0:00

I think for a lot of people it's because they expect

0:02

belonging to be there right away,

0:05

and it never is. Belonging is

0:07

something you always have to work

0:09

at. Welcome

0:18

to the one you feed throughout

0:20

time. Great thinkers have recognized the

0:22

importance of the thoughts we have, quotes

0:25

like garbage in, garbage out, or

0:27

you are what you think, ring true,

0:30

and yet for many of us, our thoughts

0:32

don't strengthen or empower us. We

0:34

tend toward negativity, self pity,

0:37

jealousy, or fear. We see

0:39

what we don't have instead of what we do.

0:42

We think things that hold us back and dampen

0:44

our spirit. But it's not just about

0:46

thinking. Our actions matter. It

0:49

takes conscious, consistent and creative

0:51

effort to make a life worth living. This

0:54

podcast is about how other people keep

0:56

themselves moving in the right direction, how

0:58

they feed their good Thanks

1:12

for joining us. Our guest today is Emily

1:15

White. Emily is a former lawyer

1:17

turned writer. She's the author of Lonely

1:20

Learning to Live with Solitude. Emily

1:22

has also written for The Daily Mail, The New

1:24

York Post, The Huffington Post, and The

1:26

Guardian. Her latest book, which will

1:28

be released in January, is called count

1:30

me in how I stepped off the sidelines,

1:33

created connection and built a fuller,

1:35

richer, more lived in life. And

1:38

don't forget that. The One You Feed is sponsored by

1:40

Audible dot Com. Go to Audible

1:42

trial dot com slash One You

1:44

Feed to get your free audiobook. Here's

1:47

the interview. Hi Emily, welcome

1:50

to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm happy

1:52

that you could join us tonight. You've got

1:54

two books that I found both pretty interesting,

1:56

so I'm looking forward to getting

1:58

into discussing each of those in a little

2:00

bit more detail. But we will start with

2:03

the theme of the show, which is the parable

2:05

of the two Wolves. So

2:08

there is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson

2:10

and he says, in life, there are two wolves

2:12

inside of us. One is a good wolf,

2:15

which represents things like kindness and

2:17

bravery and love, and the other

2:19

is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed

2:21

and hatred and fear. And

2:24

the grandson stops and he thinks

2:26

about it for a second and he says, well,

2:28

grandfather, which one wins. And the

2:30

grandfather says, the one you feed.

2:33

So I'd like to start off by asking you what

2:35

that parable means to you in your life

2:38

and in the work that you do. I

2:40

found the parable almost kind of hauntingly

2:44

apt to the work that I've been doing

2:46

over the past seven years.

2:48

UM. I started by writing about

2:50

loneliness and moment as had

2:53

been a really defining theme

2:55

in my life for a long long time. And

2:57

I'd say that would be kind of

2:59

the first wolf, the wolf we don't

3:01

like. And I

3:03

if you had told me when I was writing my first book,

3:06

which was about loneliness, that I would

3:08

go on um to write a book

3:10

about connection, I wouldn't have believed you.

3:12

I wouldn't have believed that second,

3:16

better wolf was out there and

3:18

in me as well. But I

3:20

did go on. So I feel like I've sort of, I mean

3:22

to stay within your parable, traveled from one

3:25

wolf to the other. And

3:29

I I guess the

3:31

main thing I take from the Parable is just

3:33

the truth of it that you

3:36

wind up with what you feed, and

3:38

that you can choose what

3:41

you feed. And I traveled from loneliness

3:43

to connection by making

3:45

some specific choices and and

3:47

and feeding that decision to connect. And

3:50

I was kind of surprised with where I

3:53

landed. UM. But I like the

3:55

parable because it does represent these choices

3:57

that we can make in life and

4:00

how those choices shape us. And

4:02

so your your first book

4:05

was titled Lonely, and it was about

4:08

your experience with loneliness

4:10

as well as you spent a lot of time

4:12

sort of studying loneliness in

4:14

general. Can you share a little bit about what

4:17

you learned in the researching and writing that

4:19

book? Sure? I. Lonely

4:21

was published in two thousand and ten, and

4:25

I was writing so I

4:27

wrote it kind of in my mid to late thirties,

4:30

and I was writing about a period in my early

4:32

thirties, early to mid thirties when I was

4:34

extremely lonely. That would be the bad Wolf.

4:37

And I was sort of driven to write the book because I needed

4:39

to understand what

4:42

was happening to me. I wanted to learn everything I could

4:44

about loneliness, and

4:46

so I learned about I taught myself about the physiology,

4:49

the psychology, the sociology,

4:52

everything really I could to understand loneliness

4:54

and to understand the role

4:56

that it had played and was continuing

4:59

to play in my

5:01

life. And I found, I

5:03

mean, it's not everyone who can spend sort of four

5:05

years reading about their demon

5:08

or their bad wolf, but I found

5:10

doing so extraordinarily

5:12

helpful. It was sort of like a sustained period of

5:15

mindfulness where I just stared

5:17

at what the problem in my life was

5:19

and I learned

5:22

a lot. I talked to The irony

5:24

was I think one of the things that helps. I wound up

5:26

talking to just a huge number of people mainly

5:28

in the US about

5:30

loneliness but also all over the world, and

5:33

uh, it was really

5:36

um. It was a great way to learn

5:38

about more about something that I've been confronting me my

5:40

whole life. Really, So, what are

5:43

the main themes out of that book?

5:45

Tell me a little bit about what

5:47

what loneliness is, maybe

5:49

what some of the main causes are. I'm

5:52

curious about as as you

5:54

and I were talking briefly before the show, there's a couple

5:56

of things I'm always curiousness, curiousness.

5:58

There's a couple of things I'm always curious

6:01

about in regards to loneliness.

6:03

A couple of things that come up to me when I think about it.

6:05

And one is really the

6:08

connection between loneliness and

6:10

depression or I've heard people say that

6:12

sometimes depression is um

6:16

or yeah, depression is masquerading

6:18

is loneliness. And then the other thing I'd be

6:21

curious about what you learned in that book is about

6:23

the phenomenon of being lonely while

6:26

in a group of people or around other people.

6:28

Sure, I

6:32

I think a lot of the confusion between loneliness and

6:35

depression arises from the fact that it's okay

6:37

in our culture to say that you're depressed, and it's

6:39

really not totally okay to say that you're

6:41

lonely. So people are kind of blurring them,

6:44

blurring the waters, Muney, and the water is intentionally

6:46

there. For me, I knew

6:48

I was lonely as opposed to depressed,

6:51

because for me, depression

6:53

has a tendency to blot emotions

6:55

out. And I found my loneliness was extremely

6:58

acute. It was an extremely intense

7:01

sense, and I knew what was wrong.

7:03

You know. Depression, and again I'm speaking

7:06

for myself, is often a sort of this global

7:08

sense of what's wrong, you know, and I knew

7:10

what was wrong. I felt too

7:12

alone. And a lot of people

7:14

are some people who write about loneliness and depression,

7:17

we'll talk about social depression,

7:20

and by that they mean that it lifts when

7:22

you feel connected. And I think when

7:26

people say they're depressed and lonely, what they often,

7:29

but sometimes they are. I mean, you can be clinically

7:31

depressed and lonely at the same time. But

7:34

I think a lot of the times I like the notion

7:36

of social depression. We don't use that term

7:39

in conversation. It's it's only used

7:41

when people are writing about loneliness. But

7:43

the notion of feeling better when you're connected

7:46

is just so intuitively sound. And

7:49

I found for myself that what I

7:51

was calling depression, or what if I was calling loneliness,

7:54

lifted when I found more connection.

7:57

And that kind of flows into the sense of what the idea

8:00

of being lonely in a group, because I

8:02

firmly believe that you can be lonely on

8:05

your own and you can be lonely in a group. My

8:07

loneliness hit at its absolute

8:09

worst. I used to be a lawyer, and

8:13

I was spending every single day in an office

8:15

filled with practiced a specific

8:17

type of law. So these were like minded

8:19

people who have decided to join the same firm,

8:23

and I felt entirely alone and

8:25

having I

8:28

think there's a fatigue that goes along with hiding

8:30

depression, but I think there's a special fatigue

8:32

that goes along with hiding loneliness because

8:34

you're you have to pretend

8:36

that you feel connected when you don't,

8:38

and that's exhausting and

8:42

um So, I think in

8:45

some ways it's easier to be lonely

8:47

when you're alone, because at

8:49

least no one is asking you to pretend

8:52

to be something that you're not. Um

8:55

it's often I hear this repeatedly. I've heard from

8:57

many, many, many thousands of lowly

9:00

people, and a lot of people will talk about and this is

9:02

a dangerous thing that goes back to your who

9:04

do you feed parable The

9:07

danger is you feel better when you're alone, when you're

9:09

lonely in some ways, and that can just start

9:11

feeding the loneliness. Is there

9:13

a definition that you use for lonely

9:15

or certain causes of loneliness

9:17

that we could maybe explore. It gets

9:20

just kind of pedantic when people start

9:22

defining loneliness. I think everyone knows

9:24

what it is, and when you start seeing

9:26

the written definitions, they seem to sort of start

9:28

to break from the lived experience of

9:30

loneliness. I always say lonely

9:34

loneliness is a sense, a subjective

9:37

sense, because you can be with people, you can be in a

9:39

marriage, you can be anything of being

9:41

too much on your own and

9:45

feeling vulnerable and unhappy

9:48

and resentful and angry

9:50

because of it. Um, it's the isolation

9:53

that's the problem, and again that sets it off from depression

9:55

because so many things could cause depression,

9:58

whereas with loneliness, it's this sense of just being

10:03

being asked to be too

10:05

much on your own. And what

10:07

what causes that that loneliness?

10:10

What causes say, for example,

10:13

or what are some of the causes of people

10:15

who are in very similar social

10:17

situations, for example, one to

10:19

feel very lonely and another to not

10:21

feel so lonely. I think not getting

10:24

what you need from that social situation.

10:27

I mean some people. I mean, you know, the idea

10:29

has been put forward that

10:31

we have different social needs and so I

10:33

might actually need more than you socially,

10:36

and if that needs not being met, maybe I'll get

10:38

lonely and you don't. But I think, I

10:41

mean, and this is where we could start

10:43

getting into, you know, which is what I think as

10:45

opposed to the researching, I think we're entering

10:48

an era where we're on our

10:50

own so much, you know. Eric

10:53

Kleinenberg's book Going Solo was a bestseller

10:55

because he documented what so many people were experiencing,

10:57

which is the experience of living a lot

11:00

own and if

11:02

you live alone and if you don't have a lot of

11:04

contacts outside of the home and maybe

11:06

your workplaces in particularly social

11:09

I think it's becoming increasingly hard

11:12

for us to make two ties that

11:15

we need to fend off loneliness.

11:17

And I guess I'm sort

11:19

of supported in that, sadly

11:22

in by the fact that loneliness rates

11:24

are going up depending on what

11:27

group you look at. But almost all of these studies

11:29

are carried out in the states of summer in England.

11:31

I guess, um loneliness

11:34

is just kind of increasing

11:36

across the board. Um,

11:39

there's one exception to that is kind of an

11:42

anomalous study involving

11:44

teenagers. But I

11:46

think we're growing lonely or as a

11:48

society. And I

11:51

and that's part of the reason I wanted to write

11:54

Count Me In, which is my second book about connection,

11:56

to see what can

11:58

we do of out that. You know, the question

12:01

I got so many times from

12:03

so many people was, you know,

12:05

how do you feed the second well of how do you connect

12:08

in a disconnected era? And I

12:11

I kind of attack attack,

12:14

I guess I explored it would be a nicer

12:16

word. I explored the problem for

12:18

personal reasons, but I wound up getting really

12:20

really interested in

12:24

what do you do in this sort of um

12:27

In what Eric Klein of Books called the going solo

12:30

arra. He uses that in a in

12:32

a positive sense, you know, um

12:34

that you can live alone and be happy. And I think that's absolutely

12:37

true. But I think going

12:39

solo is kind of a

12:42

another way of what you know Robert Putnam

12:44

called the bowling Alone era. You know, if

12:46

you get a book after book with these titles that

12:48

they're they're kind of telling you something about how

12:51

we're living our lives today. And so you

12:53

went on to write you you reference

12:55

it there your your new book, which

12:57

I think is coming out in January called Count

12:59

Me In. Yeah, And so in the book

13:01

you talk about a definition

13:04

of belonging that

13:06

is, um, belonging equals

13:09

the sense of being welcomed, needed,

13:11

or accepted by a group, plus a sense

13:14

of fitting in or matching with that

13:16

group. I found that a

13:18

really that was put forward

13:20

by the University of Michigan nursing professor

13:23

Bonnie Haggarty in the nineties, and

13:25

I kind of made note of it when I started my research,

13:27

but then as I started living the book,

13:30

I found it was just bang on.

13:33

Like there's some academic definitions of

13:35

belonging that seemed to me to just kind of fly right

13:37

past the point, and I thought that one

13:39

just nailed it. You need to feel

13:41

feel welcomed and needed, and

13:44

you need a sense of fit, and

13:47

so there's kind of two things that need to be in

13:49

place. And when those things are in

13:51

place. UM. I explored

13:54

this through volunteering, I spluted through phase.

13:56

I explored it through political protests. I

13:58

explored it through um

14:01

neighborhood. Um

14:04

it Actually she's right. I mean, you actually do get

14:06

a sense of being part

14:08

of something I keep saying

14:10

larger than yourself. But I think it's so important

14:13

because so many of our social tists today

14:15

are about us and about our one

14:18

on one relationships, and

14:20

I was, for personal reasons, was really

14:22

looking for something other than that. And

14:24

I think what I came to call

14:26

Haggardy's rule UM kind

14:28

of captures what it

14:31

was I was looking for. You

14:47

explored this idea of belonging,

14:50

and you you determined that

14:53

you wanted more of that in your own life,

14:55

and you went out to try and find it, which

14:57

is really what a lot of the book is

15:00

about and I think there's a couple of things that

15:02

you you just touched on there that that I found

15:05

interesting in the book and what

15:07

you talked about, which was that it's

15:10

that that ability to belong is out

15:12

there, but that it's not necessarily

15:15

always easy to find, and

15:17

there's certainly not a one size fits

15:19

all thing for belonging. That

15:21

you have to kind of go out and experience

15:24

different things and try different things until

15:26

you find both that

15:29

that being needed and welcome that

15:31

you talked about, as well as being needed

15:34

and welcomed by people that you feel like

15:36

our for lack of a better word, your people

15:39

or your type of people. And I think

15:42

it's yeah, the book is my exploration

15:44

of belonging, and I set it out sort of as a

15:46

series of takeaways

15:49

or ideas that people could apply to belonging

15:51

in our own lives. So I'm never expecting

15:54

I'm not, you know, one of the things I did was

15:58

volunteers zoo inspection um

16:00

of roadside zoos, and I'm not expecting anyone

16:02

to do that, but that's where my search for

16:04

belonging took me for various reasons.

16:07

And I think we have an idea that it's

16:10

easy to connect to, it's easy to belong

16:12

you know, and you've mentioned having to do more than one

16:14

thing. You

16:17

you kind of have to try quite

16:19

a lot of things in order

16:22

to find a sense of belonging. Sometimes it will

16:24

appear right at the outset. Other

16:27

times you kind of have to kind of make

16:29

your way through the woods and

16:31

and stick with

16:33

it, I think, and I've seen this

16:36

happen. I saw this happenyone was writing the book. If someone

16:38

would show up once front events. There was

16:40

a community garden that I attended and

16:42

found a great sense of belonging at, And

16:44

they would show up once and they would

16:46

disappear. And that might be for the very valid

16:49

reason that they decided it was the wrong fit. But

16:51

I think for a lot of people, it's because they expect

16:54

belonging to be there right away,

16:57

and it never is. Belonging is

17:00

something you always have to work

17:02

at. You have to. That's why I liked your parable.

17:04

You have to feed it, you have to stick with it.

17:07

Um. It's something in a strange

17:09

way that I think we today

17:13

um have to learn. It's

17:16

I don't know that it comes so easily

17:19

to us anymore.

17:21

Um,

17:23

you know I start the book. I'm

17:26

early in the book. I talked very very briefly

17:28

about my father's life. And my father was born

17:30

in a small town Kentucky and the

17:33

late nineteen twenties and he and I

17:35

think he in some ways was the inspiration

17:38

for the book because he

17:40

just was born into

17:43

these various senses of belonging

17:46

to He had an incredibly rich sense of

17:48

place. He had a huge family, he had

17:51

local place, UM,

17:53

he had his religion, and he

17:55

seemed to know how to belong in a way

17:58

that I didn't. And

18:00

my father passed away many years ago, and

18:04

UM, I think I needed to

18:06

relearn. I think I will not say

18:08

we. I needed to relearn something

18:12

that he was sort of given, um

18:14

that I don't think we're given today.

18:17

And I think that's a loss to us. So I was like,

18:19

Okay, well, how do I recreate this in a completely

18:22

different setting, in a completely different

18:24

era. Um. And you know, there's

18:26

lots of things you don't want to recreate about what my father

18:28

was born into, but there's kind

18:30

of a a given

18:33

quality to the belonging that he had that

18:35

I don't think we have any more. That I tried to reproduce

18:37

and that I think I found UM

18:41

and that goes back here parable I was astonished

18:45

at how much belonging is

18:48

out there, UM

18:51

kind of just waiting for us.

18:54

And it was an amazing discovery.

18:57

It was an amazing feeling to

18:59

realize that we still can belong

19:01

today and ways will look really really, really different

19:04

from my dad's life, but ways

19:07

that are still really rich. And

19:11

I go back, you know, we were talking about social depression.

19:13

They just it gives you this rich

19:16

sense of connection that

19:19

is energizing and

19:23

makes you more enthusiastic about life

19:25

and just gives you so many more

19:27

resources in terms of social support

19:30

and and all of those things. But

19:32

I think are really good for us, and I think we can

19:34

create it. Maybe you could tell us

19:36

about a couple of the

19:39

areas or things that you tried UM

19:42

and found for belonging. A couple that I thought

19:44

were particularly interesting were

19:46

the ones around UM

19:49

the faith, and then the other around

19:52

the civic activism,

19:54

around around some of the animal rights.

19:57

Right. Well, I knew I wanted to try and belong

19:59

three safe because Um,

20:02

first of all, the first of all, there's a couple of reasons.

20:04

You know, people are still engaged in faith in

20:07

a way that they're not engaged in you know, the

20:09

PTA anymore. So I knew I wanted to

20:11

try it. And Chris belongs

20:14

to three or four different PTA groups

20:16

across the city. He doesn't have any kids,

20:19

and but but it's he just

20:21

goes. Is he a shrine or two?

20:24

Well only in his house. He's got he's

20:27

got a little car here. Um.

20:29

So a lot of people are still engaged in faith,

20:32

right, So it was something I wanted to try again

20:35

because I had a religious education,

20:38

um, meaning I went to Catholic school

20:40

until I was sixteen, and I had kind

20:42

of and that was maybe the one sort of sense of belonging

20:45

that I was given, though it's all sort

20:47

of fraught today. This was in the seventies.

20:49

I started Catholic school, um,

20:52

and I didn't find a sense of belonging there

20:54

and I kind of tried to get away

20:56

from it into other

20:59

religion and it just wasn't

21:01

working. So I had to come back to Catholicism.

21:04

So part of the book is about me trying

21:06

to but me trying

21:08

to navigate finding a

21:10

sense of belonging through faith

21:13

and it's

21:16

tricky and I come to this as someone who doesn't have

21:18

trouble with faith. Um,

21:21

it wasn't a matter of me trying to cultivate belief.

21:23

I mean that was sort of already there. And

21:25

I would never suggest to anyone that

21:27

they go down this path, you know, and try

21:30

and force themselves to believe in in something they

21:32

don't believe in. That just isn't gonna work, right,

21:34

Um, But if you've kind of are already

21:37

kind of tilted that way.

21:39

Um. Faith

21:41

was interesting because um,

21:45

we tend to be or I was born in nine

21:47

you know, I was born into a

21:49

faith tradition. It wasn't a choice I made.

21:52

It was something that was handed to me. Um.

21:55

And kind of trying to make that work in

21:58

many decades later in the here and now

22:02

was interesting and challenging in all sorts

22:04

of ways that I wasn't expecting,

22:07

um, but was also very

22:09

rewarding. So that was kind of the intuitive

22:11

thing that I did, which was kind of

22:13

what happens when you try and find

22:15

a sense of belonging through

22:18

faith. And that was kind of a fraud

22:20

area for me because I'm gay, So you kind

22:22

of prepare homosexuality

22:24

up with Catholicism and you just get kind

22:27

of like, you know, electric sparks

22:29

flying, but it's still it's

22:31

still kind of worked. Um. Whereas

22:34

the political protest, I did a lot of work. Um.

22:36

I used to be an environmental lawyer, and I did a

22:38

lot of work in the book.

22:41

Um. One of you know, one of the kind of overarching

22:43

principles that guided my work in the

22:45

book is that you know, to belong you sort of have to

22:47

root it in what you value. You know, if

22:49

you if you start looking for belonging

22:52

in something you don't particularly care about.

22:54

You know, in my case faith, team sports,

22:56

which I'm not putting down by any sense, it's just

22:59

is not going to take you anywhere because to me, team

23:01

sports just they don't they don't resonate

23:04

that, it don't connect with anything. Whereas

23:06

for me, animals have always been became

23:08

an environment a lawyer largely to protect species,

23:11

and um, they've

23:13

just mattered so so so much

23:15

to me my whole life. So I thought, what can I do?

23:17

You know, I know, there's got to be a way of belonging through

23:20

animals, UM,

23:22

And I tried. Since I had a very

23:24

old cat at home at the time, I couldn't foster,

23:27

I couldn't volunteer at animal shelters.

23:30

So I wound up quite to my surprise.

23:32

Um, and this is what I mean. But you gotta feed it. You gotta

23:34

go where they're you know, where

23:37

the arrows are pointing. Quite to my surprise,

23:39

I wound up with an animal protest group

23:41

in Toronto called Pick Saves

23:44

Um that involved bearing witness

23:47

um near an avatoire on

23:49

a very very busy roadway in Toronto, which is a

23:52

massive city. Um.

23:56

And I found it.

24:01

It was one of the most complicated forms

24:03

of belonging that I found, not

24:07

because of what I was being asked to do, though it is

24:09

hard if you don't have any experience, uh,

24:12

protesting. If you don't have any experience, start of building

24:14

a sign on the edge of a roadway, as I did.

24:16

But I'll just put as an aside,

24:18

you get used to holding a sign on a roadway very

24:21

very fast. Um.

24:23

But because I think, you

24:26

know, protests involves us joining together,

24:28

and we don't do that so

24:30

much in public anymore.

24:32

So. I think my caring, which really started

24:35

out being about animals and and did take

24:37

me into all these really interesting places related

24:39

to animals and people who cared about animals,

24:42

also taught me a lot about kind

24:44

of joining with others in public today

24:47

and how um

24:50

unaccustomed some of us, many

24:52

of us are to it today.

24:55

I really had to learn. But it was

24:57

okay to kind of stand with a group in public.

25:00

And and you know, our

25:02

cause happened to be pigs, with

25:04

which a lot of your listeners won't care

25:06

about or agree with, and that's okay.

25:08

But I think what's important is

25:11

learning to stand together for something.

25:14

And UM, I now feel that that's the skill

25:16

that I have that I can apply um

25:19

in other areas, you know, if

25:21

it's climate change or if it's the

25:24

Keystone Xcel pipeline. You know, I

25:26

know how to do that now. And I

25:28

would really, you know, for people

25:30

do one thing from the book. I mean, I'd like them to take a lot

25:32

from the one thing would be, you

25:35

know, learn how to to be with other

25:38

people about a cause that you care about, because

25:40

it's a it's a really great skill to to have.

25:43

Well, that part of the book was striking because

25:45

you you said something there that I thought

25:48

was really really

25:50

interesting, and it was that, um,

25:53

you were out there, you know, standing on the

25:55

roadside sort of protesting about

25:58

the treatment of these animals, and

26:00

that you realize that there were people

26:02

who really hated what you were doing and

26:05

it and in a lot of cases it had a lot

26:07

less to do with the fact that

26:10

you what the cause was, but

26:12

that that in our culture today, caring

26:15

too much about something is oftentimes

26:17

looked down upon. It's considered un

26:20

hip or not cool. And

26:22

that and and that caring about

26:24

things in itself was what was

26:26

being judged. Yeah, I felt that. It took

26:28

me a long time to figure I mean, it was with the

26:31

protest group for quite a while, and people

26:33

would always scream the most banal comments,

26:36

Um, you know, I love bacon, you know, the baby screaming

26:39

from criers, so they'd be completely protected,

26:41

and they were also isolated in their own little

26:43

vehicles. You know, I love ham,

26:45

I love bacon. You know, you'd hear the same things

26:47

over and over, and I

26:49

couldn't figure out why these people were doing this.

26:51

I mean, a lot of people drove

26:54

past or a lot of people would honk and support,

26:56

but a lot of people felt compelled

26:58

to scream their of bacon, which

27:00

is really not something no

27:03

matter how much you like your b L T s most people

27:05

feel compelled to scream about So I thought, why

27:07

are they doing this? And the more I

27:09

stuck with it, and the more I looked at people's faces

27:12

as they were screaming at me, would

27:14

you also get used to Um?

27:17

I realized it was caring

27:19

just as you said, they didn't like. You

27:22

know, in an individualist culture,

27:24

which we have in spades, you're

27:27

not supposed to say that you're

27:29

connected to something else, or

27:31

that what happens to another creature

27:33

affects you or upsets you. You're supposed

27:35

to be in your own little, self contained bubble.

27:38

And if you step out of that and you

27:40

start pointing to all the links between

27:42

us, or saying, you know, what happens to

27:44

that miserable, miserable pig

27:46

and that horrendous pick truck affects

27:48

me, you're kind of breaking the rules

27:51

of individualism, and that really

27:54

really harshly judged. You know, you're called

27:56

I was called all sorts of things. I've got a pretty healthy ego,

27:58

so you know, calling me Aimes doesn't really

28:01

matter. Um. That also helps with my gay

28:03

Catholicism. But and I

28:05

know other people won't be like that. But it

28:09

was amazing the extent to which

28:11

people are

28:16

invested in in individualism

28:18

today. Are invested in the idea that

28:20

we create our own

28:23

destinies or that we're all responsible for

28:25

ourselves, that we're not linked. And

28:27

that was spelled up for me very very

28:29

very clearly in my care and project. Yeah,

28:32

I think it's you know, I'm

28:34

not sure exactly what that is, but when you were talking

28:36

about the feeling of being out there and

28:38

initially being embarrassed to be out there

28:41

and being embarrassed to care about something, that really

28:43

hit home with me because there is such a there's

28:46

a real vulnerability to showing that

28:49

you do care about something and

28:51

that you're willing to

28:53

to stand up for it. And I realized that's something that I

28:55

am myself. I get very

28:58

anxious about. Maybe it's starting

29:00

to change, but if you take a stand for something, you're sort

29:02

of judged. And I

29:06

think that's a massive, massive

29:08

shortcoming in our culture, that this hesitation

29:11

we feel about coming

29:14

together and taking a stand connection

29:16

is part of that. There's a very very

29:19

deep sense of connection and belonging

29:21

that flows, I mean, on on the side of

29:23

the subject from being part of a group like

29:26

that, because when you do overcome the

29:28

anxiety that you feel, and it's not easy. I'm

29:30

not suggesting that people are going to go out and

29:33

do this. For me, it was really really important

29:35

to challenge that anxiety. When

29:37

you are able to connect in that way, it's

29:40

a very deep, deep sense

29:42

of connection that you feel to the other people

29:45

that you're with in that group. There

30:01

was something else that you talked to about in the

30:03

book that I also I

30:06

had never thought of, and once I read it

30:08

it made a lot of sense. Was that

30:10

we tend to think of and we talked a little

30:12

bit earlier about belonging versus connection.

30:15

But you there's this idea of

30:18

public versus private belonging

30:21

or connection, and that that private connection

30:23

tends to be very intense. So, um,

30:26

you know, we've got our we've got our good friends,

30:28

and we share a lot of things, but that public belonging

30:31

tends to be a less intense

30:34

thing, and that that is not a bad

30:36

thing, that's actually a good thing

30:38

in a lot of ways. Can you elaborate on that?

30:41

Yeah, I um

30:44

love you know, I described public belonging

30:47

what people used to call a civic life.

30:50

You know, in my editor, in a sort of a demoralizing

30:52

moment, said you can't use that phrase

30:54

because no one's going to know or most people

30:57

are going to know what you're talking about anymore.

30:59

And I thought, my she's you

31:01

know, she's right, we don't know what a civic

31:03

life means anymore. So I I kind

31:06

of stuck with the terms private,

31:08

which everyone did they understands in public,

31:10

which is a little more counterintuitive doing

31:12

things that don't involve you

31:15

know, some of these groups that I joined, I did make

31:17

friends, but a lot of them, like the community garden,

31:19

you don't know people's last names, you don't

31:21

know where they live, and it doesn't matter because

31:24

you're still part of the group that's

31:27

doing the gardening and tending to the tomato

31:29

beds, and you get to know them in this way that's

31:32

less intense. And

31:34

we see that as a failing. Well, you know,

31:36

these people aren't your BFFs. Well, you

31:39

know I have BFFs and they're

31:41

fantastic people, but we

31:43

need more than that. You know. People

31:46

sometimes say they're she's tired to go out, and I say

31:49

that too, And sometimes what we mean by that is

31:51

I'm too tired to go and kind of have a high

31:53

voltage conversation in Starbucks

31:56

about my personal life. You

31:58

know, I just it's too much and

32:00

there's this wonderful ease that

32:03

comes with being

32:05

with people not having to talk possibly

32:07

at all, or not having to say

32:09

much um.

32:12

Again, this is getting back to what my dad had, Like he

32:14

kind of seemed to have this intuitive sense of

32:17

being with people without you

32:20

know, he wasn't one to you know, kind of

32:23

have a lot of conversations. But you

32:26

can be with people in the public

32:28

sphere or in the specific sphere in

32:30

a way that's different, and it's

32:32

relaxing because you're not sharing

32:34

secrets, um, You're

32:36

doing things. You know, there's there's a there's

32:39

a wonderful sense of just you know, having an activity

32:42

as opposed to just talking

32:45

um. It's great for introverts. You know,

32:47

I am UM in many ways.

32:49

So it sounds a bit surprising even the book

32:52

A big introvert, and I found that

32:55

being in these big public groups didn't drain

32:57

me of social energy. It actually gave

32:59

me energy because I

33:02

wasn't exchanging things on a one on one

33:04

basis. And because

33:06

we have so so so

33:08

many of us have less belonging

33:10

in our lives, we've kind of lost sight of how

33:13

important that is.

33:15

And I think we

33:17

we definitely value our private relationships

33:20

but I think we might overvalue

33:22

them to a certain extent, or

33:24

if not overvalue them, they should

33:26

be balanced with public relationships

33:28

so that we don't have to be on all

33:31

the time when we're with other people. What

33:33

struck me about the book was that

33:36

just the very way of framing that

33:39

belonging and it's it's again back to that belonging

33:42

versus connection. I tend to think of going

33:45

out there and connecting with people, making

33:47

a new friend, or you know, if

33:49

it's a romantic relationship or

33:51

and and I think as a culture, we

33:54

do a lot less thinking about

33:56

belonging to two

33:59

groups. And it seems to be

34:01

very different, as you said, than maybe when you

34:03

know, a generation ago. Yeah,

34:06

I mean I

34:08

was fascinated by Robert puttins bowling alone.

34:10

I mean kind of fascinated. It's probably the wrong word. And I've

34:12

read it over and over and I just it captured

34:15

I mean not just for me. It was a huge bestseller. It captured

34:18

this sense people had that were

34:20

missing, in another word, that we're not using a community,

34:23

that we're missing community were we

34:25

have our one on one relationships if we're

34:27

lucky, because increasingly people

34:29

are losing those one on one relationships.

34:31

You know, people's social circles, their private

34:34

social worlds are shrinking, and

34:36

we no longer have the public world to support

34:38

us, so we kind of have less

34:41

support in general. But

34:43

you know, the Robert Puttin's whole argument is

34:45

what we've kind of lost or let

34:47

go of, or had taken away from us this public

34:50

sense of belonging that people used

34:52

to have, and they used to root their private

34:54

relationships in that larger sense

34:57

of belonging, and when you take it away,

34:59

you're put too much weight on your private

35:01

relationships. You know. I used

35:03

an example in the book where something personally

35:06

hard happened to me and it was wonderful

35:09

to go to a group and know that no, not

35:11

one single person there had

35:14

to support me. You know, it could be one

35:16

person or the other, and I could just kind of go from

35:18

person to person and talk casually about

35:20

what had happened, and if they wanted to engage,

35:22

they could engage. You know, in

35:25

asking less of people, they can

35:27

give us more. They they can

35:30

provide us with all sorts of different

35:32

ways to support. You know, in a way

35:34

that my best friend kind of called

35:37

on to sort of be on. You know,

35:39

when I have a problem she has to help. You

35:41

know, not everyone in our life has to serve

35:44

that role, and if you free people

35:46

up from serving that role, they can be so

35:48

many other things to you.

35:51

And I think that was one of the best

35:53

things that I learned in the book was just how good

35:55

it felt um And I think this is

35:57

why I liked Catholic school as a child, actually, was

35:59

just how good it was to be kind of part

36:02

of a group. And that today sounds

36:04

like the ultimate conformist

36:07

thing to say, and I think it's

36:09

actually one of the most radical things you

36:11

can say in a culture where we're expected to

36:13

be so much on our own, you know,

36:15

we don't have to be We can be with other people

36:17

too well. I think it's an interesting transitional

36:20

time because I think that like

36:22

everything there are, there are good and

36:24

bad sides of everything. And I think that the

36:27

fragmentation of some of these

36:29

larger that there used to be

36:31

is positive in some ways, because I think it

36:34

it allows for I do think there's a value

36:37

to individualism, and I do think there's a value

36:39

to being able to be who you are,

36:41

and the broader that

36:44

a group gets, the more conformity

36:47

is potentially needed to fit. So I think

36:49

it's an interesting where do you find

36:51

that that middle ground. I've always been fascinated

36:53

by and um English

36:56

philosopher Elaine day Bouton,

36:58

and he wrote a book called Religion for Atheists,

37:00

and his his general premises,

37:03

you know, he's an atheist, but he looks

37:05

at everything that we've that we've lost

37:07

by not having religion

37:10

in the sense of the things that are religion

37:12

provided to us, as far as the community

37:14

and the rituals and the and the

37:16

support and all that. And I've really that really resonates

37:19

with me because I do think we've lost a lot of

37:21

that, and yet in some ways,

37:23

I think it's very positive that some

37:25

of them, some of

37:27

the loss of of religious

37:30

belief I think has had also some positive

37:33

um impacts to society. So it's

37:35

it's one of those of finding the right balance

37:38

between between those things.

37:40

Oh absolutely. I mean I write as a twenty first

37:42

century lesbian who I mean was

37:44

born into Catholicism. But

37:47

ultimately it was my choice

37:49

to make in a way that

37:52

um, the generations before

37:54

me didn't have any choice. I mean,

37:57

that's what you were, UM.

38:00

But I think it's kind of a baby in the bath water

38:03

scenario where we've thrown out

38:05

in our in our quest for personal autonomy,

38:07

which is so important. And again, you know, I'm kind

38:09

of living an example of this. I get to live

38:12

a life openly that no

38:15

one else in my family would have been allowed

38:17

to live. Um, we've

38:19

probably gotten rid of too much.

38:22

Um. So I think you know you've used the word

38:24

balance. It's really about restoring that

38:27

balance. Um. And maybe

38:29

we're at a tipping point, we're realizing we've

38:31

gotten rid of too much and

38:33

we need to start to work to bring some of it

38:35

back. Yeah, but I'm certainly

38:37

not you know, you know,

38:40

emphasizing it. We all have to be one thing,

38:43

or we have to be what we were born into.

38:46

You choice. My chapter on faith

38:48

is actually me about me trying to make various

38:51

choices, um,

38:53

other than Catholicism, and exploring different

38:56

faith and ultimately winding up back

38:58

at Catholicism. And that's a very different

39:00

journey, you know, choosing to be there.

39:03

Um. I guess in a sense,

39:06

I chose my tradition, which

39:08

is a mix of individualism and

39:10

and tradition. But um, it

39:13

is about balance. And I wouldn't ever want

39:15

to come across and saying, oh you know, we need to go back to

39:17

the old ways where no one had any choices.

39:20

The takeaway for me that that sort of hit

39:22

if I tie tie your your

39:24

first book and your second book together,

39:27

for me was that loneliness

39:29

is a real thing, and I think it's something a lot of people

39:31

deal with, and we all tend to think there's a

39:33

tendency to think of the cure for loneliness is

39:35

another friend or a girlfriend. And I think

39:37

what Count Me In does as a book as points

39:39

to a lot of other ways to counter

39:42

loneliness that are not dependent

39:44

on those individual very that

39:47

those very important personal relationships.

39:49

Yeah, very much so, and I mean I

39:51

think it's very doable. I mean, telling someone

39:53

who's lonely to go find a partner

39:55

or go find a best friend as a pretty tall order.

39:58

And that's kind of the advice thing give and outa

40:01

meetings all the time, because it's just not that

40:04

that that has not worked out. You

40:08

know, there's this sort of a middle zone

40:10

where you can get to know people in other ways

40:12

and it doesn't have to be a best

40:15

friend relationship and you might very well find

40:17

some good friends in the groups that you join

40:19

exactly Well, Emily, thanks

40:21

so much for taking the time to come on

40:23

the show. Your book is out in January

40:26

of two thousand fifteen, and uh,

40:29

I'd encouraged the listeners to check it out.

40:31

I really enjoyed it. Thank you very

40:33

much. We'll take care and we will talk again soon.

40:36

Thanks a lot, all right bye.

40:55

You can learn more about Emily White and this

40:57

podcast at one new feed dot

41:00

net slash Emily