CIIS Public Programs Podcast

TRANSCRIPT

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This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. 

Emerging research in psychological and philosophical circles is showing us that there is more to the good life than past or current conversations suggest. Psychological richness is the missing piece to the good life, and, Lorraine Besser, a founding investigator in these studies, shows how we can add it to our lives by making them full of what she calls the Interesting—experiences that captivate and engage our minds, stimulate new thoughts and emotions, and impact our perspectives. 

In this episode, author and professor of philosophy Lorraine Besser is joined by CIIS Expressive Arts Therapy professor Shoshanna Simons for an inspiring conversation exploring how we can make our lives more interesting without having to make dramatic changes. Lorraine shares ideas from her research and latest book, The Art of the Interesting. They discuss how everyone can obtain and strengthen the skills necessary to access The Interesting. The Interesting is within everyone’s reach, once we know how to go for it.  

This episode was recorded during a live online event on September 19th, 2024. You can also watch it on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

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Shoshana Simons: Hi, Lorraine, good evening. 

Lorraine Besser: Hi, thank you for having me here. This is exciting to do. 

Shoshana: You are so welcome. So we had one opportunity to meet and have a phone conversation before the fact, which in itself was really interesting. Here we are in the Bay Area. You're in Vermont, where I used to live. And I'm hearing you got a heat wave going on there. 

Lorraine: Yes, yes. 

Shoshana: Your book also brought me to the shore of Lake Champlain, which I really appreciated reading about. 

Lorraine: Oh, good. Yeah. 

Shoshana: And I was really delighted to be invited to interview you about your book, a lot because of being drawn by the title, The Art of the Interesting. As you know, I work in expressive arts therapy and so much of what I was learning from reading your book, which is like, and I want to really ask you, I'm so curious about this intersection between philosophy and psychology, but also between the use of the word Art, which you capitalized as well, the Art of the Interesting, that's a juxtaposition of art and interesting. And I'd love for our conversation tonight to be a practice in the Art of the Interesting to take us somewhere where we maybe haven't gone before. We could invite that in. So maybe just start right there. Can you tell us a little bit about your background in philosophy and the impetus behind this particular book? 

Lorraine: Yeah, so I so I'm trained in a Western analytic tradition of philosophy. And very early in my career, I was focusing on questions and looking at them from really a historical perspective. I was focusing on questions like what motivates us to act well, how it is that we should behave towards one another. And at a certain point, I just started thinking that psychologists probably have something to say about this that I should be reading. And from that point on, I really developed this style of doing philosophy that takes psychological research and more generally the social sciences as a real starting point for understanding human behavior. And then as a philosopher, what I do is try to move beyond a descriptive the descriptive accounts that we get from the social scientists and explore the questions that are normative, that have these oughts. And so the question of how we ought to live, for example, is one of these things. So that's that's my background. And I the current project that we're that we're discussing here, it started a few years ago, it was right before the pandemic. And a psychologist, Dr. Shige Oishi, who was at the time at the University of Virginia, he reached out to me, he was familiar with some of my work, and he reached out to me thinking that. I'm trying to figure out who was missing this. We were all missing it, thinking that that in all of the work that both philosophers and psychologists had done about the good life, we were still missing something really important. And he had this idea that there was this set of experiences that have this particular impact on our minds. So they're stimulating this really kind of robust form of cognitive engagement and that these were a unique set of experiences and that they delivered something unique to us. And his first point of contact really came at the right time for me. I had both professionally and personally been through, worked on questions about meaningfulness and using our rational capacities. And I'd really found myself certainly personally at a point where I just really push those capacities very hard and was feeling was feeling burnt and impoverished by it. At the same time, I had just written this book on happiness, which which I found so interesting and so rewarding to write. But at the same time, I really walked away from from that experiencing understanding that that happiness actually plays a more limited role in our lives than than I had certainly thought. So the suggestion when Shige came to me, the suggestion that maybe we've all missed something and maybe it looks like this was one that really spoke to me. And and so we worked together and we started this research project trying to isolate these set of experiences and understand how they contributed to our lives. 

Shoshana: So I'm so curious. I'm not in the I'm not a philosopher. I'm not that's not my background. And I just want just for the audience, because I'm sure our audience has got different levels of understanding and experience with Western philosophy. I'm wondering if you can define these three key concepts that underpin your research and you already use the term the good life. What does that mean? What do you mean by the good life, the meaningful life and psychological richness so that as we go through, we can keep referring back and have some common understanding of that? 

Lorraine: Yes, thank you. Excellent place to start. I understand the good life - and I'm working within a tradition of understanding the good life - as a life that is full of really valuable experiences. So I'm not approaching the good life as you know, what do we need to do or what do we need to obtain or achieve? But I'm really trying to think about it in terms of like, well, how what are the best kinds of things for us to experience and or the best kinds of experiences for us to have? And so I'm really looking at the good life in terms of this experiential level of what what kinds of valuable experiences make up a good life. And so so the meaningful life or meaningfulness. So that tracks a certain kind of experiences that we have that use the rational structure of our minds, right? We're using our our minds to learn, to to find our purpose, to create purpose, to achieve and that kind of a life or that kind of those range of experiences are really distinctive, I think, insofar as they're using this aspect of our minds that we're all familiar with. It's very structured, very rational, and it's searching for something and striving. Psychological Richness, on the other hand, it's still using our mind, but it's using a whole different part of our mind. And that's what I think is really exciting about this. Psychological richness describes a particular impact a set of experiences has on our mind. So experiences that tend to be challenging, complex, novel. When we have these kinds of experiences, our mind reacts to them in a certain way. And and psychological richness describes how our minds react, the impact these these experiences have upon our upon our upon our being. So the particular impact that they have is really stimulating this robust form of cognitive engagement that involves new thoughts, that stimulate new emotions, that stimulate more thoughts and that often really leave us leave us with a changed perspective as a result. So the kind of experiences, right. And I think they feel interesting. That's that's that's how I describe that. They are the kind of experiences they feel interesting and they're the ones that really do have this dent upon us. And so that when we walk away, you know, we just find ourselves moved and impacted. And so we set out to figure out that these were a discrete set of experiences, right, that they were different than meaningful ones and also different than happiness and and that they were valuable experiences so that they were an important part of the good life. 

Shoshana: So how did you how how did you go about investigating that? How did you do that kind of empirical data gathering? 

Lorraine: Yeah, it's a really, you know, even when I describe it, like, it's really amazing how we can work together in these ways. And so the start was to really try to navigate the scope of these experiences and to make sure that they weren't covered in these other very familiar parts of the good life. And so what we wanted to do then was to try to show that these were experiences that that were separate from happy ones and or that were separate from the kinds of things that delivered happiness and also separate from meaningful ones. And that doesn't mean they don't overlap. Right. So, of course, many experiences can be valuable in all of these ways. But the important thing was that they tracked something distinct and different. And so we set about to show that from an empirical and from a theoretical perspective and to show that they are empirically distinct. So I'm following Shige here. This is I was a philosopher on the on the team and it was a really great experience. And but but but what fundamentally what the research involved was creating a scale of psychological richness by which we would suggest to people like how often have you had like a novel experience or a complex emotions and unusual experiences. So we're trying to develop a scale through which we could measure or gauge psychological richness and then compare it to the scales already existing that were already existent at the time that tracked happiness and meaningfulness. And so they crunched the data on that and find that they are actually tracking something distinct so that this this idea of psychological richness and as this overall impact of these experiences, that that was something new and distinct. And and honestly, that that that philosopher and psychologists have just overlooked for so long. As the philosopher on the team, I set about helping to carve out this concept and to show like how it needed to be really where the theoretical boundaries lay of psychological richness versus happiness and and and meaningfulness. And so that got me started thinking about why psychologically rich experiences are valuable. And that really directed my attention to where it is now, which is on this this notion of the interesting, which I take to be like which I take to be basically how these experience feel how these experiences feel on the inside when we're experiencing them. So that tracks how they're distinct. And the second part of this research that was to try to show that they're valuable, right, not as just this distinct set of stuff, but to show that they're valuable. And and this is something that is difficult to show from a psychological perspective. It's one of these normative kind of claims that it's difficult to show empirically. But the empirical research that we did suggested that at least that people valued it. Right. So we would we would ask people like after kind of getting them to think about psychologically richness and understanding its differences, we would ask, well, what which kind of life would you choose for yourself? Right. And we found that a lot of people did want to choose the psychologically rich, rich life. And we've also found further evidence. And I particularly enjoyed these kinds of studies. I had –were obituaries studies and looking at obituaries of what people report as the highlights of one's life. And and we found a lot of evidence of psychological richness in these obituaries. Yeah, I thought that was fascinating. Yeah. 

Shoshana: If folks wanted to know more about the actual methodology, has this research been published? 

Lorraine: Yeah, absolutely. So there was a co-authored paper by myself and Oishi that was called “The Psychologically Rich Life”. And so that came out in 2019. And then there's a paper that does more of the psychology by Oishi and Westgate that is “Beyond Happiness and Meaning", The Psychologically Rich Life”. And that details a lot more of the the correlations that they're discovering and and how you know, the fine tuning of how they're of how they're figuring out this distinct category. 

Shoshana: And as I'm listening to you, I'm seeing how animated you become when talking about psychological richness. And I've got a curiosity coming myself now, which is in what ways and what was your experience of psychological richness through being on this team, being in this cross-disciplinary team? Just curious to know what that was like for you. 

Lorraine: Yeah, you know, it really did tap into, you know, you do a lot of self-searching on the on these kinds of when you're working on these things and you're thinking about the role that that these different kinds of experiences have in your life. And I I really found that actually this just this described a part of me that that had been way neglected and buried in the process of getting tenure and doing all of this stuff. And so it really did resonate with me that that this was something that was really important and did really animate me and and and define me. And yet it really gotten buried throughout all of the adulting. And so thinking about thinking about this from this perspective was was really affirming of of of myself and my own experiences, but also affirming of that, you know, we're talking about something really important here that that that, you know, we don't we didn't discover the new thing, but by talking about it and by framing it and talking about why it's valuable and how you can harness its value, we're really I think it's offering a very empowering framework for us to to to seize life. 

Shoshana: So in this in hearing that, I am so curious to know whether what's transforming you as a researcher through the art of the interesting. And there's so many other questions I want to ask you about the book that I can't help ask that one. 

Lorraine: Yeah, yeah. So what's transforming me as a researcher? I- Well, I personally find myself very liberated from the framework that I'd been myself had been working in for a very long time. Right? So that's, you know, conversations about the good life have gone on for centuries. And and there's there is emerging a pretty stable dichotomy between like this meaningful stuff and happiness. And. I felt like it left me out a little bit, you know, like and I wasn't doing very well in either of those. And so I felt, you know, I felt left out. And so, you know, I really feel like because this speaks so much to me, I was really able to bring myself and my own experiences and and draw on my environment and to talk about all of the ways in which in which, you know, I find the interesting in my life and to really try to kind of understand and seize how we can all look out in our lives, regardless of what's going on in them and really find them more interesting and even create more interesting experiences. 

Shoshana: Fascinating. Yeah, as I was reading, I was reading it through my academic lens through being at CIIS. And I think we had we touched on this conversation about what's different about CIIS from, you know, I'd lived on the East Coast and I know Middlebury and I know CIIS and thinking about contexts and what different what different contexts enable and CIIS with that word integral, you know, is very much about putting the pieces together. And you told me that at one point you'd been interested maybe in applying to CIIS and found that fascinating and thinking about the gift to our students when we as professors or academics open up our own path, what that may be out of the constraints and the oppressive structures of academia. When you take that courageous risk to investigate, right, to get into that cross-disciplinary relationship with a psychologist and chart a new path, what becomes possible for your students, you know, in making in their psychological richness and what they might be able to do with to further that research in their own lives. 

Lorraine: Yeah, yeah, thank you. And I another way in which this experience has really opened me up or brought more of myself to the research is through writing a trade book, which is a very different experience. And, you know, it's one, it was so rewarding for me, but, you know, it's also very different. I have to, you know, be vulnerable to bring my own self into the picture really and discuss many of my experiences as a way of illustrating the kind of what we're after here. And so that and I do find that in the classroom that that is more helpful, right, to just have let down your guards and really just to be able to integrate without boundaries and to just get to what counts. And so that's been really great. 

Shoshana: That's wonderful. It kind of brings me to my– I'm looking here because I do have a lot of questions I really want to ask you and I keep wanting to also follow. But you discussed the role of creativity in the art of the interesting and, you know, I'm very interested in creativity and I know you had some different ways of defining it. How do you define it? And how would you know, how would anyone know they're having creativity, having a creative moment? How would you know it was happening? How did you know it was happening? 

Lorraine: Yeah, yeah, you know, I grew up being taught that, you know, people had right brains and left brains and, you know, you're either creative or not. And I was definitely not creative on those angles. But, you know, what we're learning and what we now know about creativity, it's really just all about forging new grounds and being willing to shift your boundaries and to disrupt your thought patterns and to really like get to someplace different or new. So it's about building connections and even building connections between, you know, these different sides of your brain and bringing things together. So that I find really empowering, right? Because to me it means that, you know, because I'm not an artist, I'm really not even good at imaginative play, you know, I struggled with that a lot as a parent, you know, I was like, but to me this is really kind of a liberating way to look about creativity because it shows that we're all creative and that all we have to do is to try something new and to really just see what happens. And, you know, we don't have to be also, like when we're being creative, this was also liberating, you know, we don't have to be good at it, right? We just have to be creative. And that's really in the spirit of what we're after here. And so I think that, you know, we're all coming from a different point of view with respect to our thinking about ourselves and our degrees of creativity. But I think if we are more open to just recognizing when we are doing something creative and even, you know, for me it helps to label it to be like, yeah, that was a creative way to cook dinner tonight. I don't know how well it tasted, but it was creative because I had nothing in the fridge. And so little bits like that of just recognizing when you have been creative and then appreciating it and allowing it to immerse yourself more. 

Shoshana: Right. That's really lovely. So following on from that, I'm curious about the connections you have noted between psychological interest, richness, the art of the interesting and what you're referring to as mindfulness 2.0. And I'd love you to unpack what that is because people have a lot of associations with mindfulness. 

Lorraine: Yes, we do. That's why this is 2.0. But yeah, yeah. So psychological richness, right? Think about it. It's all about allowing yourself to engage your mind, right? And to either stimulate your mind or to let it flow some way or another. And so, and part of the art of the interesting, you seized on that word art before. And I really, I really like that title. I mean, we really, I really captured something with this idea of it being an art, you know, because it's not, there's no like list of to-dos, but it's a skill that we can develop, that we can bring to things. And one of the most important things that I think we can bring is this kind of form of noticing, right? That's what I'm getting at with mindfulness 2.0. A way of using the skills that are, many of us are familiar with of mindfulness, where typically when we understand mindfulness, it's about bringing our attention inside of our mind, right? Developing this metacognitive awareness of our thought patterns and sitting with those in a really non-judgmental, non-evaluative way. And my idea, and what I'm suggesting here, is that we can take that same frame of basic mindfulness and just extend it outside, so that we are noticing things in our environment, picking up on things without all of this preconceived baggage and evaluations interfering. And I think that's one of the most, you know, the first kind of core feature of tapping into this art is just being able to notice things and to let your mind just go with that. So often we bring so much to our, you know, engagements in our, into our world, and we judge it, we think it's one thing, we think it's good, we think it's bad, and you know, it's so nice to just be able to let go of that evaluative framework and just to see what you can notice. By noticing something, you introduce novelty to your life, to your mind, and then you're going to, you know, that's really shown to be effective in stimulating psychological richness. And it's a very, you know, it can be hard, you know, but once you can do it, right? Like everyone can just go out there and just try to notice something and see what they can notice without judging, without classifying, and just bring an open mind to it. And so yeah, the Mindfulness 2.0 is about taking that same kind of thing we normally turn inside and just turning it outside. 

Shoshana: In your book, you give some very specific kinds of opportunities to reflect, and I wonder if you could maybe read, invite you to read one of your practices for developing more of that Mindfulness 2.0. 

Lorraine: Yeah, sure, sure. 

Shoshana: In fact, you call it developing an optimal arousal, optimal arousal. Which also is interesting language. 

Lorraine: Yeah, let me set that up a little bit and then I'll read it for you. Yeah, so optimal arousal, you know, I'm drawing from the social sciences on this account, but it's really getting capturing, I think, very well what we're after here, and we're thinking about engagement. And so it's going to optimal arousal really is describing this state according, you know, in which you are engaged and so not under aroused, right? And yet not over aroused to the point where you really can't open your mind to having these kind of free flowing thoughts. So we're looking for this sweet spot, right, of optimal arousal. And I think that when we notice things from this, you know, within this sweet spot, then we're on our way to going it. But with all of, you know, with many of these tips and practices I give, they're really practices through which we can learn how these things feel for ourselves, right? Because we're all having, you know, what counts as interesting is different for everyone. It's an experience. Optimal arousal is a very, you know, it's something that is unique to each of us. So the key here is to really wrap your heads and practice what it, getting used to what these feel like. All right. So here's the section on discovering your state of optimal arousal. “So if you've got a mind, you know what it feels like to be under and over stimulated. It's time to zero in on those states so that you can better predict when you'll find your state of optimal arousal. Or in other words, learn how to set the state to engage the interesting, set the stage to engage the interesting. So pick your favorite leisure activity, right? Whether it's playing a video game, reading a book, learning something new, listening to a podcast, right? It doesn't have to be anything lofty. And it certainly doesn't have to be like intellectual, but something that requires thought, right? We're engaging our minds here and something that you tend to enjoy. Now that you've got that activity in mind, right? The next task is to carve out these instances of reading books, playing games, and so on. Carve out instances when first, right, this activity left you completely unengaged. You may have done it, but you got nothing from it, right? It was under stimulating, boring even. Second, this activity overwhelmed you to the point where you couldn't engage in it, right? Maybe you gave up or maybe you pushed through only to find yourself worn out. And then third, this activity left, sorry, this activity felt engaging, activating, and invigorating, leaving you wanting more in a good way. So these are your states of under, over, and optimal arousal. Notice how they make you feel, especially that state of optimal arousal. And if you can take this one step further and identify what it is that triggers these states in yourself, right? You get bonus points. If you can't, don't stress, right? It's the states that count and the more familiar you are with them, the more you can recognize how to shape your activities so that they deliver optimal arousal.” 

Shoshana: Thank you. So yeah, as I was thinking about that and you go there right after talking about optimal arousal, you discuss safety zones and danger zones. And that just seems to totally rationally follow on from that. And I was thinking about that in terms of living in such scary, you know, yeah, beautiful worlds, joyous worlds, interesting worlds, but we also live in a very oppressive world, a very stratified world that is very unequal. The kinds of stresses people face are very linked to social class, race, gender, age, discrimination, social oppression, and just like managing to get through everyday life. So I'm wondering if you could talk to the relevance, how you, the relevance of these practices the art of interesting within the context of social oppression and our individual and collective nervous systems. 

Lorraine: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. There's so much of what I talk about is finding this balance between, you know, getting out there, all right, without really getting to this point where you're overstimulated or you're in your danger zone. And I think that one of the things that we find that I think is really important here is that when we have these kind of psychologically rich experiences, we're really engaging all kind of areas of our mind. And one thing that the research shows is that over time, this allows us to experience a more expansive set of sense of self, right? So I think so often when we're in these circumstances, right, of very unsettling conditions and, you know, suffering from unequal social positions, very often it's really uprooting one’s sense of self and end up calling into question, right, any kind of what agency anyone might have. And so one interesting thing I think that happens once we start to embrace psychological richness and to incorporate into our lives is that we emerge with a more, we develop this kind of expanded sense of self because we're more connected, right? We're engaging different parts of our mind and it leaves us with a more feeling connected to the world. And so we don't have studies on certainly on oppression, but there is this sense that the research has uncovered about how you develop a greater sense of a connection and agency within the world, right? So somehow it feels less ambiguous, less uncertain because you're in touch with them. And so I think that this will help us to feel more grounded, right, and to keep us grounded certainly in kind of situations of vulnerability. So I think that there is a way to develop here through engaging in psychologically rich experiences to expand oneself and to root oneself even more then. And I think there's a large part of recognizing that we all have this capacity within ourselves to enhance our lives without changing our circumstances and without, you know, making the world a perfect place, right? So we still have this ability just within ourselves, no matter what position we are, to enhance our lives and, you know, independently of our social positions, independently of the circumstances that we can't change, we can still have this ability to live well and to embrace life fully in a way that is in our control. So I think those can be really important. And, you know, one place I go to repeatedly in the book is to think about the value of being able to use your mind, to engage your mind in this way that begets interesting experiences, to have that capacity to do it and even under, you know, horrific circumstances when you have no control or no ability to move around in this world. So I think we're familiar with this point. Viktor Frankl made it really well, this idea of just like we even, you know, when we're completely oppressed, right, we can obtain spiritual freedom and that in many instances is a lifesaver, right? A lifesaver. And what we're looking at here, this capacity to have interesting experiences, right? It's a parallel freedom of mind and it is something that's always available.

Shoshana: I'm hearing you, I mean, the– What you're invoking, Viktor Frankl, I was just thinking about Viktor Frankl as you were speaking, and the idea of spiritual freedom. And I'm, you know, again, thinking about CIIS and having it being a location where we have a lot of not just permission, encouragement to integrate the spiritual dimension into our research and into our teaching. And I'd love to hear more about that, where your own thinking goes in relation to the spiritual dimension beyond the psychological languaging. – What you're sensing into from that point of view. 

Lorraine: I think that it– tapping into the spiritual place where you are able to connect with something greater, where you are able to find freedom, that that is, that's a, that's a great, I mean, I don't even know what the words for that are, right? But that's an empowering enhancing skill and one that can very much enrich our lives. So I think that those who have that spiritual connection and that those who can find that place spiritually will find a lot of points of connection here between what I'm encouraging here, which is less spiritually grounded, but still very much seeking within our minds to make the world better. And so I think that the background, you know, that I'm grounded in conversation with these social scientists. And, you know, one of the things that we're after when we're thinking about this good life are intrinsic values that are good for everybody and that everybody responds to. And, you know, I do think that, I do think that it can be difficult for some to engage in that spiritual way. And I think that, and it all takes practice and development, and then there are resources, of course, right? But I think this is, this is a, you know, this can be a parallel experience that, that will really enhance your life, even when these other options aren't really an option. 

Shoshana: Yeah. So you also expanding that sort of circle beyond the individual, you, you, you do talk about friendship. And I wonder if you can, and relationships, can you say a little bit more about what you were exploring in the book in relation to the importance of relationships, the potential of relationships and how that relates to the, what you're finding out about psychological richness? 

Lorraine: Yeah, of course. Yeah. I, I loved writing that chapter. I got to write about all of my connections and, and really explore what it is that we can, how connections or friendships, just to use one word, how friendships really do enhance our lives. Part of, part of what, you know, I take on in that chapter is, you know, we hear over and over again that the connections are the secret of happiness, and that's true and so important, but there's so much more, right? There's so much more. And so one of the things that I, that I think is, is really worth calling attention to is, is the way in which our connections help us feel, right? How we can, when we share feelings with somebody, we feel them more fully, right? And, and this, this, this basic kind of point, right, that I hope we're all familiar with, that when we're sharing with, with, we're sharing emotionally with somebody, we're, we're experiencing our feelings more robustly. I think it carries over to how it is that we can experience, you know, the important values in life, right? And we can, more experiencing moments of joy and happiness more, and experiencing more certainly of psychological richness. So one of, one of, you know, the place I start thinking about psychological richness is, is how it does, how it kind of just spreads between people. And I think that many of us have our most interesting experiences in conversations with, with, with people. And we can walk away, we can just have a conversation and walk away just so moved. And so I feel like the interesting, you know, really sparkles in between people and, and that, and that they can help us. It can help us feel these, these feelings when, when we need to. So I talk a lot about how we can, how helpful it is to really get to know and think through your connections, your own personal connections, and, and to see, to understand kind of how, how it is that you are connecting and what you're doing for each other. So that, you know, for example, sometimes I find happiness really, you know, I can get to a place where, you know, I know I need it and yet I really just, I just, I struggle. And, you know, I know the friend to call, I know the friend to call who will help me, help me feel happier. And the same thing goes true with, with all of the, you know, the important values in life, really, with psychological richness as well. I, I myself talk about in the book how I learned so much about psychological richness, right? Over the course of, of, you know, dating and marrying my husband, which all happened during the time I was researching this. And I drew so much and was influenced so much by, by the general spirit and, you know, the sense of adventure and the kinds of things that he would just talk about. And I really, you know, it, it caught me in many ways, but it, but it really did, you know, it taught me how to find the interesting. And now, and now that's what I'm hoping to share with others. 

Shoshana: For some reason COVID just popped in my head in relation to this, just thinking about the timing, you know, and, and thinking about the resourcing, you know, what, what thoughts you may have about how these ideas or how the research that you've been doing might have been, you know, what, what kind of a difference might it have, what might it may have made or can it make in the future if the, if the research that you have been, you know, developing and disseminating and, and, and coming out through your book becomes more widely known. Like in what ways could you, would you like to see this work impacting more broadly than the individual? Like in what ways can it be introduced more broadly? 

Lorraine: Yeah, well, well, I think there are a number of different, you know, areas in which– number of different areas, any area really, which is like impacting our life, right? That's kind of what I want to say, but that's not– but, you know, there, there are many different areas into which we can start to encourage awareness of psychological richness and to start to encourage, you know, practice and skill building. And you started off talking about COVID and I was like, okay, well, I was going to start talking about, you know, solitude skills and, and actually, you know, I spend a lot of time talking about that. One of my colleagues is doing great work on this and these are skills. They're, they're so similar, right? The ability to be, to sit by with yourself and to have an interesting experience is, is, is powerful. And so I certainly think we can do a lot more to call attention to, to these areas in our life where we, where we can, you know, benefit from solitude. Other dimensions, I think that calling attention to experiences of, to experiences of being in nature, right? To, nature is such a wonderful place to stimulate, to stimulate the thoughts, right? So having access to more opportunities for those, for those kinds of things is, is helpful. I've been thinking a lot about our education system in this context too. And it's kind of sad when I think about it because I, you know, I feel that children have, have this spirit so well, right? That children find the interesting everywhere they go, right? It's just, they're curious. They bring their imagination to it. They're not structured. They're not pursuing anything, you know? And so I just feel like I spend a lot of time, certainly in the book, also like reflecting and encouraging us to, to go back to when we were children. And, and I do think that, you know, at some point the educational system de-emphasizes those aspects of, of ourselves and, and teaches us that they're not as important, right? That it's more important to, to siphon those off, right? And, and to start thinking and acting in a way that will be approved of or will achieve something or that will be seen as good. And I wish there were more avenues in, in our educational system where, where we don't shut people, we don't shut kids down that way. And to more encouraging, right? I would love to talk to you all night about your improv, your improv scenarios. Like that would be, that would, I mean, that's, that I think that's a great example, right? Of things of a way and a skill that, that we can have just to learn to be open and to engage without, you know, without the baggage, right? Without, without structure, without focusing on ends. So I think that there are ways to bringing that, to bringing an emphasis on, on these, these skill development, right? Of, of the skills that will bring the interesting that really do get siphoned out from most, from, from many education systems. Yeah. 

Shoshana: Yeah. I'm also thinking about social wellness. You know, my back, I think I share with you my, one of my master's degrees in sociology and social policies. I'm always thinking about the implications for the, you know, for how do we bring this out into the world? And I'm, you know, we, our program is actually launching a, a second master's program that's arts and coaching. So your work is very relevant to where we're going, which is how do we, how do we use avenues outside of the mental health realm, the coaching realm and all kinds of venues, you know, it could be in the workplace, it could be in wellness. And there's a, an international movement called the Social Prescribing movement. It's out of the UK, originally, you may know about it. Started in the UK with medical professionals started to prescribe walks in the park, you know, going to feed the ducks, painting classes, because if a doctor prescribes that, well, you know, it's important then for your health. And there's been some really phenomenal data coming out of, out of the studies from the impact, the positive impact on people's wellbeing, the diminishment of depression, for example. And that's beginning to, you know, this is a movement now in the US, the Social Prescribing Movement in the US to sort of have some social impact. So I'm just seeing some of the keys there. And I'm curious for yourself, given where you've come and where you are in your own journey of the art of the interesting and your own psychological originals, where are you taking this work? What are your next steps? What are your curiosities and next moves? 

Lorraine: Yeah, yeah, thank you. You know, I, firstly, can I just say how much I love the Social Prescribing Movement and how helpful. And it's amazing that we're, it’s so gratifying to hear that we're finally speaking up and acknowledging the impact of these other areas of life within our, within our, within our minds. So that's just, I was, that just makes me happy to hear that. Where am I going with this? I, you know, I'm, I guess I go two ways, right? As a researcher and as a person. So, you know, as a researcher, I'm really interested in thinking about, I've turned a lot to think about boredom and its negative impacts on us and to take it really more seriously, I think, than it often is. And I think that, you know, the flip side of recognizing how valuable and important interesting experiences are is recognizing how important boring experiences are. And in my research, I have extended this conversation to thinking about end of life care and to thinking about the importance of really recognizing the capacity to have an interesting experience and why that's something that we ought to preserve and to encourage and highlight certainly throughout life stages. I've also been thinking a lot academically about, about what it means to even engage in experience and to think a little bit about, about where the lines are, right? Because a lot of what I'm saying for most of us is really like, open your mind, let it wander, let it free flow. And yet we know that for some individuals and for everyone, maybe on occasion, right, there's a point at which that goes, that dissipates and turns into a very unfocused, unsettled state. And so I'm really interested in learning more and trying to carve the lines out about, about what really it means to engage in this way without structure. Because that's what I think is this big, big kind of piece here that we're calling attention to the value of like unstructured cognitive engagement. And so it's something we haven't paid a lot of attention to certainly in my field. 

Shoshana: Yeah, I guess it's exactly. It's like, you know, for, and I'm, that's a whole other box that we're not going to open tonight. But just to acknowledge it, I mean, where this intersects with clinical practice would take us into a whole different domain. You know, about unwanted thinking and unwanted thoughts and all of that part of it, which is a really important subject and really relevant. And, you know, it brings up questions about the need for transdisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, like the importance of the work that you're doing. And then what would, what, what does this look like in real life? And, you know, how to get more discerning about the real effects of, of these practices and when they work and when they don't, when they're kind of contraindicated in some ways. And that certainly come from some of the research on meditation practices, you know, they're not for everyone, you know, basic meditation sitting practice aren't contraindicated in some instances. So yeah. Yeah. 

Lorraine: So there's a lot to learn there. Can I say about how it's how I'm taking this away in my personal life? Because this is the point. And, you know, part of what I'm doing, a large part of what I'm hoping for this book is to really empower everybody to start looking at life in this new way. And I think that by understanding the role that these experiences can play, and by recognizing the role that they might already play in your life, it's really affirming and empowering because they do occupy so much of life. And, and to know that, you know, this, this is good, right, that, that I don't have to just keep pursuing something else, that, that this is enough, you know, to have this really good, interesting experience or to experience psychological richness. And I think one of the real takeaways, certainly for me, and I think for a lot of us is, is to learn to be more comfortable with complicated emotions and to really try to understand that, you know, the good life isn't an easy life, right? It's not, you can read too many happiness books out there and just think, based on my personal experience, you can read so many happiness books out there that feel like there's something wrong with you because you're not there. And that, you know, that you can't, you can't get there. And, you know, I talk a lot about how, like, that we should expect that. That's just how our mental state of happiness works.

Shoshana: Social media sort of reinforces that. 

Lorraine: Oh, yeah, yeah. And there's societal, you know, all of this stuff is really, you know, can set us up to, to, to feel pretty bad about how our lives are going. And so I, I think, and I hope that this has been empowering for me to think about it in this way and to really own this aspect of my self and my life and, and to prioritize it and to seize onto it. And also just not to shy away from, you know, the hard stuff and to, you know, the complicated emotions happen, right? Things happen, obstacles happen. And to know that there you're like not, you know, sinking your chances of living a good life. I think it's essential. And it certainly helps me to go through life in general and to really be able to keep, keep, keep striving and keep thinking about how it is still good and to make it good. So. 

Shoshana: So I'm just wondering if there's any final thoughts you would like to share? 

Lorraine: Yeah, I hope everyone found something here, whether it was affirming what you already know, or whether it was encouraging you to go out to and see the world a little bit differently. But that's really what I'm hopeful that we can do here, that we can seize control of our lives, that we can harness our ability to enhance our lives, and that we will. So I encourage you to go for it, whether it's little steps, big steps, doesn't matter. It all adds up. And so I hope I've just inspired you to go for it. 

Shoshana: Wonderful. Thanks so much for being in this conversation with me. 

Lorraine: Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you for your questions, which are really helpful. 

Shoshana: Wonderful. Go out and buy the book, everyone. Bye for now. 

Lorraine: Thank you.

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live.

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