Human Nature Odyssey

Can societies get Alzheimer's? From the pyramids of Ancient Egypt to cloud storage, humanity has gone to extraordinary lengths to preserve its memories. But what happens when memories fade, photographs disappear, and the stories of our ancestors are lost? Using clips from Alex's documentary Cycle of Memory as our entry point, we embark on a songline search through the history and meaning of memory. From Socrates and Gilgamesh to Aboriginal oral traditions and the 1939 World's Fair, we explore how societies remember, what gets forgotten, and what's worth passing down. Along the way, we confront more personal questions: How do we stay connected to loved ones as their memories fade? What conversations should we have with our parents and grandparents while we still can? And what kind of legacy do we want to leave for the future?   CITATIONS Cycle of Memory [film] (2022) Handsman, Russell G., Kathryn Grover, and Donald Warrin. New Bedford Communities of Whaling: People of Wampanoag, African, and Portuguese Island Descent, 1825–1925. National Park Service, 2021. Munson, Sarah. "A History of Dementia." Carehome.co.uk, 2026. Berrios, G. E. "Dementia During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: A Conceptual History." Psychological Medicine, vol. 17, no. 4, 1987, pp. 829–837. "3.2 Billion Images and 720,000 Hours of Video Are Shared Online Daily. Can You Sort Real from Fake?" Queensland University of Technology. "Pocumtuck and Mount Sugarloaf." Dino Tracks Discovery. "Instagram Statistics." Omnicore Agency. "The Origins of Writing." The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Lost Treasure." Smithsonian Magazine. Whitehead, Anne. Memory: The New Critical Idiom. Routledge, 2009. Plato. The Dialogues of Plato. Travale, Steve. "My Favourite Gear: Zoom H6 Review."   If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Substack for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts, essays, and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast   Music: Celestial Soda Pop By: Ray Lynch From the album: Deep Breakfast Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI  All rights reserved.

This episode originally aired in October of 2024. Gather around the campfire for a ghost story about the most destructive monster in history: civilization itself.  In this episode, we delve into the countercultural writings of Fredy Perlman, whose strange 1983 book "Against His-Story, Against-Leviathan"—riddled with grammatical errors and misspellings—blends myth and history to explore the nature of power, subjugation, and the struggle between the rulers and the ruled. Our journey takes us back to ancient Sumer, where egalitarian hunter-gatherer communities transformed into peasants and slaves bound by a mysterious force even the rulers couldn't control.  We trace the rise of the first Lugals, the original kings of Mesopotamia, from Urukagina of Lagash, whose reforms sowed the seeds of his downfall, to Sargon of Akkad, who conquered all of Sumer only to become part of the Leviathan's vast machinery. Together, we'll explore how power and control first took root in the world's earliest cities—and how those ancient systems still shape our world today. This is a spooky episode. The hair on the back of your neck might stand up. But we can stay seated and relax. It is just a story after all. A fairytale, as Fredy would call it.   CITATIONS Against His-Story, Against Leviathan [book] by Fredy Perlman (1983) Sargon of Akkad [article] by Joshua J. Mark (2009) Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles [book] by Albert Kirk Grayson (1975) Akkadian Empire victory stele circa 2300 BC from Louvre Museum   If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you enjoy your podcasts and leave us a review. Join us on Substack and get exclusive access to audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast Theme Music is "Celestial Soda Pop" (Amazon, iTunes, Spotify) by Ray Lynch, from the album "Deep Breakfast." Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI. All rights reserved.   .  Amazon: Celestial Soda Pop  https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B000QQXURI     2.  iTunes:  https://music.apple.com/us/album/celestial-soda-pop/3242445?i=3242425 3.  Spotify:   https://open.spotify.com/track/2THDVIVytLuGX7S7UghuC1?si=20ea63807bba401f   Additional Credits Vanhan ajan sota, taistelu, miekkailu / Ancient, old time battle, combat, horses snorting and galloping, men shouting and barking, fencing, swords clanging, mix by YleArkisto -- https://freesound.org/s/258207/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

How did humans go from living in small-scale communities where everyone knew each other to building a massive civilization filled with billions of strangers? And what the heck holds those societies together? In this episode, philosopher C. Thi Nguyen, author of The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game, joins the odyssey to explore  the strange relationship between games, bureaucracy, and large-scale society. We explore why bureaucracies are so inescapably powerful, what they can—and can't—see, and whether large-scale institutions are doomed to lose sight of nuance and local context. Does the flexibility and experimentation of games offer clues for designing better ways of organizing society? This is a conversation about civilization, bureaucracy, social organization, community, games, human nature, and the possibility of changing the rules of the game we're all playing.   CITATIONS The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game by C. Thi Nguyen C. Thi Nguyen's blog Objectionable   If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you enjoy your podcasts and leave us a review. Join us on Substack and get exclusive access to audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast Theme Music is "Celestial Soda Pop" (Amazon, iTunes, Spotify) by Ray Lynch, from the album "Deep Breakfast." Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI. All rights reserved.

You might think that you are not a forager. But what if no matter our lifestyle or job title, we are forever hunter gatherers in this world: of food, of love, of meaning. In this immersive episode, join Alex on a walk through an ancient forest as you explore what it means to live life as a forager. It's a journey through the Garden of Eden grocery store, a wrestling with the gods, and a coming home to feast and famine.   CITATIONS Changes in the Landscape by William Cronon   If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you enjoy your podcasts and leave us a review. Join us on Substack and get exclusive access to audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast Theme Music is "Celestial Soda Pop" (Amazon, iTunes, Spotify) by Ray Lynch, from the album "Deep Breakfast." Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI. All rights reserved.

What if the crises of our time are not just ecological or political, but also mythological? Poet and author Sophie Strand joins Human Nature Odyssey for a wide-ranging conversation about stories, illness, ecology, and transformation. Drawing from mythology, religion, folklore, and her own experience living with chronic illness, Sophie explores how the stories we inherit shape our relationship to the living world—and what happens when those stories no longer serve us. Together, we discuss death and rebirth, animism, the power of storytelling, and the art of composting old narratives so that something new can grow. From Jesus of Nazareth to One Thousand and One Arabian Nights to the ancient Greek epic of Odysseus, we explore stories not as relics of the past, but as living companions for navigating an uncertain future. This conversation asks what it would mean to truly live in an animate world—to encounter plants, animals, rivers, and landscapes not as resources or scenery, but as relatives. At a time when many of our cultural myths are unraveling, Sophie offers a vision of belonging rooted in reciprocity, relationship, and participation in the wider community of life.   CITATIONS Sophie Strand's Substack: Make Me Good Soil Sophie Strand's Instagram: @cosmogyny   Thank you to Blindspot for sharing their original music. Check out Blindspot on Bandcamp and Spotify. If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you enjoy your podcasts and leave us a review. Join us on Substack and get exclusive access to audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast Theme Music is "Celestial Soda Pop" (Amazon, iTunes, Spotify) by Ray Lynch, from the album "Deep Breakfast." Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI. All rights reserved.  

You, me, and everyone we know were born on the Titanic.  Some are warning of icebergs. Some are shoveling coal into the furnaces. Some are jamming out while the band plays louder than ever. In this special episode beginning Year Four of Human Nature Odyssey, Alex gathers friends together in a living room for a live-recorded podcast potluck conversation exploring civilization, collapse, climate change, community, and the strange experience of trying to live a meaningful life while the world feels increasingly unstable. Drawing from Lord of the Rings, the Titanic, Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, ecological philosophy, and the first three years of Human Nature Odyssey, this episode becomes both a reflection on the journey so far and an exploration on what it means to "come home" to the living world. Come join us in the living room. There's still space on the couch.   CITATIONS Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien Ishmael by Daniel Quinn   If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Substack for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast   Music: Celestial Soda Pop By: Ray Lynch From the album: Deep Breakfast Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI  All rights reserved.

Today Hajar Tazi joins us on our odyssey. Hajar is a poet, writer, facilitator, and self-described "ecosystem weaver." Our conversation is part of a new five-episode miniseries from Resilience that I'm hosting in collaboration with the Omega Resilience Awards.   It's called In the Rising Tide and it brings together conversations with five people from around the world, exploring the interconnected unfolding crises of our time—and how each of them is responding within their own communities. Across the series, I speak with a chef and farmer from the Philippines, an Indigenous water defender in Chile, a young organizer in Uganda resisting mega oil projects, and a narrative practitioner in India.   I wanted to include this conversation with Hajar here on Human Nature Odyssey because it touches many of the themes we've been exploring here on the podcast. Hajar has been deeply influenced by the scholar and activist Joanna Macy, and facilitates something called the "Great Weaving Game," which draws on Macy's framework of the Great Unraveling and the Great Turning to help people imagine new possibilities for the future.   If you want to learn more about Joanna Macy's work, you can check out the recent Human Nature Odyssey episode with Jess Serrante. Today, Hajar and I explore many things: neurodivergence, eco-villages, the IMF and World Bank, surfing, political polarization, and the art of coming home. In The Rising Tide was made with support from a grant from Omega Resilience Awards, a project of the nonprofit Commonweal. Find out more at ORAwards.org You can learn more from Hajar at her substack Remembering the Future.  If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Patreon for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes.

Okay, it's been fifty years since the sudden collapse of civilization - why isn't everything back up and running already? In the 1949 sci-fi novel Earth Abides, Isherwood Williams tries and tries to teach the next generation about law, economics, and geometry but these dang kids would rather explore the streams that flow over abandoned boulevards and overgrown shopping malls. In Part 2 of this two-part series, Alex and astrophysicist Tom Murphy explore the unexpected evolution of life after the fall—when civilization fades into myth, and a new way of seeing the world begins to take root. It's been decades since airplanes filled the skies, since stadiums roared with crowds, since global supply chains stitched continents together. The children born after the Great Disaster have never known that world. To them, skyscrapers wrapped in vines are normal. Mountain lions at the edge of the cul-de-sac are normal. The quiet is normal. And as they grow up, they begin to tell different stories. Stories not of dominance, progress, or control—but of relationship, mystery, and a living world they are part of, not apart from. You don't need to have read the book to enter this world—this episode is an experience in itself. This episode is for listeners interested in societal collapse, critiques of progress, and the big questions about the future of humanity on planet earth.   CITATIONS Earth Abides [book]] by George R. Stewart (2026) Tom Murphy's Do The Math blog   If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Patreon for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast   Music: Celestial Soda Pop By: Ray Lynch From the album: Deep Breakfast Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI  All rights reserved.

You ever go on a little trip, to just get away from it all — only to come home and find all of civilization collapsed while you were gone and you might be the last person left on earth?  Well then you could totally relate to George R. Stewart's 1949 science-fiction novel, Earth Abides.  Earth Abides is not your typical post-apocalyptic tale. It challenges some of our core notions on progress, human happiness, and civilization itself. It's a study of how our built infrastructure crumbles in our absence and becomes home to nonhuman life. It's about how human communities organize without the enforcement of the state, and how culture changes over time—taking us from the immediate aftermath of civilization's sudden collapse to a distant future when the last generation, known only as the Americans, leaves behind a people who barely remember what the United States once was. In this two-part series, Alex is joined by astrophysicist, writer, and friend of the show Tom Murphy to retell and explore this science fiction classic, unpacking its radical ideas about collapse, resilience, and what it means to live a meaningful life. This episode is for listeners interested in societal collapse, critiques of progress, and the big questions about the future of humanity on planet earth.   CITATIONS Earth Abides [book]] by George R. Stewart (2026)   If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Patreon for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast   Music: Celestial Soda Pop By: Ray Lynch From the album: Deep Breakfast Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI  All rights reserved.

How do we live through wild times? Legendary scholar, activist, and systems thinker Joanna Macy named the moment we are living through the Great Unraveling—a time when our ecological, political, economic, and social systems destabilize to the point of no return. And yet, she also insisted that we stand on the threshold of a Great Turning: a profound transition toward a more just and sustainable world. Before Joanna's death in 2025, climate activist Jess Serrante recorded a series of intimate and insightful conversations with her. In this episode, Alex sits down with Jess, weaving in clips from those recordings to explore the questions Joanna devoted her life to asking: How do we live with meaning as civilization unravels? How do we turn toward the grief of this moment—and transform it into action? And how do intergenerational relationships help us become elders for the future - when wisdom is needed most?   CITATIONS We Are The Great Turning [podcast]    If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Patreon for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts, essays, and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast   Music: Celestial Soda Pop By: Ray Lynch From the album: Deep Breakfast Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI  All rights reserved.