Army Intelligence Officer that willner who recalls her personal and professional connection to east germany. That all happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. [inaudible conversations] hello, everyone. Welcome to [inaudible] im so happy to be here with courtney and that you can all be here with us. I do want to say trent gillis, who is just really one of the cofounders of our project, is courtneys editor on the blog. Hes really, really sad he cant be here. Hes sick today, so i kind of i just want to bring his name in here. Get well, trent. I know. [laughter] thats right. So courtney sent an email yesterday. I guess when we planned this, we didnt we werent looking at the calendar and saying whats happening that week. And courtney emailed yesterday and said should we, should we do this . Should we have a book launch in a salon to talk about the new better off in a week with this momentous and really unsettling election, a really unsettled political landscape. And i said, absolutely, because of what happened this week and how unsettled we are. Its really important that we sit together in rooms and we talk about things that matter to us. So i, i was thinking this morning, i was sitting down to think about introducing courtney, and im not going to do a big introduction. You can read all her credentials, journalism network, the on being blog where i love the presence she brings to our media space where she really, i think, walks that line that is so lifegiving and illuminating for everybody reading, you know, her rigors as a journalist and as a thought leader but also in a human being. Shes there in fullness, and she brings that every week. So i write down when i was thinking this morning, im so happy shes here because i love her. [laughter] thank you. I love to you. [laughter] and she is a journalist. Shes a new journalist. Shes a, shes one of the people whos modeling and innovating and incubating new forms of journalism for the 21st century. The old forms are failing us. Theyve failed us through this election. And, you know, were sorry. I feel like im speechifying, but here we are in this week. You know what . I need it. [laughter] okay. Its true of all of our, all of our institutions right now in this early 21st century that things that make sense and that seemed like they worked even ten years ago just dont make sense anymore. Its true of schools and medicine and prisons, and its true of religion, and its true of journalism. And we are going to have to remake it. And i think that is one of the things we all kind of get this week, how we do that is not clear. But you are one of those people who is figuring this out kind of close to the ground. So thats exciting for me. And one of the things im discouraged about today was some of our best journalists, people i read, are these hysterical, apocalyptic, you know, analyses of whats going to happen in the next four years, and what its going to mean for the end of civilization. And these are people who didnt see what was right in front of them for the last 18 months. And that kind of hysteria is not helpful. So my question, and i know your question, is how can journalism be of service to common life. And that kind of journalism is not just a service to common life, this is a moment where some humility is called for. So one of the things i want to do both by, you know, framing this space for tonight is to pull back to a long lens which i find helpful and meaningful in moments like this. I like to sometimes think about if people were looking at our moment in time a century from now, what are they going to say is really important that was happening right now, right . What is happening right now that, in fact, is going to be the thing that people a hundred years from now say this shaped the world. We inhabited the election of donald trump, maybe, it might be. It might be the fact that its 70 degrees and sunny in november in minnesota, and all the things that that implies, right . It may be these millions of human beings right now as we speak in this warm room making their way across europe, millions of refugees. I, you know, what how is that going to shape the world that emerges. I love, in all the years of doing this show, i have loved and been inspired by this story that the men benedictine nun jo [inaudible] tells. I love her. You love her, yeah. So she says imagine sixth century rome. Whatever the New York Times of sixth century rome was, it did not ever carry a headline that says benedict writes rule [laughter] because there was this crazy guy over here who actually, i think, in his lifetime [inaudible] one of his early communities tried to poison him. Successful venture. [laughter] it was not a successful startup. Nobody noticed, nobody wrote a headline, and yet a thousand years later what this person with a vision of Community Set in motion, actually, these were the communities that saved civilization, right . That literally kept western literature alive. And we dont know whats happening right now in our world that is planting those invisible seeds that are setting that in motion. However, i suspect that the kinds of people courtney writes about in her book that courtney and her ecosystem and probably everybody here are part of spinning some of those webs. And i find it, i take hope and delight in the fact that even with all of my resources as a journalist, i dont know whats happening in our midst right now thats going to save us. And that means we have to shine, we have to continue with what we are doing and what we feel called to with vigor and with passion, and we have to shine a light on everybody elses good work. And so thats what were here tonight to do. [laughter] all right. So the new better off, and i want to read a little bit to start to just give you a flavor of why i said to the question should we cancel tonight because of whats happened in the world, resoundingly no. So this is from the first chapter, the introduction. What im finding, what youll find, i hope, is that being mature doesnt mean being numb. To be sure, living in america at this unequal, messy moment can break your heart. But it doesnt have to break your spirit. Living in america is so interesting, so fertile, so up for grabs. Its also disintegrating and reconstituting and recalibrating. Its up to us to make life that we can be proud of and to make communities and systems and policies to cradle oaz lives. Those lives. Its up to reject tired narratives about success; instead, offering new ones that are less about exceptional heroes and more about creative communities. Its up to us to reclaim the best of what previous generations did that made this country so unique and so beautiful. As well as to own up to the destructive legacies that were part of, to expose them to the light and to figure out how to fix them. Its up to us to be humble, to be brave, to be accountable to our own dreams. No one else. Its up to us to be akon dallasic iconoclastic, to be together, to stay awake. Its a wonderful book, its an important book thank you. And i think one thing ive been so admiring of as youve launched it is youre not just promoting the book. I mean, of course, all of us that write books want to sell books, but youre really the book is a conversation piece, its a conversation starter. Youre taking it into communities and into companies and, you know, building Something Like a movement or contributing to kind of the movement thats wanting to form anyway. Whats that been like, to be out there in this moment . Its been so gratifying. I mean, in many ways i feel like im just trying to language some of what im observing, and so that feels like the role of kind of giving language to both yearnings people have, but also things theyre actually creating in the world that they may underestimate the power of. Yeah. And sort of seeing that power, acknowledging it and languaging it like, hey, you guys are all doing similar stuff, so theres something greater here than just, you know, youre prioritizing, creating community in the small way that you think is insignificant. Its actually whats going to save us all, you know, to the earlier points you were making. So thats been so gratifying, to feel like im the book is acknowledging invisible, deeply beautiful, important work which from a gender perspective is often womens work of creating community and all these things. Also poor peoples work. One of the things im very clear about is those that are the best at creating community often have less money. And so this is something that kind of turns the tables on who we think in this country really knows how to do things to create happiness or efficiency or whatever. And how do you, how do you explain that . That connect of not having as much money, being better at creating communities . Well, i think, you know, wealth makes us dumb about how vulnerable we really are, because we think we can buy our way out of a Trump Presidency or a, you know, like to speak of this moment, its like, you know, when youre when you find out that donald trump is the president of the united states, it doesnt matter how much money is in your bank account. I mean, you could, you know, fly to the Cayman Islands and live there, i guess, theoretically. If you care about america, it doesnt matter what your bank account is. You are vulnerable to this government just like every other person in every other socioeconomic bracket. Wealth fools us into thinking we can buy our way out of suffering. Uhhuh. But what is it that not having money or not having too much money, how does that create a condition where you get better at community . Thats what im wondering besides necessity is the mother of invention thing, right . That you have to look to people around you okay. To get by. And then it turns out looking to people around you rather than thinking you can solve to your own problems makes you happier and healthier and that theres a real freedom and, like, Mental Wellness in vulnerability, right . And so, you know, everything from like im thinking of these immigrant women that my friend was telling me about who needed to clean houses in order to make money, but they all had kids. So they created their one little makeshift coop so one would take care of the kids and the others could clean house, its that small, invisible stuff that low income people have to do out of necessity very often, but now it turns out that those kids have aunties. View occasion, oofer of calling. Which i think the 20th century with but its really as youre pointing out, its not at all just about what you do, but about who you are and how you do it and its a plural thing. We have many callings at once. How would you Start Talking about how this word and ecosystem of implications can start to change the way we create our careers in our life. How does that mean, how we define that and work with that . Well, i guess i would start to tackle by by tracing my own relationship calling and vocation that i grew up thinking that my job had the important job because he was a lawyer and came too realize that everything i do to that is in mirror of what my mom did and she was kind of ten Different Things and not a lot made a lot of sense on paper and all had deep influence in the Community Around us, she was a Film Festival and social worker and mom with the condoms in the closet, they could go there to make sure they didnt have unplanned pregnancies. Entrepreneur before i even knew that was a worried but it was like a community entrepreneur, community organizer, et cetera. It turns out that my way of being quote, unquote, important is to be what my did. I happened to be a writer. I think that a loot of when you look at the way the future work is happening, so much of it to me look like many of our mothers who we thought didnt have quote, unquote, real jobs. Interesting reclaiming and this is for a lot of men too wanting to have jobs like their mothers. This is not just about women. As work becomes decentralize theres a big risk and theres all of the deep systematic questions that we have to answer but on a one by one basis, theres a lot more room for flexibility and for people to show up as parents and workers, et cetera. Yeah, so to be that point of the fact its not like you get one vocation and maybe there are people who are completely singleminded but thats really not anybody i know, right, you have a vocation as a worker and as a parent and as a neighbor and as a citizen, you know, i think a lot of us are thinking, what is our calling now as a citizen. Its not like you put others on one side to do any of these. Exactly. All the worlds are blending much more which from my sper effective is a good thing and, you know, theres i feel like its important to keep reiterating that its a privilege to be able to be a freelancer and afford insurance and know the bottom is not going to drop out if you dont get a paycheck. Having said that, i think that the blending of those worlds, i mean, my best work and paid work is often with friends, collaborators, thats a very new way of living, sort of the sense that you had colleagues and boss and kind of. Friends would be totally separate. Whooshing life balance makes no absolutely no sense to me and i dont feel weird about working with my friends. Even like our relationship, youre my mentor, my friend, i also write for your website and your project. Its like none of that feels weird to me. I can see that theres a bit more of a separation between the people you collaborate with professionally and your friends and i just see that all breaking down. It is breaking down. Its messy too. Its challenging, its challenging traditional organizations and hierarchies and so then what are the boundaries workplace boundaries. Well, i even work with my partner, talk about boundaries and complexity of, you know, that for me that makes the work all the richer because whether its, you know, my husband john who i collaborate or my dearest friends anna, i knee know her in such a real textured way and i know the complexity from what i need to call her out oar support her in certain ways. It makes it harder but more excellent if that makes sense. Im thinking about how it feels like i was thinking about black lives matter. Clusters of friends. The itself came from three women. Money caiting with one another and look what its brought. Theres so much these days born entrepreneurially. I do feel like my favorite people these days are people who just seem like so masterful at friendship and its almost like a new realm of skill. Not that its knew, obviously, its not knew but its something about the way people are thinking about friends and working with friends but i feel like its a bit different. Yeah. Friendship is something to cultivate. I love that. And im thinking about your daughter, i just want to tell recent college graduates, dont worry about your resume, worry about your friends. You have amazing interesting friends, then youre going to be okay. I dont just mean youre going to be okay after hours, i mean, like your work would be better because you have amazing friends and you will have more opportunities because you have amazing friends. You dont even have to network with intimidating older person. You should do that too because that helps. Its not about finding out who is the most elite person in my field and how do i befriend them. Your friends grow up and become those people and eating pizza in your living room. And i guess, its really i dont like to generalize groups of people but i feel like the new generation is coming up organically and doing that better an friendship is changing and you see new generations valuing it differently. I certainly experienced that and i feel just amazed that, you know, the younger people that im in touch with are in early 20s and what theyre thinking about and they are kind of psychology about you know, of course, jealousies and competition and whatever but there does seem to be a very kind of generous about how much people love their friends. I always see the young women marrying their friends on facebook and theyre not queer and theyre not in a romantic relationship but they want to say, this is my dearest friend. And friends getting tattoos and theres [laughter] how much people are committed to being, mastering friendship. Something that you do and you and i have talked about it crossgenerational friendship i think that i told you one of the pieces of advice, ive always had friends when i in the 70s and 80s. She said ive always had younger friends and for some reason that wasnt a concept, i see you and you talk about this and you write and i see you in a robust web of mentors and women, specially women but probably not just women of other generations. Old man friends. [laughter] yeah. This dear mentor of mine from college. But i also learned really about my women friends why are 10 years older, theres something about being able to see yourself in a near future that is so important to me specially as a mother and a new mother, being able to see my friends that have 6yearolds and 7yearolds, that has been just so important for me. You said that the language of work, life, balance makes less sense in the way new generations are navigating life and i see that too but i think you point at the challenge for your generation. A new challenge for your generation which is the Life Technology balance. Right. And that we are all on unchartered territory in devices and have beautiful and terrifying and landed in the middle of our lives and youre really on the ground and describing on the ground and so many people of your generation are walking about figuring that out, making it humane. Yeah. I feel like thats i mean, thats part of the chapter on attention and it was because i felt when i was thinking about what had whats something that generationally couldnt be written about how were creating the good life, that feels to central. That was not on anybodys horizon. Right. Now its just central to your capacity to create robust healthy relationships, not to mention your own individual Mental Health is how do you relate to your device, how do you think about when youre online and offline and i dont think theyre any easy answers and if anything i thought, younger people probably had figured this out more because they have grown up with it and theres a counter intuitive thing and i was talking to next door neighbor and said, so tell me about your phone, when youre having a deep conversation with a friend, how do you, what presence, we never dont look at our phones even if we are having a conversation. No. [laughter] not only does this ruin my counterintuitive and that was frightening to me and i am really worried about that in general like well, its our kids and my kids. Its a genny pig generation. Sorry facebook. There are plenty of kids, people who are doing that. I do see kids working with this. Yeah. But theyre not they quit to be theyre not all about selfcontrol and selfdiscipline. What worries me also is models at this very moment we are wrestling with as we get out of adolescent phase, we will have and every 24 hours we will look into each