How important is hope in our lives? How do we maintain hope as we grow older? What supports hope day to day? Through our conversation, we grapple with what hope means to us in our daily lives. As we share our stories, it becomes evident that having a community is crucial to having hope. From immigrants hoping for a new life in freedom, to moving forward together after the death of parents, hope is nurtured in the presence of others and is stronger when shared with others. Caring for others is a hopeful act, listening, sharing food, or sitting with someone can instill hope. Corporate and institutional worlds can and do build in hopeful strategies to support community and connection. To continue to hope in the face of world events or personal challenges takes courage and it is as essential to us as air, food and water.

What does it mean to be human in today’s world? Philosophy and Religious writings through the ages have addressed this, but we wanted to talk about it from our perspectives. And perspectives we had! Humans are complex beings and out of this comes the range of emotions, thoughts, beliefs and values. How do we maintain human rights for all and offer respect and dignity to even those we oppose. How do we teach the value of human emotions and grow empathy and compassion in the world? What happens when we have bullies controlling information? How do we stand up against the loss of rights and freedoms that we see happening in the world? These matters emerge in our conversation on being human.

Making a podcast is fraught with all kinds of crazy things that can happen, like our false start for this one that we didn’t edit out. It also takes on a life of its own as we talk through our topic, moving in lots of directions. We do eventually cover the reasons why we started it in the first place, why we are still doing it, and how we hope to shape it in the future, acknowledging that conversations with friends and expanding horizons are at the core. Secondary to that is the notion that we might have something to share that others can identify with. Listening to podcasts is a way to engage with other people, learn about their lives and take a break from the heavy things happening in the world right now, helping us to feel more connected and to gain a different worldview. Listen to this somewhat behind the scenes conversation about podcasting.