What is a Good Life? #67
Celebrating All Living Life with David Haskell
On the 67th episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I am delighted to introduce our guest, David Haskell. David is a writer and a biologist. His latest book, Sounds Wild and Broken, is a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction. His previous books, The Forest Unseen and The Songs of Trees are acclaimed for their integration of science, poetry, and rich attention to the living world. Among their honours include the National Academies’ Best Book Award, John Burroughs Medal, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and many more. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and Professor at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.
In this captivating episode, David shares his journey of celebrating all living life, experiencing life as much through his senses as possible, while becoming aware of the connections between himself and whatever he is engaging with, and the multiplicity of connections that exist behind that. Throughout this conversation, he impresses the importance of experiencing real life beyond the screens we often stare at for much of the day, and seeing life as it truly is, whether pleasant or not. He also suggests the importance of stepping out of ourselves to become more ourselves and in tune with how we perceive and connect with other life forms.
This episode will give you much to contemplate regarding how, where, and with what we spend our time, how we sense life, the importance of not always putting humans at the centre of the universe, and the humility and changes that can occur within us when making that shift.
The weekly clip from the podcast (4 mins), my weekly reflection (4 mins), the full podcast (60 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip from the Podcast
2. My weekly reflection
In the clip above, David, reflecting on his perspective as a biologist, discusses a shift in understanding life from viewing individuals as discrete entities to recognising the fundamental importance of relationships and interconnections. He highlights how every organism, from humans to trees, is actually a complex community of interconnected components, such as cells and microorganisms.
This perspective challenges traditional biological notions and emphasises the significance of networks and relationships in understanding life processes, suggesting a move away from individualistic thinking towards a more holistic understanding of biology. While individualistic perspectives still hold value in certain contexts, the broader understanding of life as deeply interconnected and relational reflects current scientific understanding.
He also goes on to say: "And those points of individuality like my individual consciousness that I'm experiencing now are manifestations of what's deeper and more fundamental, which is relationship. And again, that to me is a kind of, is a lesson in humility. It can't be all about me because me is in fact diffuse and is a product of community."
When I listened to him say that, I felt I was hearing something fundamentally important to understanding this life and perhaps even what is essential to us experiencing a good life too. The individual entity that we claim to be or prioritise is quite hard to point to or strictly identify as an individual.
Which made me think that it is no wonder that when we strongly attach to this idea of separateness not only in terms of identity, but with regards to the atomised lives we live, or when we ignore the significance of relationships and community around us, we tend to suffer.
While we may have prioritised and celebrated individual accomplishments for a long time now, I see wider society making the same realisations as the scientists. I am starting to sense a slow groundswell or movement towards more community and remembering or reconnecting to what we have known forever, at least innately anyhow, that is the strength of our relationships and connections has a colossal effect on the quality of our lives.
I’ve interviewed over 200 people around the question of “What is a Good Life?”, and relationships is the only theme that has emerged universally. Whether within my interviews, books on the regrets of the dying, or the Harvard Study of Adult Development (one of the world’s longest studies of adult life) they all point to the simple, but often ignored, significance of relationships and connections.
Whether from a material perspective, a self-development, even a spiritual perspective depending on how some people approach that, or if you are someone desperately seeking a singular sense of purpose in this life, I believe it is quite easy to miss the wood for the trees.
As someone who spent the majority of my twenties chasing money and the middle part of my thirties chasing an idea of singular purpose, it has become increasingly clear to me that there was something missing in my life which influences my life far more than anything I was chasing before.
The more I focused on the health of the relationships in my life and the more I cultivated what I would consider to be real relationships (where we frequently say what we think, feel, and notice, and explore conflict and disagreement as willingly as we are to sit in relaxed enjoyment of each other’s company), the more it considerably reduced the pressure to achieve anything.
Not because I ceased attempting to excel in what I am doing, or even let go of some big ambitions, not at all, rather I am aware that whatever I achieve won’t produce a greater joy or sense of connection than my pre-existing relationships. It has created a life that consistently offers me felt experiences and reminders that this sentiment is absolutely true for me.
A sense of connection is what we are lacking most in this modern world. Whether we find our own singular working purpose, hit our goals, or make as much money as we want, it won’t override this lack.
Unless you are already content with the quality of relationships and connections in your life, I would suggest that a focus on this area, whether it’s giving people more time and presence (or being more real and open), more than any other shift, will harvest more fruit in the short-term, and perhaps make your pursuits of anything else a lot more playful and less pressured.
3. Full Episode - Celebrating All Living Life with David Haskell - What is a Good Life? #67
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4. This week’s Questions
When was the last time you paused to contemplate the intricate processes, myriad connections, and origins of anything you've eaten or drank?
How often do you feel you are fully experiencing life through all your senses?
About Me
I am a Coach based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I left behind a 15-year career in Capital Markets after I became extremely curious around answering some of the bigger questions in life. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed around 200 people, to provide people with the space to reflect on their own lives and to create content that would spark people’s own inquiry into this question. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience, beyond the facades we typically project.
If you would like to work with me, or you simply want to get in touch, here’s my email and LinkedIn.
This is excellent, Mark. It touches on a line of thought that was stimulated in me by reading Iain McGilchrist’s The Matter With Things. We use ideas like relationships, spirituality, realty, nature, consciousness, and human purpose. We treat them as discrete “things”, many times as something we possess. My thought is that all that exists is reality. Our perception of it doesn’t create reality, but establishes a relationship with it. In this experience, we are in communication with reality, yet in a non-verbal, more embodied way. There is a kind of language of consciousness that we can exchange with the world that reveals to us the spiritual character of all that is. A month ago I was in a bar watching a basketball game, talking with the fellow next to me. I shared with him about my podcast and offered to have him on. I then turned around on my stool and waved my arm across the restaurant and said, everyone of these people has something about them that is worth discovering. I think this how we can shift away from the kind individualistic, reductionist, hyper possessive approach to life you two touched on. I can tell you that the further I go down this path the more at peace and fulfilled I find myself. Thank you for sending these encounters of hope.