PODCAST · religion
Another World is Probable
by Another World is Probable
I blog every Monday at www.anotherworldisprobable.com and this podcast is me reading those posts.For years people asked me whether I had a blog and the answer was always "no," until one day it was, "yes."I started "Another World is Probable" as a nod to the World Social Forum's annual theme, "Another World is Possible." There's also that quote from Arundhati Roy who says, "Another world is not only possible, she's on the way and, on a quiet day, if you listen very carefully you can hear her breathe."In my opinion, we've moved beyond the cusp of possibility and into the realm of reality.
Episodes
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Holding it All
I notice in myself and others the desire for certainty, resolution, simplicity. This means this, and that means that. We like binaries: heroes and villains. Black and white. I don’t know about you, but I’ve literally never encountered anything in real life without complication and nuance. More in...
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Do We Still Care About the Truth?
As a journalist, and maybe because of my psychological makeup, I care a lot about the truth. It irks me when people repeat false information, or they declare something as fact without citing any evidence. I also notice when an issue stirs passion in people, or presses their buttons, they’re more...
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What if We Are the Giants?
I’ve seen a few posts on social media about planting trees because it helps future generations, and it got me thinking about how there are other examples of that too, particularly in social justice movements. What follows is a post from December 2017 about the #metoo movement. While the struggle...
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We are Not Doomed
I don’t work in AI, so I haven’t felt qualified to weigh in on Evan Hubinger’s post on X about the risks of AI. As a refresher, he’s a top safety researcher at Anthropic, and he said AI is advancing so quickly he believes there is a greater than 10% chance it "could kill all humans" within the…
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What Are You Doing with Your Suffering?
I’m not a true crime or horror kind of gal. I don’t enjoyblood or guts or gore. I don’t derive pleasure from other people’s suffering so it was curious to me why a new friend sent me a podcast about the wreck of the Grafton. The Grafton was a ship that crashed onto one of the islands near New...
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Kindness Counts
It’s been interesting to see the public discourse around Dolly Parton’s death. As much as people are lamenting the loss of a great songwriter – she wrote around 3,000! – they’re mostly speaking about her kindness and lamenting how we lost someone almost saintly.
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You Matter, Even if You Think You Don't
Sometimes I get in a nihilistic mood and think it doesn’t really matter that I’m alive, that I exist. In the grand scheme of things, I’m a speck, a peon, a flash in the pan of life. Furthermore, I think of myself as expendable and exchangeable in the sense that if I wasn’t here, someone else…
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Maybe It's Not Dead
I have a funny story to share since my last post. I wrote that I have a juicer that’s been languishing on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist for months. I did all the right things, included all the right keywords, posted the right pictures, and even published the ad at a time when I “should”…
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Following the Whims
If you’re on social media, you may have noticed that “whimsy” is trending. It’s become a thing where people share videos of themselves wearing long, flowing dresses and fairy wings while shopping for groceries. Or they’ve begun sending postcards or scrapbooking. Some people are encouraging adults...
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What to Do When the Present Moment Sucks
You can’t throw a rock without hearing someone or something say, “Be present. Stay in the moment.” It’s one of the most frequent pieces of advice. There are books about it. Courses. Practices. I, myself, have written about it. I find it’s a lot easier for me to stay in the moment when I enjoy the...
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A Raspberry-Flavored Universe
I am charmed by an article I read in the Guardian recently about a fascinating discovery. Scientists detected a natural sugar found in raspberries in an enormous cloud of dust and gas that’s near the heart of the Milky Way. I know I’m the one making this leap and this isn’t how chemistry works…
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A Physicist's View of Death
Members of my spiritual community are at the age where they’re starting to die. It seems like every three months or so, someone passes away. Some people I’m closer to than others, but regardless, each death leaves an impact. More in this week's post.
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Is it Good Luck? Or Bad Luck?
I keep thinking about the cycle of luck. If you take a snapshot of an event, it might initially seem like bad luck. But if you widen your lens, so to speak, that unlucky event can become lucky.
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How to Satisfy the Craving for More
I’m finally watching The Wolf of Wall Street because I’m doing research for my next book. It’s safe to say the movie is a study of excess. The characters want more, more, more. More money, more power, more prestige, more sex, more drugs. They are never satisfied. It’s easy to believe that’s only...
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What if Nature Wasn't an 'It'?
I’m still entranced by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass and am thinking about how animacy/animism dovetails with a concept from philosopher Martin Buber. He wrote a book called I and Thou, which I haven’t read, and I only conducted a cursory search on the internet about it, so my…
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So, a Wealth Cap?
I can’t not talk about how Elon Musk is the world’s first trillionaire. He’s a trillionaire, but in the U.S., 47.9 million people lived in food-insecure households in 2024, the highest since 2014, according to the Washington Times. He’s a trillionaire, but 181 million children will only eat one...
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Hello to Beauty
I planted a “fairy meadow” mix in a pot outside my front door and the first flowers to bloom are California bluebells. I am utterly enchanted by these royal blue, purple flowers. Is the fact I’m so enthralled a happy quirk or is it by design?
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Trusting Our Own Inner Wisdom
The other week, I had a conversation with a friend who told me instead of following conventional wisdom and keeping his part-time job to pay the bills, he devoted himself completely to his own business and went into debt. And now, years later, his business is taking off and turning a profit. I…
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Nothing Changes Until We Accept it First
I first wrote this in 2019 so I’m not struggling with the same things but the concept of acceptance is relevant at any time.There’s a reason why it has staying power in 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. Enjoy. One of the things I’m grappling with right now is acceptance. It’s easier for...
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You Can Hate God
The typical discourse from mystics and saints surrounding their relationship with God, the Divine, Source, whatever name they have for it, is one of unconditional love, deep devotion, and reverence. Hafiz, Rumi, and the rest wax poetic about dancing mad in the streets with a love like they’ve…
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Honoring the Feral Queen
Maybe this concept has always existed and the internet just makes it easier to find, but there’s such a thing as “Wife School.” Wife School molds women into smiling, attentive, submissive wives. Contrast that with another form of femininity, that of a feral queen or a dark goddess. More in this...
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You Are the Center of Every Rainbow
I love rainbows. Even if I’m the one making a rainbow appear with a gardening hose, every time I see one, it feels like a gift. They speak to me of joy, promise, and beauty. The other week, I learned something about rainbows that makes me love them even more. I'll tell you about it in this post.
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Art and Truth
I’m going to do something I never do and present an idea that I can’t fully verify. So basically, don’t quote me, and hopefully this post gets you thinking, which is ultimately my intention. I think there's a connection between "art" and "truth," etymologically.
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Our Deep Ties to the Moon
I, like many, watched the Artemis II mission with rapt fascination. It was incredible to see so many updated images of the moon and Earth. But it also had me pondering our strong connection to the moon.
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Rest and Recharge
When I thought about what to write today, the answer that came to me was, “Take a break.” I think it’s both a missive and a message, meaning I need to take a break, but also other people need to take one too. I can’t speak for anyone else, but for myself, I notice right now with so many things...
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Remembering the Small but Mighty Adverb 'Yet'
On Saturday, I remarked to some friends of mine that I’ve spent nearly a year querying literary agents for my romantic comedy, and no one wants to represent me. One of my friends chimed in, “yet. No one wants to represent you yet.”That word snagged my attention because there’s so much hope and...
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The Gap Between Where We Are and Where We’d Like to Be
In the process of coaching me through transformation, my chiropractor said there is a space between who I am and who I’d like to become. And in that space, I need to breathe in trust and creativity. I don’t need to know how to get where I’d like to go, I just need to trust I’ll get there and...
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Savoring Simple Pleasures
I’m finishing up a housesit in Berkeley and typing this outside while birds chirp and the sun warms my face. A leaf just fell on my keyboard. Earlier today, a rainbow prism sparkled in my bedroom and lit up a nature scene on the wall so it seemed like the rainbow could have been part of the...
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Reconnecting to Hope
I’ve been writing about transformation so much lately because that’s the phase of life that I’m in, but the shadow side is I keep bracing for the worst-case scenario. It’s perfectly reasonable, sensical, even, but that also means my hope for things working out or going the way I’d like is at a...
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The Path of the Pearl
I’m at the point where most of my friends are talking about getting older, and they’re grieving the fact they no longer have the same sense of possibility about their future like they did when they were younger. The essence is, “The world is no longer my oyster.” But have you actually thought…
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The Constant Companion
I keep thinking about a song I first heard more than 20 yearsago called “Eg Ser.” Unfortunately, there’s no publicly available version I can share, but you can purchase the albumit came from. And YouTube offers numerous options, just not the one I’m thinking of. Anyway, “Eg Ser” is a Norwegian...
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The Power of Poetry
You may already know this, but AI safety researcher Mrinank Sharma resigned recently. That’s not really news in and of itself – people leave their positions all the time. No, the newsworthy part is that he left Anthropic, best known for its chatbot Claude, to study, drumroll please: poetry. Yes,...
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Keep it Simple Even When You Want to Make It Complicated
When life gets stressful or complicated, I notice a tendency in me (and in some people I know) to make things even more stressful, even more complicated. I don’t know why exactly, but I suspect it’s because when people are scared, they start scanning for threats and want to resolve them all. It...
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Being the Storm
You know how people say most of the things they’re afraid of never happen? The opposite is true for me – most of the things I’ve feared have happened. Not the fleeting, “I’m scared I’ll miss my flight” things, but the “I’m scared I’ll be broken into” things. The recurring fears, the ones that…
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Maybe the World Doesn't Need to be 'Saved'
Something that’s on my mind a lot is the desire for one-and-done. I want the magic pill, the silver bullet, the “do this once and everything is fixed” solution. I see this in myself but I also see it in the rhetoric we use when talking about the world writ large. “Save the world,” we say, as if…
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The Ugly Truth vs. a Beautiful Lie
Something I heard recently: “No one really wants the truth. Not when the truth is ugly, and the liar is beautiful.” Yeeees. The truth is ugly, uncomfortable. It often asks something of us. It forces us to look at something we’d rather not look at because it challenges our worldview or a belief we...
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Rainbow Chaos
I had an interesting experience with certainty on Saturday night. I went to a Democratic Socialists of America teach-in where they discussed how veganism feeds anticapitalism and vice versa. They served dinner and I was SURE I’d be able to eat almost nothing because while I’m vegan, I don’t eat...
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Let it Suck
A few people have said to me they don’t feel particularly motivated right now, that they’re low energy, and just generally not feeling amazing. What keeps coming to mind is a post I wrote in November 2021 about letting things be terrible. Even though I’m not recovering from a car accident or...
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Live in the Mystery
I just finished Elizabeth Gilbert’s latest memoir, All the Way to the River, and a few lines jumped out at me. In one art piece (because the memoir includes her doodles), she writes, “Replacing fantasies with different fantasies is not a good idea. Trade fantasy, which has a storyline, with...
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Healing in Inches, Not Leaps
One of my guiding principles is that the universe is always communicating with us, so when something unusual happens – like this week – I pay attention. The other day, something small and slender drooped from the top bar of my shower stall. Was it caulk? The glue unfurling? No. It was a…
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Ever More Luminous
It’s funny, or perhaps timely, that as we approach the longest night of the year in the Northern hemisphere that I’m thinking of light, both literal and metaphorical. On the metaphorical level, I very much relate to the story of the Golden Buddha.
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It Will Likely Look Different Than We Think
I have preconceived notions of what my life will look like and how I will get my needs met. What I’m finding out, though, is the universe takes care of me in ways I didn’t think it would.
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A New Way to Give Thanks
You may be tired of hearing about gratitude, but at the risk of overloading you, I want to talk about gratitude. Author and speaker Case Kenny reminded me recently of a powerful way to feel grateful. I don’t know about you, but gratitude can start to feel rote. Like, of course, I’m grateful for...
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You Can Be Where You Are
A frequent complaint I have is, “Why is this taking so long?” That’s everything from a person returning my telephone call to becoming a bestselling author. I’m struggling with what to say, but when I let my writing flow in the form of a letter, the words poured out. More in this week's post.
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The Power of Persistence
We’re still in a time machine this week. I’m noticing I’m slowly chipping away at the obstacles before me, and this post from December 2018 gives me hope. May it do the same for you. When I thought about what to write this week, the image that kept coming to mind was a sea wall battered by waves....
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No Human is an Alien
As I watched Hamlet this weekend, all I could think was, “Me too.” I wouldn’t have taken the actions he took, but I empathize with his feelings in a way I didn’t before. I’m reminded of that quote by Maya Angelou, who said, “We are all human; therefore, nothing human can be alien to us.” Yes!
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Ghosts of Our Past Selves
On Saturday, I visited my old San Francisco neighborhood for the first time in years. It was weird to compare what it used to look like to what it looks like now. It was also strange to be there and remember the person I used to be. More in this week's post.
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Welcoming the Trickster
I, like many, have been amused and surprised by the Louvre heist. Instead of focusing on the heist itself or the ethics surrounding museum acquisition, theft, etc., I want to talk about why I think the story is so compelling. The museum heist is giving major trickster energy. More in this week's...
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Life is a Wheel
I can say unequivocally that “happily ever after” has screwed me up. A young part of me latched onto the idea that if I just do xyz, I’ll be happy forever. No more tears, no more sadness, no more hard moments – just frozen in a perpetual state of happiness until I die. We’re sold this narrative...
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Safety Only Exists in the Present
I was never a Girl Scout but you’d think I was because I’m always prepared. Not only do I have an earthquake kit, I also have a camping stove so I can still eat cooked food in that circumstance. If you need something, I probably have it. One time, I was in the car with someone who realized her…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
I blog every Monday at www.anotherworldisprobable.com and this podcast is me reading those posts.For years people asked me whether I had a blog and the answer was always "no," until one day it was, "yes."I started "Another World is Probable" as a nod to the World Social Forum's annual theme, "Another World is Possible." There's also that quote from Arundhati Roy who says, "Another world is not only possible, she's on the way and, on a quiet day, if you listen very carefully you can hear her breathe."In my opinion, we've moved beyond the cusp of possibility and into the realm of reality.
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Another World is Probable currently has 411 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
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I blog every Monday at www.anotherworldisprobable.com and this podcast is me reading those posts.For years people asked me whether I had a blog and the answer was always "no," until one day it was, "yes."I started "Another World is Probable" as a nod to the World Social Forum's annual theme,...
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Another World is Probable publishes regularly with 411 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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Another World is Probable is created and hosted by Another World is Probable.
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