afraid of the feelings of fear, hopelessness, grief, or pain that attend paying close attention to the world as it is evolving around you, the better we are able to be flexible in the relationship we need to form with fixing what we can and holding onto what we have. The more we rely on that black-and-white thinking of either being in grief or being out of it, where we have a loss and we ha...

“I think that it's almost like in some ways the specificity of Palestine also becomes kind of a universality, where you can stay in this specific example because there is something about this experience that makes it specific, right? It's happening because it's been sanctioned to happen in this way. Right? Because you can't slaughter tens of thousands of people without consequence unless you have made those people less than people. Unless there has been a very effective project of dehumanization that's been carried out against the people that are being killed.

I think, in some ways, th...

“I was originally drawn to bees because they're social creatures. And as humans, I always wanted to know about ourselves and how we can be our healthiest selves and our healthiest society. Bees and wasps, and all of these organisms have been around for so long. Bees especially have been around for 100 million years.”

Noah Wilson-Rich, Ph.D. is co-founder and CEO of The Best Bees Company, the largest beekeeping service in the US. He is a 20-time published author and 3-time TEDx speaker. He’s on a mission to improve pollinator health worldwide as a means to suppor...

How do our personal relationships affect political movements and activism? What can we learn from Native American tradition to restore ecological balance? How can transforming capitalism help address global inequality and the environmental crisis?

DEAN SPADE (Author of Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together) shares his reflections on the importance of understanding common relational patterns within activist movements. He emphasizes the need for solidarity and collective action in response to global crises like the conflict in Gaza and ecological disasters. Spade argues for resilience and mutual support...

“I want to draw the similarities with alien life, and we have these questions. They're the same questions that we would be asking if we could get a sample from Europa or if we could get a sample from Mars. I think the parallels are partly in how we study them. They're teaching us how to look for strange life, but then they're also teaching us about what’s possible with life, and they're so close to the edge of what is and isn't life that it really helps us to sort of — I don’t know. I don’t know whe...

“I think income inequality really greatly contributes to the rage that people might feel, even as some Americans won't. What don't recognize that a more communal society might benefit them. What they see instead is, why don't I have what that person has? Something's getting in my way. And it's not a lack of, of community, it's: somebody else is keeping me down, you know? And that's, I think that's a theme that emerges in The God of the Woods.

I think there's a certain thread in American history of, like, individualism at all costs. The Van La...

"The country spoke Irish largely before it spoke English. Grammatically, the structure of Irish is different from English. As Ireland adopted the English language, this sort of hybridization started to occur, where the English language was placed on top of Irish grammatical constructions. You get this slipperiness, this ability to move sentences, to place words in interesting places, and to use constructions that you just wouldn't find in England, for example. The thing about being an Irish writer is there isn't a reverence. There’s a sort of implicit freedom to use the language however we like. So long as...

We are privileged to present the voices of individuals dedicated to effecting change and mitigating the harm inflicted upon our precious planet. These are individuals deeply committed to the core values that drive positive transformation. Thank you for tuning in to our episodes and for your ongoing dedication to stewarding our planet, not just on Earth Day but throughout the year. We can’t save the planet overnight, but by acting mindfully, we can create a better future. Let’s make Every Day, Earth Day!

Composer MAX  RICHTER on Nature's Sonic Landscape

Founder of PETA INGRID...

“I'm really interested in the relation between performance and ritual. Where do those two separate?”

Richard Sennett grew up in the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago, attended the Juilliard School in New York, and then studied social relations at Harvard. Over the last five decades, he has written about social life in cities, changes in labour, and social theory. His books include The Performer: Art, Life, Politics, The Hidden Injuries of Class, The Fall of Public Man, The Corrosion of Character, The Culture of the New Capitalism, The Craftsman, and Building and Dwelling. Sennett has advised the...

“One of the things that hopefully my books illustrate is that everybody's mind is different. And one of the amazing things about the human experience–and indeed that manifests in terms of art and creativity–is that when we have such different minds, that is why all this creativity, all this art is possible.”

Dr. Guy Leschziner is the author of The Nocturnal Brain, The Man Who Tasted Words, and other books. He is a consultant neurologist and a Professor of Neurology and Sleep Medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. H...

“When I was working at the Times and the Times Magazine, on one Tuesday morning, the towers fell. September 11, 2001. The magazine had a 10-day lead time, so it was a weekly that was essentially 10 days old by the time it came out. We came to work and realized the world had changed, and the entire process, the magazine had been made for over a hundred years, had to be thrown out the window. We had to create a new magazine in 36 hours that would in some way speak to this very different, scary, and interesting world we were now in...

“So, post-activism is not ‘post-activism’ in the sense of being after activism. It is not supposed to be a through line to results or resolutions or solutions.”

Dr. Bayo Akomolafe is a philosopher, psychologist, writer, public intellectual, and the founder of the Emergence Network. His work, which he names post-activism, marks an earth-wide effort to sensitize bodies towards new response-abilities and other places of power – a project framed within a material feminist/post-humanist/post-activist ethos and inspired by Yoruba indigenous cosmologies. He is the author of These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity's Search for...

“This novel is the third in what I see as a little set of books that all feature unnamed female protagonists who have experienced varying degrees of passivity and agency in their lives. They're all women who speak the words of other people.”

Katie Kitamura is the author five novels, most recently Audition and Intimacies, which was named one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2021, longlisted for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and a finalist for a Joyce Carol Oates Prize. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature, fell...

“What I meant when I said there is no AI is that I don't think we serve ourselves well when we put our own technology up as if it were a new God that we created. I think we confuse ourselves too easily. This goes back to Alan Turing, the main founder of computer science, who had this idea of the Turing test. In the test, you can't tell whether the computer has gotten more human-like or the human has gotten more computer-like. People are very prone to becoming more computer-like. When we're on social media, we let ourselves be...

“When I first started writing this book, it really foregrounded the problems within our land ownership system, which treats land as a commodity. The way we talk about land and issues like racial and food justice reflects this. We tend to focus on the problems, attaching big concepts to them, such as racial justice or environmental justice. I realized that my job primarily consists of going around and talking to activists and community groups about their work. I’m interested not just in the very big problems we face as a society, economy, and political system, but also in how...

“The three ills of democracy that I propose to address with this method, which we've perfected over the last several decades. Democracy is supposed to make some connection with the "will of the people." But how can we estimate the will of the people when everyone is trying to manipulate it?”

James S. Fishkin holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University where he is Professor of Communication, Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), Senior Fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Director of the Deliberative Democracy Lab. He is also...

How has feminism changed in light of the way we live now?

DEAN SPADE (Author of Love in a F*cked Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up & Raise Hell Together) on recognizing political conditions in personal relationships.

MARILYN MINTER (Artist, Feminist) on sexual agency, beauty & her creative process.

TEY MEADOW (Author of Trans Kids: Being Gendered in the Twenty-First Century) on the necessity of creating an inclusive environment & argues that diverse storytelling is crucial for healthy development.

ELLEN RAPOPORT (Creator, Exec. Producer of Minx) on the evolution of feminism...

How has feminism changed in light of the way we live now?

DEAN SPADE (Author of Love in a F*cked Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up & Raise Hell Together) on recognizing political conditions in personal relationships.

MARILYN MINTER (Artist, Feminist) on sexual agency, beauty & her creative process.

TEY MEADOW (Author of Trans Kids: Being Gendered in the Twenty-First Century) on the necessity of creating an inclusive environment & argues that diverse storytelling is crucial for healthy development.

ELLEN RAPOPORT (Creator, Exec. Producer of Minx) on the evolution of feminism...

“We've lost over 70 percent, 73 percent, I think the latest data indicates, of wildlife and mammals in the last 50 years. That’s just shocking when you get that data, but then you ask, what can I do? What can I do? I wanted to move away from any guilt or compulsion because it doesn't work to talk to people that way. After 50 years of climate being in the news, in science, and in our schools, less than a fraction of 1 percent of people in the world do anything about it on a daily basis. How could that be? This is a ci...

“We have 1.2 trillion carbon molecules in every cell. We have around 30 trillion cells, and that’s us. So carbon is really a flow that animates everything we love, enjoy, eat, and all plant life, all sea life—everything that's alive on this planet—is animated by the flow of carbon. “

Paul Hawken is a renowned environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, and activist committed to sustainability and transforming the business-environment relationship. He starts ecological businesses, writes about nature and commerce, and consults with heads of state and CEOs on climactic economic and ecological regeneration. He has appeared on the Today Show, Talk...

Peter Weller is a renowned theater and Hollywood actor. His performances in films such as RoboCop and Naked Lunch garnered him much critical and commercial success over the years. His television acting and directing credits include Sons of Anarchy, Dexter, and 24. Unbeknownst to most, Weller has spent decades honing his appreciation for the visual and musical arts through his studies of the Renaissance era. Earning a Master's in Roman architecture from Syracuse University before moving on to a PhD in Renaissance Art from UCLA. Dr. Weller has just written a book, Leon Battista Alberti in Exile: Tracing the Path t...

How can we overcome our fears? How can we challenge ourselves, pushing our physical boundaries to achieve the impossible?

Alain Robert is a renowned rock climber and urban climber. Known as "the French Spider-Man” or "the Human Spider," Robert is famous for his free solo climbing, scaling skyscrapers using no climbing equipment except for a small bag of chalk and a pair of climbing shoes. Some of his most notable ascents include the Burj Khalifa, the Eiffel Tower, and the Sydney Opera House, and over 200 of the world's tallest skyscrapers. He is also a motivational speaker and th...

JULIE ANDREWS (Oscar, Tony & Pulitzer Prize-winning Actress & Singer · The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins) Andrews shares her experience working on Mary Poppins, revealing behind-the-scenes secrets about the character. She reminisces about her collaboration with Walt Disney and Tony Walton.

ETGAR KERET (Cannes Film Festival Award-winning Director & Author) Keret discusses the profound impact of his parents' survival stories from the Holocaust on his work. He explores how extreme human experiences can lead to extraordinary resilience and creativity,

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY (Oscar, Tony & Pulitzer Prize-winning Writer/Director · Doubt, Moonstruck, Joe Versus the Volcano) Shanley highlights the invaluable lessons a...

“What I have done in my career is just try to assess who we are, what we are, why we are here, and how come we, as animals, are able to walk around and wear pants and dresses and talk on the internet, while the other animals are not. It's been my obsession since I was young. I think if I hadn't become a novelist, I might have been happy to be a naturalist or a field biologist.

There is some kind of magic in the creative process. I am reaching for things in my unconscious that su...

“You have all the different languages interplaying with each other. Little scraps of Irish languages and idioms have stories that have been told, but how Ireland actually comes about as an idea, as to where the Irish come from. A lot of these kinds of debates are just placed, you know, in day-to-day conversation, and then they trail off. People start something; they trail off and might come back to it later. That phenomenon of speaking over each other, tales that are known and not known, I always found very interesting. It was literally like a radio that was ke...

“The fact that technologies are being used and combined to capture our attention is concerning. This is currently being done with no limitations and no regulations. That's the main problem. Attention is a very private resource. No one should be allowed to extract it from us by exploiting what we know about the human mind and how it functions, including its weaknesses. We wrote this paper as a call to regulate the attention market and prevent algorithmic emotional governance.”

Computer scientist Fabien Gandon and research engineer Franck Michel are experts in AI, the Web, and knowledge systems. Fabi...

“In reality, we're all complex people with feelings and our own sets of baggage. I do think we are very good at self-sabotage, all of us. It's a very easy road to go down. It's safe because it's comfortable, and we know it. When you can find the ways you self-sabotage and try to stop that, it will hopefully lead to a happier life and things that are meaningful. When I was in my late twenties, I got out of a serious relationship and kind of reentered the dating scene. I was shocked by the simplification of a lot of...

“There used to be a time when leading men were okay with falling down as a character. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones is a prime example of that. Even going back to the fifties, they understood that failure and falling down, but getting back up, is an endearing quality. It's a universal human quality. We have gotten to a point in the last 10 or 15 years, or maybe longer, where leading men often want to win every fight. It’s in their contract: "I have to win every fight" or "I can't fail" or "I can't fall down." It's just such...

“The position of the United States in the world, economically and politically, is the weakest it has been in my lifetime. I was born in the middle of the 20th century, so I have watched the rise of the American empire and the success of American capitalism in the second half of the 20th century. However, over the last 20 years, I have watched that turn into its opposite—a decline. The decline is visible everywhere. Unless you live in the United States and consume mainstream media, there is a level of denial that will be recorded historically as one of t...

How do our personal lives influence the art we make?

JIM SHEPARD (Author of The Book of Aron, Project X, & The World to Come starring Casey Affleck, Vanessa Kirby, Katherine Waterston · Winner of the PEN New England Award, The Story Prize) explores historical human dilemmas, the emotional imagination and literature's role in extending empathetic understanding. He discusses the importance of self-education and curiosity.

LAURA EASON (Emmy-nominated Producer, Screenwriter, Playwright · Three Women · House of Cards · The Loudest Voice) on how we can live multiple lives through the arts. She highlights the significant role the arts have playe...

How do our personal lives influence the art we make?

JIM SHEPARD (Author of The Book of Aron, Project X, & The World to Come starring Casey Affleck, Vanessa Kirby, Katherine Waterston · Winner of the PEN New England Award, The Story Prize) explores historical human dilemmas, the emotional imagination and literature's role in extending empathetic understanding. He discusses the importance of self-education and curiosity.

LAURA EASON (Emmy-nominated Producer, Screenwriter, Playwright · Three Women · House of Cards · The Loudest Voice) on how we can live multiple lives through the arts. She highlights the significant role the arts have playe...

“My mandate focuses on the protection of those trying to protect the planet. Protection of defenders is my main topic. When I'm speaking to states or companies, it's always related to cases of defenders facing threats, attacks, or penalization by companies or governments, like the recent case of Paul Watson (founder of Sea Shepherd) in Denmark… When I travel to places like Peru, Colombia, or Honduras and meet Indigenous people, I realize they have a relationship with nature that we don't have anymore. They express that the food they eat, the water they drink, and the air they breathe goes...

“Climate change is here. It's already causing devastation to the most vulnerable populations. We are living with an extractive mindset, where we are extracting one way out of the life system of the Earth. We need to change from that extractive mindset to a regenerative mindset. And we need to change from the North Star of economic growth to a vision of eco civilizations. Those are the two main principles that I want to propose and that the Club of Rome suggests that we try to transform our current organization towards regenerative living and eco civilization.”

Paul Shri...

Less than two weeks into the new year and the world’s wealthiest 1% have already used their fair share of the global carbon budget allocated for 2025. 2024 was hottest year on record. How can we change our extractive mindset to a regenerative mindset? How can we evolve our systems from economic growth to a vision of regenerative living and eco-civilization?

Paul Shrivastava is Co-President of The Club of Rome and a Professor of Management and Organisations at Pennsylvania State University. He founded the UNESCO Chair for Arts and Sustainable Enterprise at ICN Business School, Nancy, France, and the ONE...

Less than two weeks into the new year and the world’s wealthiest 1% have already used their fair share of the global carbon budget allocated for 2025. 2024 was hottest year on record. How can we change our extractive mindset to a regenerative mindset? How can we evolve our systems from economic growth to a vision of regenerative living and eco-civilization?

Paul Shrivastava is Co-President of The Club of Rome and a Professor of Management and Organisations at Pennsylvania State University. He founded the UNESCO Chair for Arts and Sustainable Enterprise at ICN Business School, Nancy, France, and the ONE...

“This book has a lot of the wisdom of things that feminists and queers have learned in the community about sexuality, but the book is really for anybody who is political, even those just starting out and beginning to realize that there is something wrong with the systems they live under. I want to be in movements. Our movements are made of relationships. So, if you're just getting into our movements, or if you've been here for years and have been watching the ways we hurt each other and fall apart relationally, this book is about identifying these common pa...

“I think the show conveys to the women watching that their lives matter. They don't have to be some gorgeous aspirational person, although Sloane absolutely fits that mold. But for others living in the Midwest, struggling and feeling unseen, hopefully, the mirrors of Lina and Maggie will help them not feel so alone and remind them that their stories are important and matter.”

Laura Eason is an Emmy-nominated producer, screenwriter, and playwright. Currently, she is the executive producer and showrunner of the Starz drama series Three Women. Based on a book by Lisa Taddeo, the series stars Shai...

How do the arts help us find purpose and meaning? What role do stories play in helping us preserve memories, connect us to each other, and answer life’s big questions?

MAX RICHTER(Award-winning Composer & Pianist · His album Sleep is the most streamed classical album of all time) reflects on the importance of creativity and how literature, music, and visual art offer windows into other people’s perceptions and experiences, fostering understanding and connection.

ETGAR KERET (Cannes Film Festival Award-winning Director · Author of Fly Already · Suddenly a Knock on the Door · The Seven Good Years) shares i...

What can we learn from whales, the ways they communicate, and how their life cycle affects whole ecosystems, absorbing carbon and helping cool the planet? How have we contributed to the ecological degradation of the environment? How does language influence perception and our relationship to the more than human world?

NAN HAUSER (Whale Researcher; President, Center for Cetacean Research & Conservation; Director, Cook Islands Whale Research) describes how a whale protected her from a tiger shark during an underwater filming session and reflects on their emotional connection.

DAVID FARRIER (Author of Footprints: In Search of Future Fo...

What can we learn from whales, the ways they communicate, and how their life cycle affects whole ecosystems, absorbing carbon and helping cool the planet? How have we contributed to the ecological degradation of the environment? How does language influence perception and our relationship to the more than human world?

NAN HAUSER (Whale Researcher; President, Center for Cetacean Research & Conservation; Director, Cook Islands Whale Research) describes how a whale protected her from a tiger shark during an underwater filming session and reflects on their emotional connection.

DAVID FARRIER (Author of Footprints: In Search of Future Fo...

How can we be more engaged global citizens? How do we fight for truth and protect democracy in a post-truth world? What influence do billionaires have on politics, journalism, and the technology that shapes our lives?

Lee McIntyre (Philosopher · Author of On Disinformation: How To Fight For Truth and Protect Democracy) examines democracy, and science denial. He delves into how continuous disinformation campaigns not only promote falsehoods but ultimately aim to demoralize the public by making them doubtful about the existence of truth.

Darryl Cunningham (Cartoonist · Author of Elon Musk: Investigation into a New Master of...

 How can we learn to speak the language of the Earth and cultivate our intuitive intelligence?  What lessons can we learn from non-human animals about living in greater harmony with nature?  How have we contributed to making our planet a more dangerous place, and how can we work to save it?

COLIN STEEN (CEO of Legacy Agripartners) reflects on his upbringing on a farm in Weldon, Saskatchewan. He highlights the rewarding yet challenging nature of farm life, emphasizing the importance of agriculture and its impact on shaping one's responsibilities and successes in life.

JILL HEINERTH (Canadia...

Where does our intuition come from? How are lifelong creative partnerships formed and what role do friendship and personal connection play? How do our personal lives influence the art we make?

Erland Cooper (Scottish composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist) explores the emotional and transformative effects of music and visual arts. He underscores how music can transport individuals to different places and evoke emotional responses and relates his personal experiences of homesickness for his native Orkney. [00:08]

Debora Cahn (television creator, writer, and Emmy-nominated showrunner and executive producer of Netflix’s The Diplomat) discusses the craft of long-form st...

How can we shape technology’s impact on society? How do social media algorithms influence our democratic processes and personal well-being? Can AI truly emulate human creativity? And how will its pursuit of perfection change the art we create?

Daniel Susskind (Economist · Oxford & King’s College London · Author of Growth: A Reckoning · A World Without Work) shares insights on the nature of growth driven by technological progress. He contends that while technology can accelerate growth, its impacts can be consciously directed to reduce environmental damage and social inequalities. According to Susskind, the current trajectory of technological progress needs r...

This episode explores the enduring power of storytelling to shape our world and illuminate the human experience. Writers Neil Gaiman, Ada Limón, Jericho Brown, E.J. Koh, Marge Piercy, and Max Stossel discuss creativity, resilience, and the power of words to heal and bring people together.

Neil Gaiman (Writer, Producer, Showrunner · The Sandman, American Gods, Good Omens, Coraline) explores the secret lives of writers, reflecting on the masks they wear in the pursuit of truth and beauty.

Jericho Brown (Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet: The Tradition · Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Pra...

“I think a lot of joy comes from helping others. One of the things that I've been really focusing on is finding that balance in life, what’s real and what’s true and what makes you happy. How can you help other people feel the same and have a happier life? I think whatever that takes. So if that's charity, if that's photography, if that's documentary, if that's music, and I can do it, then I'm going to do it.

From traveling, especially in Ethiopia, Kenya, and even South America, we just see these scenarios and situat...

How and when will we transition to a clean energy future? How have wetlands become both crucial carbon sinks and colossal methane emitters in a warming world? What lessons can we learn from non-human animals about living in greater harmony with nature?

Richard Black (Author of The Future of Energy · Fmr. BBC Environment Correspondent · Director of Policy & Strategy · Global Clean Energy Thinktank · Ember) addresses the substantial economic impact of fossil fuel subsidies, noting that the actual costs, when including climate change damages, reach up to six or seven trillion dollars annually, overshadowing the relatively small climate finance prov...

How and when will we transition to a clean energy future? How have wetlands become both crucial carbon sinks and colossal methane emitters in a warming world? What lessons can we learn from non-human animals about living in greater harmony with nature?

Richard Black (Author of The Future of Energy · Fmr. BBC Environment Correspondent · Director of Policy & Strategy · Global Clean Energy Thinktank · Ember) addresses the substantial economic impact of fossil fuel subsidies, noting that the actual costs, when including climate change damages, reach up to six or seven trillion dollars annually, overshadowing the relatively small climate finance prov...

"The state of being in flow and seeking out that state, sort of disappearing from the here and now... it must have been something that has been part of human cultures for many millennia. We know that, for example, dancing can bring you into these states. And we know from many anthropological works that people dance themselves into trance, a type of flow. So, there is that flow in this scientific sense of a state of well-being. And we will speak about what that does to our brain and our broader wellbeing, but also the flow in what cues...

What does it mean to live a good life? How can the arts help us learn to speak the language of the Earth and cultivate our intuitive intelligence? What is the power of mentorship for forging character and creative vision? How can we hold onto our cultural heritage and traditions, while preparing students for the needs of the 21st century?

Alan Poul (Emmy & Golden Globe-winning Executive Producer · Director · Six Feet Under · Tales of the City · Tokyo Vice · My So-Called Life) shares his personal journey and the importance of mentorship in shaping one's creative path. He discusses his exper...

Have we entered what Earth scientists call a “termination event,” and what can we do to avoid the worst outcomes? How can we look beyond GDP and develop new metrics that balance growth with human flourishing and environmental well-being? How can the 15-minute city model revolutionize urban living, enhance health, and reduce our carbon footprint?

Euan Nisbet (Earth Systems Scientist - Royal Holloway University of London) analyzes historical patterns that point to a potential termination event and emphasizes the urgency of addressing abrupt climate changes.

Daniel Susskind (Economist - Oxford & King’s College London - Author...

“There is a tremendous tension between healthy democracy and deep economic inequalities. I don't think that, in the long run, democracies can survive in a healthy way unless we address the problem of economic inequalities. If we have individuals who are living day to day, on the one hand, and we have other individuals who are billionaires in our societies, on the other hand, it will be very difficult for us to have a genuine democracy.”

Arash Abizadeh is the R.B. Angus Professor of Political Science at McGill University. His research has focused on democratic theory, incl...

“We have a choice to change the nature of growth. How we can have growth that is more respectful of place, doesn’t cause as much damage to the environment, doesn't lead to as large inequalities in society, doesn’t disrupt politics, doesn't undermine the availability of good work? We ought to pursue this morally enriched GDP measure which better reflects what we really value and care about as a society.”

Daniel Susskind is a Research Professor in Economics at King's College London and a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford Universi...

“It all starts at home. As a university professor, I have observed the process of transformation of different generations. We need to find a sense of life. We need to find a sense of belonging to our humanity, but to have this sense of life, we need to find a sense in our local communities.”

Carlos Moreno was born in Colombia in 1959 and moved to France at the age of 20. He is known for his influential "15-Minute City" concept, embraced by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and leading cities around the world. Scientific Director of the "Entrepreneurship - Terr...

“When you think about the evolution of the human brain–just like other animals that have specialized in speed or keeping warm or gathering food–I feel our brain sort of specialized being creative and flexible and being able to generate different solutions to a given problem. To me, this is probably the most fascinating thought process that happens in the human brain. And what I do in neurosurgery–and my subspecialty is called functional neurosurgery–we don't deal with disorders in which there's an anatomical abnormality inside the brain. We deal with disorders in which there is an abnormal c...

“Today, someone is putting the finishing touches on a machine-­ learning algorithm that will change the way you relate to your family. Someone is trying to design a way to communicate with animals in their own language. Someone is designing a gene that alters bacteria to turn your poop bright blue when it’s time to see the doctor. Someone is cleaning up the mess someone else left behind seventy years ago yesterday. Today, someone just had an idea that will end up saving one thing while it harms another…

To be a maker in this moment—­ to be a hu...

“The opportunity is that we have never had a public that is more passionate and obsessed with visual imagery. If the owners of the best original imagery in the world can't figure out how to take advantage of the fact that the world has now become obsessed with these treasures that we have to offer as museums, then shame on us. This is the opportunity to say, if you're spending all day scrolling on Instagram looking for amazing imagery, come and see the original source. Come and see the real work. Let us figure out how to make that co...

“I came to neuroscience from a humanistic perspective. I was very interested to find out who we are. What do we know? What do we think we know? Why do we think we know certain things? How do we see things? How do we perceive them? Ultimately, the question behind curiosity is what things we find interesting in our environment. The way I think about eye movements is that they really are trained in some largely subconscious process.”

Dr. Jacqueline Gottlieb is a Professor of Neuroscience and Principal Investigator at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institu...

“Often when people write or make movies about romances with young adults, I think they are very flippant about it and don't take it seriously. But I think that those friendships and romantic relationships are some of the most important ones because they really set the stage for the rest of our lives. If your first relationship is incredibly toxic and damaging, it can take you years to  figure out that that's not normal, and that that's not actually how relationships are meant to be.”

Meaghan Oppenheimer is a screenwriter, executive producer, and showrunner who tells stories drive...

"I'm trying to get people to care about a crisis in ways that may bring solutions to it. And that's also how I deal with the terror and the fear to find a sense of purpose in what I do. It's incredibly heartbreaking to see some of the things and hear some of the stories, but at the end of the day, it feels like–inconsistently here and there–you can shine a light on problems, and by shining that light, you actually make a difference."

Nicholas D. Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer-winning journalist and Op-ed columnist for...

“The bridge between Out of the Darkness and my previous work, which looked at the transformation of consumer culture in the world, is morality. One thing that became clear in writing Empire of Things was that there's virtually no time or place in history where consumption isn't heavily moralized. Our lifestyle is treated as a mirror of our virtue and sins. And in the course of modern history, there's been a remarkable moral shift in the way that consumption used to be seen as something that led you astray or undermined authority, status, gender roles, and wasted money, to a...

“I think as humans, we forget. We are often limited by our own stereotypes, and we don't see that in everyone there's the potential for beauty and love and all these things. And I think The Architecture of Oppression, both parts one and two, are really a reflection of all the community and civil rights work that I've been doing for the same amount of time, really - 25 years. And I wanted to try and mix my day job and my music side, so bringing those two sides of my life together. I wanted to create a platform for bl...

“The SDSN has been set up to mobilize research and science for the Sustainable Development Goals. Each year, we aim to provide a fair and accurate assessment of countries' progress on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The development goals were adopted back in 2015 by all UN member states, marking the first time in human history that we have a common goal for the entire world. Our goal each year with the SDG index is to have sound methodologies and translate these into actionable insights that can generate impactful results at the end of the day. Out of all the targets th...

“I like to think of utopianism as “effective social daydreaming” because utopia is associated with consciously imagining societies. Our imagination is always involved in creating reality. The opposition between the two, reality and the imaginary, is not a stark one; they're porous.”

S. D. Chrostowska is professor of humanities at York University, Canada. She is the author of several books, among them Permission, The Eyelid, A Cage for Every Child, and, most recently, Utopia in the Age of Survival: Between Myth and Politics. Her essays have appeared in such venues as Public Culture, Telos, Boundary 2, and The Hedgehog...

“I've been a climate activist since I was about 12 years old. It began with a deep passion for wildlife. I started taking up litter and telling off my schoolmates, eventually I set up a green council when I was about 13 or 14. As I learned more and more about the climate crisis and how sprawling and interconnected it was, not just with nature, but with the oppression that exists within human society, I started getting more involved and impassioned, getting involved in protests, marches. When I was about 15 years old, I helped shut down an airport for a night. I ev...

“The fact is you've got a lot of industrial and political muscle now coming behind clean energy, especially from China, which is the leading country deploying wind energy, the leading country deploying solar, and the leading manufacturer and user of electric vehicles by miles. As one recent report put it, ‘We have petrostates in the world. China is the first electrostate.’ And China is on its way to becoming the world's most powerful country. So, where China leads, the rest of the world is almost certain to follow. Yes, there are massive air pollution problems in China, of course, but I...

“As a filmmaker, I've always made films about extraordinary women whose lives are faced with extenuating circumstances who've had adversity thrown at them and who've risen to the occasion. And when I began to look at Diane's story, for me, Diane is a fashion designer, but she's so much more. Her central ethos is woman before fashion, and we felt it was very important to take that ethos and weave it into the spine of our film, and make it about the woman.
In making this film, every single person who we called whose voice we wanted to in...

“I would like to preserve a real sense of empathy and humility, which comes with understanding that the world is messy, that people are messy, that defects and imperfections exist, that things don't always necessarily kind of go the way you want, even as much as you wish they could. Imperfection is part of life and I guess my concern is that AI-generated content, which smooths and perfects a version of reality to precisely what you want and forces you or makes you feel pressured to represent yourself in this absolutely perfect way, fundamentally gives you no room for er...

“One thing people don't realize is that the goal of disinformation is not simply to get you to believe a falsehood. It's to demoralize you into giving up on the idea of truth, to polarize us around factual issues, to get us to distrust people who don't believe the same lie. And even if somebody doesn't believe the lie, it can still make them cynical. I mean, we've all had friends who don't even watch the news anymore. There's a chilling quotation from Holocaust historian Hannah Arendt about how when you always lie to someone, the consequence is not ne...

“I think as there is more automation, there is more kind of emphasis on this question of our choice. The story of the development of things tends to be what do humans decide that they care about? In what direction do they want to go? What kind of art do they want to make? What kinds of things do they want to think about? There is in the computational universe of all possibilities, there is sort of infinite creativity. There's an infinite collection of possibilities, but it's something that's a matter of human choice, which of these infinite things do...

“There is magic everywhere. There's wonder everywhere. There's wondrous complexity that is so complex, so difficult to conceptualize, to grasp, to articulate that it might as well be magic for all intents and purposes, but we can gradually start to unpick how the tricks are done, how nature learned to do these wonderful tricks. And that's the wonder of science, gradually learning what's happening behind the scenes and how these marvelous effects are produced.

I'm probably best known for my work on consciousness. My view about this is often caricatured, I think, as a kind of heartless, ma...

“We and all living beings thrive by being actors in the planet’s regeneration, a civilizational goal that should commence and never cease. We practiced degeneration as a species and it brought us to the threshold of an unimaginable crisis. To reverse global warming, we need to reverse global degeneration.”

Can we really end the climate crisis in one generation? What kind of bold collective action, technologies, and nature-based solutions would it take to do it?

Paul Hawken is a renowned environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, and activist committed to sustainability and transforming the business-environment relationship. A leadin...

“Living in California, I've just come to accept the unsettledness of this era we're moving into. And I think that's really how I see the future. You know, we're living in an era of disruption, and there are others I talk to and write about in the book who also muse about the possibility of a more nomadic future. That maybe home isn't a permanent place with deep roots but is a transient place with shallow roots or two places that you alternate between. In addition to a lot of other dramatic changes that the book is about, a ch...

“One of the things I think about a lot is this. I vividly remember the desire throughout pretty much most of my twenties and certainly my teen years to be a famous artist and win big awards. And when you dig down into what you actually want from that, it's connection. The teen brain, in particular, is extremely geared toward connection and gets different brain chemical payouts for different things than adults. So certainly, when I think of like teenagers, I think of that drive for connection and fitting in and being accepted is so strong. And that was a...