Living Through Transformative Times

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Episode Resources

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TRANSFORMATIVE TIMES

Transcript

Sarah [00:00:00] I'm just in the present, like very strongly in the present thinking how I can do better, because I'm an enneagram one, in this present moment. And it's like, I kind of want to invite everybody to join me because we're not going back to some sort of equilibrium like this is not a temporary time period. And I think the exhaustion people feel as they keep waiting for that release that like, well, it'll just be back to normal. And it's like, guys, we're not that. We're not that's not happening. Like everything's going to be different in a good ways and in bad. 

Sarah [00:00:36] This is Sarah Stewart Holland. 

Beth [00:00:37] And this is Beth Silvers. 

Sarah [00:00:39] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics. 

Beth [00:00:54] Thanks so much for joining us for a new episode. Today, we're going to answer questions from listeners about new sources we recommend. We know many of you are thinking about your news habits during this election year, so we want to give some recommendations. Then we are going to try to zoom out because we know that we are in the messy middle of a time that is going to change business and education and public health and really every aspect of our lives. So we're going to talk about being in the middle of this inflection point and Outside of Politics. We will continue the theme of transformation because Sarah has been helping Maggie transform her living room and the two of them are going to tell you all about that process. 

Sarah [00:01:31] Before we get started, we are so grateful that so many of you have been reading and sharing our first book, I Think You're Wrong, But I'm Listening: A Guide to Grace Filled Political Conversations in advance of our new book coming Out in May. We'd really like to reach 1000 reviews. I Think You're Wrong on Amazon, so if you've read it, we would so appreciate you leaving a review on Amazon. It can just be one sentence. It doesn't even have to be long, but it really helps us and we would really appreciate it. 

Beth [00:01:56] And one more note, as we get started, we got an e-mail from a listener named Sarah about blood donations as we've talked about the storm damage in Kentucky. We recommended donating blood wherever you are as a way to make a difference. And Sarah wanted us to highlight that the FDA guidance on blood donor qualification has changed, expanding who is eligible to give blood. We'll put a link to that new guidance in the show notes. It's also a good idea to reach out to your local blood bank because there are some differences in eligibility from collection site to collection site. But if this is possible for you, there are national shortages right now, so donations are urgently needed. And thank you so much, Sarah, for sharing that and thank you to everyone who's looking for a way to contribute. 

Beth [00:02:50] Well, we're still in the new year frame of mind and know that many of you are thinking about your news habits, what sources you want to follow, who you trust and how you expand the diversity of views that you're taking in because it is an election year. So we wanted to talk about our recommendations today.

Sarah [00:03:07] You know, because of what I do on Good Morning with Sarah Stewart Holland, our morning news brief on Patreon. It really is a study in new sources and how they pick and convey the news of the day. And to me, that is the most helpful habit is just picking one news source and watch what it does every single day because you'll start to notice patterns. For example, here's a pattern that I have noticed. I have noticed when there is not a lot of news. They talk about what's going to happen instead of what has happened and what I mean by that. So instead of like reporting on really breaking news, natural disasters, you know, kind of I feel like we've had a lot of coups around the world in the last year. So like lots of, well, this is what happened overnight in Myanmar. This is what happened overnight in Sudan. It'll be jury selection begins in such and such trial. That's a popular one. Jury selection. That's with all the love in the world. That is not news to me. You know, that is not unless you're going to follow the twists and turns of every prosecutorial argument, and sometimes they do, depending on the importance of the trial. To me, just say like this trial's happening? Check back in with the verdict. That's just filler. That's all that is. Or it will be the President or Vice President are planning to travel to. That's also a popular one. Again, not news when they go there and say something and then we can talk about it. But reporting essentially at the top of a podcast or a newsletter like this is what's going to happen. That is a big red flag to me, that there's not a like a not a lot of breaking news doesn't mean there's not a lot going on in the world, but there's not a lot of breaking news. And that's that's the stuff you learn when you pick one source and you follow it every single day. 

Beth [00:04:52] I think that definition of news is something I've been considering a lot because I can get stuck in. Sources that define news by political news and political news is not the only news that matters. And some days it's the least consequential of all the news. So I've really been trying to focus on sources that are going to bring me more international news, more business news, more tech news, more medical news because I have felt really stuck in just the machinations of what's going on with Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema lately instead of taking a wider lens. 

Sarah [00:05:28] And when you do that, when you get consumed with that sort of conflict or especially the what's going to happen to me, there's always this undercurrent of like, Well, you should be worrying about this. Like, we're telling you it's going to happen because it's probably going to be bad. It just contributes to that sense of anxiety and that sense of like things are always bad. That negative news bias that we talk about here and that that I think is getting more and more of the attention it deserves and the broader media environment that can really get you. If you don't start paying attention to like one source and consistently watching how they cover it, and you'll see you'll notice differences like here's where I'll confess I don't read a lot of The Washington Post, and the reason I don't read The Post is I think their headlines are unnecessarily inflammatory and they set me off. And so I've just learned like, that's not the source for me. Like, I will read a lot of their I think their in-depth reporting is excellent and I will read that. But they're overall, they're sort of breaking news. I find their headlines so incendiary. 

Beth [00:06:31] I've been looking for context too, even in short form. I really like Reuters Morning Briefing their daily newsletter because even as they are giving me quick hits of what's going on, I feel like there's enough context there that I have a pretty accurate sense of what's happening without going to every single article to click. I'll give you an example of a story that is driving me bananas this morning as we're recording. Lots of outlets are covering the arrest of a high level official in Kazakhstan on charges of treason. And it sounds really bad. Charges of treason sounds awful, right? Well, it might be awful, but it is also true that he's been arrested on charges of treason by a government that has asked Russia to bring troops in to quell protests to shoot people without warning. I mean, there are a lot of factors you have to ask yourself. Arrested on charges of treason by whom? To know what's really going on in this story. And I think the way that headline has been put out there, it just sounds automatically like, well, he must be a terrible guy, and anybody associated with him must be bad. And I think that the Reuters morning briefing does a good job of giving you enough context to not automatically do that sort of hero villain sensibility about every story. 

Sarah [00:07:56] My favorite morning briefing is The Morning from David Leonhardt. It's The New York Times email newsletter, and you can also get it on their website. I read The Morning for years, I could not tell you who wrote it, but David Leonhardt came on probably like a year and a half ago, and he is just very quickly become my absolute favorite. He is in my close circle of people I listen to about COVID. When the national media, it's like him and Zeynep Tufekci Emily Austin. It's a very close circle, but like he does such a good job of giving context of talking about that negative bias in the news. And what that means is like, if it's a bad thing, they don't say, Oh, but it might not be as bad, but if it's a good thing, they always say, but it's probably not that great. Like, there's always sort of, you know, asides or allowances if it's good news, but never if it's bad news. And he works really hard to like, name that and try to do better about that, which I appreciate. Like this morning, here's a perfect example. This morning's news briefings, as we're recording on Monday, he just came out and said, This is all the stuff I was wrong about. They called it like pundit accountability. Like, I just want to be honest. Here's what I missed. Here's what I got wrong. Here's what I was paying attention to when I should have been paying attention to that. You never hear that in news reporting, and I just think it's so valuable. I think his writing is so incredibly thoughtful. He is one of my absolute favorites. I look forward to reading that every morning. 

Beth [00:09:20] So we know that you're podcast listeners. Our answer to how to stay informed everyday without feeling depleted, is what we make. Sarah makes Good Morning Monday through Thursday, I make More to Say in those evenings, in about 20 minutes a day, you're going to get a look at the important stories with Sarah and then one topic with me. And that's how we hope that we can keep everybody informed without feeling that sense of exhaustion or everything's terrible. 

Sarah [00:09:47] I'm really proud of what we produce through both of those shows, and I think why I love it and why I'm proud of it and what we hear from listeners is that we don't come at it as journalists because we're not journalists. And so what we really try to do is like, inform you through the lens of like a friend or a fellow citizen, not somebody who has corporate bosses to answer to or conceptions about sort of the both sides that require neutrality in journalism. We don't follow those rules. And so we can say we think this is an overreaction or we don't think this is getting enough attention. So we have the ability to sort of critique and come at it from our different perspectives, be it like a lawyer when you're doing your Supreme Court briefs or a mother. If we think this is not getting enough attention or a citizen as opposed to this neutral journalist at all costs, and I think that's part of that. Like so we can we can pick up the threads and we can approach it from a different perspective instead of just let me bombard with all the negative news stories. 

Beth [00:10:48] I agree. I'm really trying hard, especially as I choose that one topic to talk about on More to Say to say, here's why I care about this. Here's why I think it's important. Here's what gives me hope in it or the question that it prompts me to ask. We also really like a couple of podcasts that do news coverage. The Newsworthy with Erica Mandy, I think, is very good. I really like that she does not get stuck in political news that she is going to bring in that business perspective, tech perspective, pop culture sometimes. I just think she takes a very broad lens to say, if you want to just get a ten minute taste of what's going on in the world. Here is a good look at it. 

Sarah [00:11:29] Yeah, I listen to Up First every morning and I listen to Erica. I used to listen to some other morning news briefs from some other media companies, but they started getting on my nerves. They were so conflict driven, they were so dramatic that I was like, I can't do this with you anymore. Like, this is ridiculous. And so now consistently, I listen to Up First from NPR and The Newsworthy with Erica every morning. 

Beth [00:11:53] One of the things that I've been thinking about is actually reducing my news intake this year. And what I mean is not the not the quantity of information that I take in, but the frequency of taking in that information. I'm really looking for more thorough discussions of issues instead of that constant stream of news alerts on my phone. And so when a topic arises that I really want to learn more about, I try to make sure that I'm going out and finding information about that topic instead of having that information fed to me. So that means one, I'm jumping off social media almost immediately, with one major exception. And that is when there is a disaster or some hyper local story, something is happening in a community. I do find that following TV reporters, newspaper writers from that community on Twitter is the best way to in real time get a sense of what's going on there, and I try to do that. 

Sarah [00:12:56] Yeah, and I do that globally, too. If it's a story about Western Asia, I go to Al Jazeera consistently, really, if it's a foreign policy story at all, honestly, I often check their coverage them in the BBC because I think that their foreign policy coverage is so good and it's removing that American perspective that can be so limiting. 

Beth [00:13:13] The BBC does a really good job with any major news story of putting the context out there for you. Well, wait a second. Why is this happening at all and who are these people? And the headlines just follow the questions that you might have if you're brand new to a topic. I think their coverage is really good. 

Sarah [00:13:31] Yeah, I agree. And then, of course, when you move beyond just the headlines, obviously all of us are taking in news that is more commentary and is trying to give us a broader perspective on the breaking news itself. And so we really try to take in a diverse set of sources from commentary as well. You know, both of us take in conservative podcast and conservative commentary. We're both big fans of The Dispatch and the Bulwark. And I just think that that's important, too. You cannot limit your opinion reporting any more than you can limit your news reporting. 

Beth [00:14:08] And I think it's tough. I know some of you specifically want to hear from us about recommendations from very conservative sources because The Dispatch and the Bulwark are considered kind of never Trump sources by people who are in the more core of the Republican Party these days. And what I will say to you is that I consistently read the title of Ben Shapiro's podcast because knowing what he's choosing to talk about tells me something about what story is important to people in that sphere. I take a look at the title of a lot of the most popular like charting podcasts, and many, many of them are conservative. So just a breeze through there gives me a sense of what stories are bubbling up as important. I look at Fox News's website pretty regularly and even more so in an election year. And I do try to stay in touch with what Tucker Carlson is talking about. Again, not because I find it valuable at all. I do not. I find it very inflammatory. I would not suggest that somebody listening to this podcast do that just as a practice. But because of the job that I have, I think it is important to know what he in particular is talking about, because so much of that media system kind of feeds off of and is driven by his very populist perspective on things. 

Sarah [00:15:36] The reason I don't feel bad about just following The Dispatch and The Bulwark is because I know they're covering and they're watching those sources devotedly, like they're paying very close attention to what's being reported on Fox News, and they are listening to those podcasts and they are following like the very far right media environment in a way that I find really helpful and I don't feel the need to go follow myself. Not to mention that just because of where I live and my like Facebook feed, if it's important enough to the people around me, I might hear about it no matter what. 

Beth [00:16:06] As an example of that, Tim Miller from The Bulwark has a really good piece out today about Steve Bannon's programing on January 6th just what he was doing, and Tim spent all this time paying attention to people who are talking about how proud they are of last January 6th and the work they did then. And reading his review of it again doesn't make me feel good. It's not like comforting news at all. But it makes me feel in touch with that enough to not get immersed in those sources. Myself and I really do value that. 

Sarah [00:16:39] Steve Bannon's names and everybody's mouth. Ezra Klein's new column is about Steve Bannon as well. So we hope that this sort of rundown of our media habits and what we've learned from following several sources devotedly over the years is helpful to you as you think about your habits. And I think habits is a helpful word. And also they don't have to say the same. What we follow and what we do during election year is going to be different than what we do post a big natural disaster in our area versus what we do, you know, at the beginning of a presidential term. And I think that's something to understand too, is like this will shift and change as the sources themselves do. 

Beth [00:17:30] In your emails and social media messages to us, we hear the theme of real fatigue. We mentioned last week on an episode of More to Say that we know lots of people are feeling left behind in their own ways. Parents of kids who are under five and small business owners, especially restaurant owners and teachers and people with disabilities, I know had a very strong reaction to the CDC director's recent comments and that was just one other illustration of how much they have felt left behind in the in the pandemic, and the list just goes on. So we wanted to zoom out a little bit today to remind ourselves that we are in a challenging moment because we're in the middle of what will be a historic inflection point. Sarah, I was reading this this article from Indian author Arundhati Roy that she wrote back in April of 2020, and she called the pandemic a portal. And I liked that framing a lot because I grew up watching The Wizard of Oz and I remember the portal is a pretty long hallway, like when I read her comments about this, it immediately gave me that picture of realizing we're in that space where you don't really see what's behind you anymore and you don't really see what's in front of you either. You just see this, this weird tunnel, and it's hard, and I feel like that's where we are right now. 

Sarah [00:18:49] Yeah, I mean, I wrote about us being in the messy middle when it comes to January 6th as well. There are lots of different historical moments affecting all of our lives right now, and we are just in the middle of it. And, you know, I think that can feel isolating. When you think about a long tunnel, you can't see the beginning, you can't see the end, you feel alone, you feel ungrounded in a way like you can't see what's going to happen and prepare for it. You know, you're far enough from the beginning that you're really in choppy waters. We all feel that. We all know that. You know, when I feel that way, when I feel so alone and unmoored by the messy middle, I have to look back at history and I have to remind myself that I am not the first person that's been in the middle of a historical transformational period of American history, much less period of human history. I think I've been thinking a lot about how my great grandmother and even her children were so affected by the Great Depression and how my great grandmother, you know, far past the abundant 50s. And you know, the periods of human history like there were really important to her adult life, where there was plenty would still save tiny amounts of food, would not throw things away, would reuse things even when she had way more money than she needed and did not need to reuse anything. And how just that moment living through that very transformational moment, even in a even in a place like Paducah, where Paducah, you know, historically doesn't feel as many of the peaks and valleys of historical moments, right? But the Great Depression affected people here. It affected her family. But you know, they didn't move to California to find a better life, right? They were able to get through and do modestly well in the middle of the Great Depression. And it's still it affected her mindset through the end of her life all the way in her 80s. And I think, well, what? What will that look like for us? Like what is permanently transformed about us? What will be our thing? Will it be masks, right? Will it be an aversion to crowds way past the end of this pandemic? That's what transformational times do. They transform our institutions, they transform our personal habits, they transform our outlooks. And we are not the first humans to go through this, be it World War II, be at the Civil War, years and years of just destitution and trauma and personal sacrifice and crises that just played out individually and institutionally and societally for people's entire lives. And I think that there was this narrative in human history that we were done with that or that we'd escaped it in a way. And you can feel you can hear that in people. And I even feel it in myself like, No, no, this is like not what I was promised. Now that this is not, we're supposed to be like flying cars like the Jetsons. What do you mean we're just going to have struggles and crises and hard times, just like our grandparents and great grandparents and ancestors did? 

Beth [00:22:10] We were talking before we started recording about somebody I know who really views every problem as just a product or an app, or a system that hasn't been created yet or that hasn't been perfected yet. Instead of being a person who's willing to sit down and say, like, you, OK, can we check in on your soul? And I think that that person is there's nothing wrong with him. He's just a product of a time that has viewed everything like that. I mean, that's a that's a very typical way to walk through the world right now. And so what we're going through is extremely hard and shattering to that sense of we can solve any problem. When you were talking about your grandmother, it made me think about mine and how she reacted to that depression-era living too. And I thought, I think mostly about how she reused every piece of aluminum foil, no matter its size or how it had been used previously. Like, she would wash the aluminum foil and fold it back up in a drawer. And it was when it was time to use aluminum foil again. She would see if she had a piece that was about the right size, and as a kid, I viewed that as, you know, just kind of a crazy thing that she held on to from that time. Now that looks like early sustainability efforts that we don't waste anything. Had this thread of wisdom that came out of that period that is wise for maybe different reasons than she understood at the time, but I wonder about that too. What are we learning now that will be wise in a completely different context for our children and our children's children? 

Sarah [00:23:51] Well, because I think the paradox is this is both the same and different from what other struggles that our grandparents and ancestors went through. You know, living through the Great Depression or World War II or even, I think, you know, Civil Rights in the Vietnam War. Modernity has has affected lots of things, our civic institutions are less strong, our civic culture is less strong. The family structure in many ways has been affected and is less strong, and I think we're feeling that to the informational environment we are in has changed dramatically. And I don't say that to say, Oh, this is so much worse. It's just different. And I think to give ourselves grace to understand, like not only we're going through like a historically transformative time, but we're doing it in a different context, and in many ways, that context is harder. Our informational environment causes stress and anxiety. It isolates us from one another and in other ways it's been a blessing. Can you imagine going through social distancing and lockdown without the internet? I can't. And so I just think to acknowledge the paradox of like human beings have gone through tough times and our tough time is different. And to see that and acknowledge that as well. 

Beth [00:25:13] I had this moment over the weekend, where I was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for indoor plumbing, I don't know where it came from, but I just all of a sudden thought, what if we have to live this way forever where we have to wear a mask when we go out and social distancing is important and we still have conversations about big crowds? I would take that over living at a time when we didn't have any of that, but there was no indoor plumbing. I just thought for a second, like, this is a really important part of my everyday existence, and I'm so glad we have it. Those like perspective moments have been really helpful to me in the course of all of this, where I think it's not the worst time to be alive. If I were choosing on a timeline, I would still choose this time over almost any other. Even with all these difficulties. 

Sarah [00:26:04] And believe that that is why everyone is watching Station Eleven, even though it is a pandemic show which sounds like the worst thing anybody would want to watch. But I think the brilliance of that show is it is really perspective giving because for those of you who have not, you don't know anything about Station Eleven. It's a show on HBO Max, and it's a post-pandemic world where 999 out of every 1000 people died of this flu. And so it's like it jumps in time, but it's primarily about 20 years after that period of human history. And what these people are doing is asking, like, what are we keeping? What are we trying to save? What are we working for? Every, you know, all is lost. We're starting over. What do we want to keep from the before time? You know, there's this line. Can't say like there is no before, but there is a before and what do we want to keep and what still matters to us? And when we lived together in human society, like what's valuable and what's not, you know, there's like an ongoing discussion about phones. You mean every book was on here, like the the baby's born post this pandemic, like every phone because the electric grid failed. And they're like every book. Yeah, every book. Every movie. It sounds amazing. And the constant of is like, it wasn't that great. We don't miss it that much. But they were real. They were real excited to get to showers and bathrooms, let me tell you. And so like, just kind of it's I think that's why that show is so popular right now is because it it's a really beautiful piece of art that gives you that perspective. And look, that's what art does. A lot of the time is gives us those moments, you know, a great novel or a great TV show or a great movie to think to take us out of our own brains. And I think that is incredibly important in the middle of that portal. Like good creative art, deep values driven discussions that say, Wait a second, don't spin that story in your head because in the middle of a big moment like this one, it's even more important to get out of your head because the pressure of that big moment on our internal anxieties and our internal stories is so crushing can be so crushing. We're seeing that everywhere. We're seeing that with mental health challenges. We're seeing that with just people acting like assholes on planes and in stores or seeing that in rising crime rates that that transformational moment can be really crushing. If all we have to deal with it is the story inside our own heads that we need each other, that we need art, that we need community, that we need connection to help draw us out of that story in our own head because it can be really toxic in the middle of hard times like these. 

Beth [00:28:44] It helped me to find this name for it. This week in the shower, I was thinking about where some of my stress coming from, and I realize that it is the absence of inertia that is creating a lot of stress for me and just being able to label it that way and see it that way. It's helped me a lot realizing that I don't have anything that we just do now. Everything is still a little bit of a question mark. We usually do this. Are we going to do that this year? Does that make sense? Is it safe to do that? Is it wise to do that? What will other people think if we do that? There is no inertia for just what the plan is and how I gather with other people, how I get all those things that you were just talking about a sense of art and community and connection to other people. And that absence of inertia is a real stressor. 

Sarah [00:29:31] Yeah. I mean, what we hear to a person is decision fatigue and one of our listeners. You use the word micro decisions, which I thought was so brilliant. What a great way to put it. Just like, you know, mask or no mask, gather or no gather, social distance or don't social distance, absence, stay home, quarantine five days, 10 days testing, no testing, are there tests? I mean, just like... 

Beth [00:29:55] Even smaller. Do I make my six year old get the mask over her nose every time she slips it off in church? The little tiny pieces of all of this. 

Sarah [00:30:04] And those micro decisions when you know that you're living in this time, in this moment in  human history where there are just massive forces at play. Massive, huge global viruses, strains on democracy, you know, tech innovation, space exploration, like that's so huge. And so you're like, what does it freakin matter? Like, why am I wrapped up in this tiny micro decision? Why am I being forced to think through this same flowchart 3000 times a day? And it's just exhausting. It's in it's like task switching constantly, which is so stressful and so hard on our human brains. 

Beth [00:30:50] And it is all pretty consequential because we're doing that calculus even with like purchasing decisions. Well, this is really expensive right now. Is it going to be in six months? Should I buy it now? Should I wait it out? If I have the opportunity in the privilege to make decisions like that, I'm going through that all the time worrying about where to spend our philanthropic dollars right now. I mean, I think everything feels so temporary that you don't know where to invest. And that's tricky, too. And that's true about both money and about time. Do I put my energy into this thing anymore. Is this thing even still a thing that's going to be needed? 

Sarah [00:31:27] So I think the one sort of blessing in my personality is that I don't have a great memory. I'm a big memory keeper because my memory is not great. I don't hold on what it felt like, like I took to have little kids that sort of already fading. I definitely don't remember what it was like to be in D.C. as a double income, no kids. Like that time is way faded in my memory. College, law school. Like, they fade pretty quickly. And so I think that's really helpful because I don't think about this time as temporary. There's no such thing to me. Everything is. Every time I'm living in my life, it's temporary because they fade so quickly. And so I'm just in the in the present like very strongly in the present thinking how I can like do better because I'm an enneagram one in this present moment. And it's like, I kind of want to invite everybody to join me because we're not going back to some sort of equilibrium like this is not a temporary time period. And I think the exhaustion people feel as they keep waiting for that release that like, well, it'll just be back to normal. And it's like, Guys, we're not that, that's not happening. Like, everything's going to be different in a good ways and bad. But all we really have is right now. And so I think that, you know, the people I hear the most exhaustion from in my personal life are the ones who like, want to go back to before and it's just gone. It's gone. Like we don't go backwards through the portal. We're going to exit into a different place no matter what. 

Beth [00:32:56] I was really tempted putting this episode together to come up with a boatload of historic examples of amazing things that came out of crises that the Great Depression was this boon of technology and to find just example after example to say, Hey, I'm sure we're going to make all this wonder coming out of this. But you're right, the other side of crises, we have some really negative tendencies, too, and we have some tendencies that I don't know what to make of them. I don't know how to calibrate them. So isolationism is the impulse after periods of stress and government failure. If you look back through history. And isolationism is, there's a really thin line between isolationism and localism, which we all say we want more of right now, we want to eat more locally and shop more locally and plug into our local community. And that's wonderful, and it is also just a dotted line across from an outsiders are terrible, and I don't engage with the world beyond me. And calibrating those impulses feels like part of the work in this portal to me. 

Sarah [00:34:05] I totally agree. What I've been thinking a lot about is how I spent so much of my 20s and 30s politically yelling, just yelling in warning and agreeing with all those with similar warnings that income inequality is going to, it's going to put enormous stress on our society and it's going to affect people. And I think in my head, I thought that means everybody will become a Democrat because we're the ones that care about income equality. But now I look at so many of them like political forces, and I think this is what I thought, like what I was worried about, that income inequality would exhibit all these stresses on people. And I just thought, what with a population of 300 million people, everybody was going to react the same. Like, No, that's not how that works. And that's true of it's going to be it's true of all the forces that were in play in our society before the pandemic. Income inequality, our informational environment, social media. It's true of everything now, the pandemic. I really think space exploration is going to be the one we look back and think, Oh, that's the thing we missed. That was really huge right now. This is the historical moment we're living through that is hard to realize the impact of. And I just I have to remind myself, like, it's it's never going to be one thing. It's never going to be one reaction. It's never going to be all positive impact or all negative impact. The story is forever and always going to be more complicated than that. 

Beth [00:35:32] I think that's right. I've been talking a lot on More to Say about timelines because it has helped me greatly to listen to people around me who are in a very different place about things that I am. And think, what timeline is this person prioritizing? Is this person right now prioritizing the past? Are they prioritizing the future? Are they more present oriented than I am because I get really excited about space exploration? And I also totally understand people who are saying, Why are we spending $10 billion on a telescope when there's all this suffering around us here on Earth right now? Those are two different timelines that we're thinking about, and that's OK. All those timelines are valid, I think, arguing with each other about the history of this country. Is pretty important, and it makes me realize that it's it is important to have people who both celebrate the past and people who reckon with the past, those are necessary and all of that formation of the story of who we are is going to matter in ways that we can't touch today. On the other side of all of this. Does it make it any more good faith right now? It doesn't make any of it feel better. It doesn't mean it's not painful. I just think being able to see that we are in this portal and that all of those inputs come out the other side rearranged in some meaningful way. It just gives me a greater sense of peace. 

Sarah [00:37:05] And I think that's a real important strategy to deal with. Oh, I don't know the internet. It feels like the immediacy and the just never ending flow of information that comes from the internet makes us want to like pick a permanent conclusion even more. And while I understand that instinct, like let's settle on the right answer you just like it's so funny that a place like Twitter where there is just a never ending flow of opinion and facts and misinformation. And it does feel like the drive there is to, like, settle on the right answer, which is sort of hilarious when you think about it. You know, it's like trying to stop a firehose with your finger like, we're not. That's not that's not available to us. Like the idea that we're all going to settle on the right answer and everybody's going to agree on the timeline and the what's most important and what's most valuable. And even if it bubbles up into a trending topic, like it's just not going to happen, but it seems like we want that permanency like, well, now we've decided the pandemic is over, and now we've decided that January 6th is X, Y and Z, and that's what we're going to. Not only have we decided, but that's it. We're not we're not going to make any more decisions surrounding that. And again, I understand in the face of the exhaustion of our current like the micro decisions and the flow of information, but. I just kind of feel like a little bit like Dr. Phil. How's it working for us, everybody? Do we like this? Do we like how this is working? I don't like Twitter, how it's working personally, so I know my answer. 

Beth [00:38:45] And there's even that pull to permanency in this analysis that we're doing that COVID will transform things. You know, I read a really interesting counterargument from an Irish opinion writer that was saying. Don't be so sure that COVID is going to change everything. A really strong human impulse is to put things back as they as we felt they were and even where that isn't completely available to us, there are people in this world who are going to try really, really hard to do that and not all for nefarious reasons. In some ways, that is just a genuine human coping mechanism. Everything is not as I thought it was. Well, let me try to get it back as I thought it was, or let me try to make the world in the image of what I thought it was. And I think it's important to leave some softness around how significantly things are going to change because setting those expectations really high. If you're looking for us to come out on the other side of this, creating a more equitable, just beautiful, climate friendly world is is tough. We won't get all the way there. If you have kind of a doomsday in mind, that's not a particularly healthy expectation. I think we just don't know. I think all we know is that it will be a little different and it will be a mixed bag. 

Sarah [00:40:04] Well, and I think about that with the great resignation. I just kind of got in my head and I thought, Well, what are we going to do if people don't want to work anymore? Like, what do we do if people just don't want to be teachers? Or what do we do if all the nurses quit? And we had a listener, I think, comment that they were they change careers and they were joining public health. And I thought, Oh, right, there will be some people a part of this great resignation that are entering the careers everybody else is exiting. And I just legitimately had not thought about that. I just thought, Oh, right, like, it's not that everybody doesn't want to work, they want to do different things. And some of those things will be teaching or nursing or public health. And even with jobs that where we really do see a massive amount of turnover like fast food and low income jobs that don't pay and are hard to do. What have we been talking about for a solid decade? The increased automization, the increased usage of self-checkout and even at places like McDonald's and like, there probably is a lot of room based on trends that started way before COVID for people to stop doing those crappy, low paying jobs and for robots and automatimization to step in. So it's just stuff like that, like you just can't from your own individual perspective, ever see the total picture of, you know, even immediate sort of critical trends right now, much less that sort of greater flow of history? 

Beth [00:41:32] And I think it's not going to be one thing because at the same time, as you see some places going more towards self-checkout, you see other places digging in and saying, we really need to pay these workers better. We need to make sure this is a good job. We need to make sure it has benefits. We need to make sure that there's some consistency for our customers. I loved reading about a restaurant in Oregon that is committed to paying everybody, including people who wash the dishes twenty five dollars an hour. And so instead of doing tipping, they've gone to a service fee on every check that will allow them to pay every single person who works in the restaurant well. Because those don't have to be crappy jobs, those can be jobs that really connect humans to each other and that really add to our our lives in meaningful ways. And I like seeing that people are working on that end, too. And I think there's a place where the technology is the solution, and I think there's a place for us to say, Well, let's just reimagine some pieces here and reimagine the value that we ascribe to those pieces and see what happens. And that's I think, the call to action right now, especially I was reading a piece this morning from Matt Iglesias about all this bad behavior, that there's bad behavior in schools, that adults are behaving badly in their cars and on airlines and in businesses. And that all that bad behavior is somewhere below the tip of the iceberg that looks like rising crime rates. And to me, just being able to to zoom out and sit with this, OK? This is a really hard time. This portal is long. It's longer than I wanted it to be. I feel like I need to really underscore that this is longer than I wanted it to be. And we don't really know when we're coming out of it because it doesn't work that way either. Just acknowledging that and thinking about, OK, who do I want to be in this process? And what do I want to be part of creating knowing that I don't have to be part of creating everything? I don't have to arrive at that permanent Twitter - right, wrong categorization of everything is a way to find a little bit more gentleness. 

Sarah [00:43:41] And at the same time that people are absolutely under enormous stress and that is bubbling up in many, many ways. It is also true that stress is forging some people in some institutions and new, inventive ways. We're just beginning to understand, even on travel, like I have traveled throughout the pandemic, I have not witnessed a single incident of terrible behavior. Now this is anecdotal. There's no arguing with the report, the incident reports that the airports are are showing, but you do read reports from airline workers and restaurant workers who say it's the worst I've ever seen it. And also on the other side, people are being nicer to me than they've ever. Some people are being nicer than they've ever been. And so because people don't respond to stress in one way, either, some people innovate. Some people act out. Some people reach out and help. Like, there's never going to be one reaction. And I think the the stress of these transformational moments is in the middle of all that change. We really do want one narrative even knowing that that's impossible in a moment like this. And so just sort of surfing that wave of change and understanding like it's never going to be one thing. There are there will be horrific outcomes. There will be triumphant outcomes. And we have to release the idea that we will both anticipate, understand, enjoy any of those outcomes. 

Beth [00:45:14] So speaking of thinking about what you want to be part of creating next step, we have a little treat of a conversation with Maggie, who is our community engagement manager. Sarah has been helping Maggie transform her living space, so you can hear the two of them talk about that process. 

Sarah [00:45:39] Maggie, I'm so glad you're here with us. 

Maggie [00:45:41] I am too. 

Sarah [00:45:42] For a little Outside Politics and you're in your space, I can see it behind you. 

Maggie [00:45:45] Yes. 

Sarah [00:45:47] OK, let's tell people how this started. I don't remember why you were sending us a picture of your TV in Voxer, but you sent us a picture and you're like, Just excuse the mess. 

Maggie [00:45:56] Oh, remember what I was manifesting because I had projected the news brief for something onto my TV because I thought, it looked great on my TV. 

Sarah [00:46:05] Love it. Love it in your like. I hate the space. And I was like, Well, let me help you. There's no need to live in a space that you hate. That's the worst. You can't do much. I feel like truly much at all if you feel bogged down by your living space. 

Maggie [00:46:20] Yes. 

Sarah [00:46:20] And I feel like it should be in the hierarchy of needs, truly. 

Maggie [00:46:23] I think so. And I think part of it is it wasn't so bad. But then when the pandemic started, like this space just became a lot because of the way that my house is like this open floor plan experience. So it was like living space, office, playroom, music practice space. It was it was doing too much. Library, I mean. 

Sarah [00:46:45] Truly one of the happiest days of the pandemic when I like did the best job at managing my pandemic stress is when I transformed my guest bedroom like literally late at night into a classroom and at the end, just using stuff around I had around my house, and at the end I was like, I feel the best I've felt in months because I've made this space work for what we need it right now. 

Maggie [00:47:07] Yes, yes. I feel like that was also one of your first questions was like, Do both of my children actually need their own room? Because, like, put some of this stuff in another room, 

Sarah [00:47:16] You're like, Yes, they do. Because so that. So the first thing to happen is I said, Well, let me help you. And a lot of people, listen, this is a testament to you to Maggie, because I will say that I have lots of suggestions for people's living space and not everybody takes takes me up on it. But I was like, Can I help you? And you're like, Sure. And I thought, Well, you know, especially because you said you had culling to do, and that usually takes people a long time. I thought we were looking at like months and dang, if not like two weeks later, did you show a big ol arm of a garbage truck picking up your piano, which is truly one of the most satisfying like videos I've ever watched on the internet and putting it in the garbage can because it was a it was an old. 

Maggie [00:47:53] Yes, it was. I yeah, I feel like. 

Sarah [00:47:56] Upright Piano. 

Maggie [00:47:56] Yes. Yeah. I had gotten it for free on Facebook from someone and it was like broken when I got it. But I think I even had somebody look at it and be like, There's really no fixing this thing, so. 

Sarah [00:48:06] Yeah, but you got right on it. You were ready. You were ready for someone to give you permission to throw things out. That's kind of how it felt to me. 

Maggie [00:48:12] Yes. And I think there's also a little bit of like I don't have any like what's the word pretensions about having like taste or style? So like, it was very helpful for me to be like, No, this is the color. You should paint your walls. This is what needs to be. 

Sarah [00:48:28] It's also helpful to me. This is why I don't do this stuff I've never done. This stuff professionally is because I learned, Oh, but some people won't do what you tell them to. And then I was like, Well, then I'm out. 

Maggie [00:48:37] For exactly that.

Sarah [00:48:37] I only want to do this if people are going to take my advice. And you did. So the first thing we talked about, if people saw the pictures on Instagram, you had a bright blue wall that was just it was offensive to the eye. How did that wall come about? I need to know the story there. 

Maggie [00:48:50] So when we moved into our house, we had for like five years lived in an apartment where we couldn't paint the walls and everything was just like white and like. Before we'd gotten married, I lived in a dorm where everything was white, so I'd been like in like white rooms for a very long time. So like when we moved into our house, also when we moved into the house. To be fair, the previous occupant of our home had painted everything orange and green. 

Sarah [00:49:15] Wooh. 

Maggie [00:49:16] It was intense like, and it was through the whole like the kitchen, the bedroom, everything was orange. And I don't know what that was a symbol of. But so we felt like we really wanted some bright colors that were not orange and green. And it seemed like a great idea at the time it was bold. 

Sarah [00:49:34] It was. Yeah, it's royal blue, like the bluest of blues on a giant wall. And look, that is so common. I did that in our first of a first apartment. When you start painting walls and you're like, finally free as an adult to paint the walls, I think everybody does that. Everybody goes way too bright. Look, I'm not a I'm not opposed to color. My house does not look like restoration hardware. OK, like I have lots of color in my house. I have learned over time I do not want that color on the walls 

Maggie [00:49:57] Right. I think that like, yeah, I seen this now. 

Sarah [00:50:02] And you do need to pick. Yeah, you could have done the bright blue if literally everything in your house was white. Every piece of furniture, every upholstered, like if it was all white and royal blue that would look baller. It look like you really loved Duke, but it would look baller. But you can't do both. You cannot have it both ways, right? You cannot have color everywhere. And then also really bright color. I mean, you can. But it is a it is a very tough esthetic to place to be right. 

Maggie [00:50:30] And having no taste here. But I think that you were right. The everything you said was that like having it all the same color actually makes it look bigger and brighter. Which is weird because I live in Florida and we have like a lot of natural light, but it is kind of dark, especially in this like main living space, because there's not like a lot of window here. So that has been nice too is it feels like brighter. 

Sarah [00:50:51] Yeah. When you have a small space, even if it's like sort of an open living area, like putting all the color in one place like all the walls, especially if there's lots of light curves and hallways, and it just it creates a flow. So it doesn't your eyes aren't taking in the fact that the walls are changing colors like I was telling my friends like, you have to have a place for your eyes to rest. There needs to be a rest. That's kind of what I mean. Like that can't be bright on the wall and bright. The in the upholstery, like the eyes, need a place to rest and stuff. You need to find that sort of piece so you're not constantly taking in esthetic information. And so the first, you got rid of stuff pretty quickly. And then the first thing you did was paint that helped tremendously. And you and we just I kept pushing you like I was like, she did the main wall and I was like, How about that yellow? I see peeking out in the hallway? Can we do some about that too? How about the yellow in your kitchen? Can we? And you did. You basically painted everything right? 

Maggie [00:51:46] Yeah, we got the kitchen. We have a little hallway. We did the bathroom. And yes, mostly like the paint made a huge difference. And then and by we. Let's just be honest here, my husband has said literally all of this. 

Sarah [00:52:00] This is another this is another mad shout out to your husband. Yes, because a lot of times in my life, I suggest things like this to my girlfriends and are like, Oh, my husband wouldn't do that, and ah, he won't like that. This is, listen, I'm going to offend people, but this is how I run my life. I'm just being honest. My husband does not have an esthetic say. He didn't get to name our kids. He doesn't have style. I'm not going to let him do anything that has to do with style. Name a kid. Paint a wall, pick a piece of furniture and it works out well in our marriage. I understand that does not work in other people's marriages, but there's just  part of me that's like if your husband is not an interior designer, like why are we taking his input? That sounds harsh. I hear that out well. When I say it sounds harsh, I'm just saying you. I'm just saying it served me well in my life. So your husband did put up a fight, which is great. 

Maggie [00:52:46] No, because we feel like he was like on board. Also, we're like, we just sort of recognize that there are there are areas of our lives where we have like very high school and strong opinions. And mostly we just really agreed that we want this to be a space that we want to be in and everything we've done up to this point has been wrong. 

Sarah [00:53:03] Well, and I here's what I think is hard. I think it's hard. It's like this is, this always cracks me up on the TikTok - interior design videos. They're like, now, if you leave it, do it. But this is out of style now. I think that there is a part of interior design that is trend driven. That is really just what we need to tell you something so you buy buy a new thing. Right? Totally get that. I think that's true. But I think people think that's all it is, and it's not. There are some just fundamentals of like color theory and proportion and like functionality of spaces. That is that is true and that are rules everyone. Not rules is probably nothing, but guidelines that will help everyone. And I think people confuse one for the other, right? They think because some of it's trend driven, all of its crap, and that is not true. There are some like just good basic guidelines and like sort of foundations of design that are helpful and like, there's no reason to reject them just to be to like take a stand against the trend driven nature of interior design. You know what I mean? 

Maggie [00:54:06] I mean, I don't know anything about interior design, but I believe that sounds true. 

Sarah [00:54:11] And so like that, like paint it all the same color that will make it feel bigger. Like, that's a guideline that's just true. It's not because somebody is trying to sell. You paint. It just really does help. Like, we take in visual information a certain way, even if our styles are different, you know what I mean? And like so a thing that I helped you with immediately as you had all your furniture. My aunt, who was an interior designer, used to say the furniture was under arrest like against the wall. And I was like, Hey, it doesn't all have to be a couch does not have to be up against a wall. Like, I think that's people's instinct. But like, there are some good sort of like, Oh yeah, arranging furniture guidelines that say, and so we kind of like cordoned off a little area for you to watch TV because it also has to serve as a home office. And did that help? 

Maggie [00:54:53] Oh, it helps a lot. Yeah. And it also made it right, especially now that we've got the desk installed has made like the traffic flow of the room cleaner. And that's the thing about having like the thing off the wall. I feel like it's easier to keep clean. It's also very nice. 

Sarah [00:55:12] And that has to be a part of it. Like to me, that's that is a lot of what into your design misses. But how does it, how am I going to live in it? What am I going to have to walk around? Is it going to stay dirty or clean? Like, I love that part. I like not just having a space look good, but feel like it. It is serving its highest and best use in your life. And I look like the pandemic changed the highest and best use of so many of our spaces. And like, we just had to deal with that and and pay attention to that. And but like, you know, I think people get stuck either in like when they like the room a lot, but their lives change. And so the room still the same, but their lives are different. And I think that's something that's kind of hard to pay attention to as well. 

Maggie [00:55:53] Yeah. And what I also like about this is that I haven't had to buy a bunch of stuff. Now this is also part of like gold star to my husband because he built this, and so he had to buy it like some wood and a gallon of paint. But it wasn't just we didn't invest so much in this that it's like, Oh, it has to last forever. Which is really nice, because I feel like if that... 

Sarah [00:56:13] That's there's nothing, nothing as good as redecorating a space with stuff you already have like it is so satisfying. It's again why I wouldn't be a good professional interior designer because they make money by you buy new stuff a lot of the time. But I think like, Oh man, there's just nothing as good. So when we went on vacation this summer, I had my downstairs repainted. I not had it painted since we moved in and it just was greasy from children. I don't know how they put so much grease on my walls, but they do, and it makes me angry that I don't want to talk. I just I don't talk about it, but you have freshly painted walls. I don't know how hardcore you've been with your family since your freshly painted walls, but I like was like, I will make you sleep outside. If you put grease on these walls, I'm not even kidding. Like, at least and I, you will sleep outside. And so like. But when we were gone, it was all painted and I had my friend Sarah, who's really good and everybody has one friend that like, if you love their space, I bet if you said, Hey, will you come hang a gallery wall for me or help me hang a gallery wall? They will, because the reason I do it in their space is because they love it, even if they don't do it professionally. And so like, there's no reason to teach yourself if you have a friend, that does it well already. And so Sarah's really good at that. So I pulled literally everything off my wall. I didn't buy anything new, everything off my wall, and she came while we were gone and hung in it and all new spots. So every piece of art, every family photo. Like, it just got moved around because you stopped seeing it after a certain amount of time. Like you walk past enough times and you just don't register in anymore. And it was the funnest. It was like coming home to a new house. It was so much fun. And I'm like looking at your pictures. I know the pictures are a hang up and I'm looking at I'm like, That would make a good gallery wall behind you. Maybe that's what you should do. 

Maggie [00:57:52] I do. I want it. Yeah, I do. I want it to be a gallery wall right there. I just I think that you mentioned that like getting like white frames instead of black frames since like everything is white, I think I would like to do that. And also, I need to. I think I want like different pictures because...

Sarah [00:58:10] Yeah, if you're if you're hesitating to hang them like, you're like, Oh, I don't miss that. Like, yeah, get new pictures, don't hang anything out of obligation. 

Maggie [00:58:15] And I have a lot of really nice pictures like we've gotten like professional pictures, then I just have never printed them. 

Sarah [00:58:22] Oh, yeah, you need to print them. You live near an IKEA, there's no no excuse for you not to get a bunch of white frames. They're so cheap there. 

Maggie [00:58:27] Of course, get them to IKEA. 

Sarah [00:58:29] They'll even though we did, we did. The other big thing is, I kind of you were talking about this has to be your home office. We were not convincing children into a space, so this had to serve as a home office. And so we were looking for the sleekest solution to that, and we found a long, skinny, built in desk. And you were worried about like, well, I think it's weird for people who come in my front door for there to be this like desk here. And I'm like, Well, so what? Who cares? It's your house. It's got to serve your function. It's why people keep like formal dining rooms they never use, because that we have this theory like that's what people should see when they come in the door. But I read once this idea, it's called a 365 days a year house, whereas like every space in your house, is used 365 days a year. I love that. 

Maggie [00:59:09] I love that too. 

Sarah [00:59:10] Right. It's not good. Like no unused spaces like it's got to get used. It's not a really about like what it's supposed to look like to somebody that comes in the door. Because if it's the truth is, if it's not being used to its highest and best use, it's going to like, get junky and cluttered and then you're not going to want a happy ending anyway, right? That's what I tell people. I'm like for the reason I host so much is because I keep I increased just a little bit how clean I want my house every day and I decreased dramatically, how clean I think it needs to be for people to come over. And when those two meet, you can have people over because you're not killing yourself, cleaning for 48 hours just to have somebody in the door. 

Maggie [00:59:47] Yes, and that's true. That's I always had. My husband went out of town over the weekend to do a training that has been putting off for forever because of the pandemic. And so he was gone, and I invited some friends of my daughters over, and it was so much easier to have people over like they couch. We watched him, so I cried. It's fine. But we had a great time. 

Sarah [01:00:12] See, look, that's I don't look at that. That's a beautiful message about a home. And... 

Maggie [01:00:16] Oh yeah, right. 

Sarah [01:00:18] Mm hmm. I just I'm so happy for you. I think that you have been a phenomenal student. We did all of this over Voxer. It's not like I've like, come to your house. It's been pretty impressive. But like, I'm so glad that me being pushy and being like, Hey, you want some help at that house. 

Maggie [01:00:35] I was like, OK, are you serious? 

Sarah [01:00:38] I was like, Heck, yeah, I'm serious. I love this idea. Listen, I said this really did in the pandemic about I felt like my house was like, Can you just give me a minute? Can you leave me alone? I know you're here all the time, and all the people are here all the time and you want to change everything to make it work. But like, I'm tired and you need to leave me alone. So I got to exercise that energy on somebody else's house. It worked out really well. Yeah. I'm so glad. I'm so glad. And so if you haven't seen the pictures there on Instagram, you can see the before and after of Maggie's living space. I am thinking about coming on Instagram, doing a dear Sarah about homes. I am comfortable taking questions and giving advice in that particular subject area. 

Maggie [01:01:15] And you should be very comfortable because you're great. 

Sarah [01:01:17] Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, I come from a long line. My entered into your designer, my mom, my grandmother, my great grandmother. Like, This is my this is the story I will end with my own. My great grandmother was deep in her 90s, looked at my grandmother and said, I just wish I could do one more house. Oh, so look, listen, I come by it. Honestly, come by it. Real, honestly. So thank you, Maggie. Thanks for letting me exercise my energy and your space. I'm so glad.

Maggie [01:01:42] I got a couple of more rooms we could do. 

Beth [01:01:46] Thank you, Maggie, for joining us, and thank you to all of you for being here. We'll be back with you on Friday to share Five Things You Need to Know About the Upcoming Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Life and Work. Between now and then, we truly appreciate you leaving that brief review of our book. I Think You're Wrong, But I'm Listening on Amazon and continuing to share it with your people. Thank you so much for spending time with us. Have the best week available to you. 

Beth [01:02:18] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.

Sarah Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

Beth Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers (Read their own names)  Martha Bronitsky, Ali Edwards, Janice Elliot, Sarah Greenup, Julie Haller, Helen Handley, Tiffany Hassler, Emily Holladay, Katie Johnson, Katina Zuganelis Kasling, Barry Kaufman, Molly Kohrs.

The Kriebs, Laurie LaDow, Lilly McClure, Jared Minson, Emily Neesley, The Pentons, Tawni Peterson, Tracy Puthoff, Sarah Ralph, Jeremy Sequoia, Katy Stigers, Karin True, Onica Ulveling, Nick and Alysa Vilelli, Amy Whited.

Beth Melinda Johnston, Ashley Thompson, Michelle Wood, Joshua Allen, Morgan McHugh, Nichole Berklas, Paula Bremer, and Tim Miller. 

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