Wilson.fm

Sometimes we run around so busy with life, that we’ve become experts at being busy but are we really making a difference? Will’s story is a breath of fresh air, a scientist and strategist by training but grew up as a drug dealer, spent some time living with nomads in Mongolia, moved through the corporate work at a bank and has now left London to renovate a chateau in a small village in France.

Everything Is Alive, a very strange and weird unscripted podcast that features Ian Chillag, interviewing a range of inanimate objects, including a can of coke, a subway seat, a tooth, and a grain of sand. The objects are played by talented guests who are equal part hilarious and moving, each episode ends in a place that leaves you with one of my favorite feelings ever: uncertainty over whether I should feel upset or amused, and ultimately feeling both at the same time. Excerpts below for some insight.

“What does it feel like when you’re at this party and you’re waiting for the moment? When you think about being consumed by a human do you think about the human you want to be in?”

“I like to imagine that if you’re drunk immediately, that instead of being a painful process there is this sort of first moment of relief the first moment the can is cracked open. All of this internal fizzing I have going on has somewhere to go. You are drowned out from your external can and you have this last moment of fulfilling your purpose and you begin to blend in with this human being and you become part of their story.”

Do you know how long it takes a head of lettuce to decompose in our trash system? Are you a designer and feel like you’re not doing anything for the planet? Do you question where your food comes from? Have you eaten sourdough bread? Do you want to make your own sourdough bread? When is the last time your hands were in the dirt? When is the last time you researched something? Are these enough questions to spark your curiosity about this episode about the importance of asking questions?

An ode to the late Mary Oliver whose way of writing invites the reader to make her poems their own, to use them as a remedy for whatever they need in that moment. As a woman who loved being surrounded by nature and felt confined in buildings and small spaces we can’t help but see that she lived her life exactly how she wrote her poems. This podcast is such an insightful glimpse into the life she led with her long term partner Molly Malone Cook. It’s so beautiful to hear her read outloud her own poems and explain the attention to detail that comes with what she was feeling and thinking at the time. One of our favorite parts of this podcast is her talking about her 2-4 line poems, there is nothing else that needs to be said, “everything in addition to that is just decoration.”

The talk starts with Cate gifting Ariel a short novel showcasing the works of Jorge Luis Borges, Kafka, Woody Allen, etc. READS started by swapping books and sharing. There’s a certain feeling that comes with the giving or receiving of a book as a gift. In this podcast Ariel Pink says, “I couldn’t be less interested in things that sound like me.” Validating the importance of getting out of your comfort zone.