Thinking Out Loud: An Introduction

Today marks the beginning of a dream I've had for a while, but couldn't bring myself to embark upon until now. I'm making a podcast. Actually, it's more like a 30 episode mini-podcast, in which I dive into the things I've been reading, watching, and listening to, in under 5 minutes.

It all started when I was listening to an episode of the Design Matters podcast, in which Debbie Millman interviews Sam Winston. At the end she reads a quote from him about creation over consumption, and it got me thinking about all the stuff I consume in any given day, but never really engage with or talk about. An article or a twitter feed might spark something in me, but how often do I actually take that spark and do something with it?

Thus was born Thinking Out Loud, a podcast about ideas and inspiration, and being intentional with the information we consume.  I want to push myself to learn as much as I can about this new medium, and hopefully, I'll get better as I go along. There's something exhilarating about doing something completely out of my creative comfort zone, and this definitely falls into that category.

So, without further ado, here is the first episode of Thinking Out Loud:



I'll be posting new episodes as often as possible, and you can see the complete list in the Podcast tab above. Links to everything mentioned will be in the episode description.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it!

The Great Outdoors

 I find myself missing nature lately. I miss the intense quiet that comes along with walking through the woods, the way some sounds are muffled and some, especially human ones, are amplified. It reminds me of how clumsy we really are compared to most animal species, like we can't go anywhere without causing a ruckus. As cliche as it sounds, I miss the sound of birdsong and the roar of rushing water and the rustle of wind through thousands of leaves high above my head. It's not just that, though. It's the way the rest of the world falls away so easily, so quickly, as if cars and fast food chains and skyscrapers never even existed. Nature gives us the power to step away from the complexity of everyday life and simply be alone with ourselves.

From a walk I took while visiting Minnesota over Spring Break

For a few days, it seemed like spring had come to Iowa. Temperatures crept up to the mid 40s. The sun graced us with its presence. I felt the same rush of giddy excitement that always accompanies the approaching of summer. But something was missing. I didn't realize until I moved to Cedar Rapids how much nature a city like my hometown of Houston contains. There are countless nature centers, parks, and even the occasional wild space that remains untouched by development. Plus, I'm pretty sure there are simply more trees in Houston, those incredibly beautiful oaks suspended in frozen reverie, limbs bowing until they almost touch the ground. I'm not saying that Cedar Rapids is lacking in natural beauty. There's the lake where we raced dragon boats during freshman orientation, and the tree outside my dorm room window that I watched change through the seasons. There's even a grassy park by New Bo Market complete with a meditation circle and a rock sculpture. But I'm beginning to realize that spending too much time away from even the tamest of forests is starting to wear on me. I can only take so much of the manicured lawn (or in the winter, barren tundra) that is the quad. Instead, I find myself daydreaming about camping with my dad, how everything tasted better when it was cooked outdoors.

And yet, while reminiscing about my favorite spots, I ran into several things that bothered me. I find it sad that most wild places, even those in the midst of cities, are inaccessible without a car. I find it strange that in Memorial Park, the majority of the patrons use the running paths along the perimeter. On one side of the path is a tangled mass of branches, on the other a busy thoroughfare. Why drive somewhere to be close to nature, but not to immerse yourself in it?

Living in the city, it can be so easy to forget that there are any wild spaces left. We go about our daily lives, in tune with the rhythms of ticking clocks and rush hour traffic, and we don't realize that anything's missing. I didn't even realize how far I'd fallen into this trap until I listened to the following radio programs in short succession. They are informative, imaginative, and inspirational, and they made me re-imagine the way we interact with the natural world:

1. "Wild Ones Live" - 99% Invisible: This episode of one of my favorite podcasts is actually a live recording of a band/author duo that explores the complex intersections between animals and humans.

2. "The Last Quiet Places: Silence and the Presence of Everything"- On Being: Mind-altering interview with Gordon Hempton, "who defines silence not as an absence of sound but an absence of noise."

 I suppose I'll leave you with a quote from an One Square Inch of Silence by Gordon Hempton:

"Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything. It lives here, profoundly, at One Square Inch in the Hoh Rain Forest. It is the presence of time, undisturbed. It can be felt within the chest. Silence nurtures our nature, our human nature, and lets us know who we are. Left with a more receptive mind and a more attuned ear, we become better listeners not only to nature but to each other. Silence can be carried like embers from a fire. Silence can be found, and silence can find you. Silence can be lost and also recovered. But silence cannot be imagined, although most people think so. To experience the soul-swelling wonder of silence, you must hear it." [Source]

I hope this long winded assessment of my relationship with nature makes you think a little more deeply about your own. It could be time to consider how long it's been since you took a walk in the woods.

Waking Up to Stories

If you have not heard me wax poetic about why you should be listening to the New Yorker Fiction Podcast, you haven't been following me closely enough. Basically it's a podcast in which a well known author reads their favorite short story from the New Yorker archives, and then talks about it with the magazine's fiction editor, Deborah Treisman. I usually listen in bed, with ear buds tucked into my ears, staring up at ceiling of my darkened room and letting the words fill my head. There is something immensely therapeutic about falling asleep to someone reading a story, and I highly recommend it to everyone, not just fellow writers. But what I want to talk about today is waking up to stories.

Recently I got an alarm clock that doubles as an ipod player. For I while I set it so I would wake up to my movie themes playlist, but one night when I had been listening to the New Yorker Fiction Podcast I plugged my ipod in an fell asleep without resetting it. The next morning I woke up to the same story I'd been listening to the night before, which happened to be Miranda July's "Roy Spivey", as read by David Sedaris. It's a strange feeling, waking up to David Sedaris's voice, reading a story in which, in one instance, a celebrity pumps Frebreeze onto the underarms of the woman he's sitting next to on an airplane. But what I realized was, that in the space between waking and sleeping the context of the story fell away. I paid attention to the sound of the words. Strange images flashed through my dreams, while all the while the voice of the reader cut through my mind like water. Eventually I woke up enough to identify what I was listening to, but I realized that the important part had already taken place. The words were already in my subconscious.

"Subconscious" may seem like a loaded term for you. I'm not saying that your "inner mind" is going to write your books for you, or that doing this randomly and without thinking about it will make you a better writer. But it's been my experience that you have to pay attention to how stories work, and listening to them, especially in this half-conscious state, allows your brain to detach itself from the emotional context and just listen to the words. It lets you hear the way sentences flow together. It shows you how the emphasis falls on some words and not others. Maybe your dreams change when you wake up listening to a certain story. Pay attention to what happens in these dreams, because that's the kind of vivid and visceral reaction we writers are trying to get from our readers. There is a reason that so many writers make writing the first thing they do in the morning after waking up. In this space we are closer to our subconscious, and when we wake up to stories we wake up with words already in our heads.