Sheela describes love without doubt or possession, where need-based relationships are prisons. Tyler talks about being ghosted by his closest friends, and what that does to you.
Where it comes up 11
Within this theme 161
Ideas 34
- Ghosting
Being cut off by friends without explanation or closure. Tamir explores it in two episodes through Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki.
- The Shadow
Jung's term for the disowned or repressed parts of the psyche, usually formed in childhood when a need wasn't met.
- From Mourner to Investigator
The shift Mia sees in grief when the mourner starts investigating, Sherlock Holmes style, the person lost or why they left (as in the Murakami novel, or her own urge to call her partner 20…
- Love's dark side
The episode's title question. Tamir argues love is as dangerous as it is beautiful (Paris and Helen, thorns on the rose). Sheela says the darkness comes from doubt and judgment: we 'cancel'…
- Sleep as surrender
Samantha's central claim: sleep is the ultimate surrender. You can only fall asleep if your body feels safe, so trouble falling asleep reflects a hyperactive, fearful nervous system and a…
- Compromising vs adapting
Colin's distinction, from Tamir's car-music story: playing music a passenger likes is adapting, a kind gesture from someone who knows what they're doing. Losing your own preferences to…
- Fiction as a Tonic for Empathy
The idea that fiction builds empathy by working on the emotions, while non-fiction works on knowledge. Tamir makes the case in two episodes.
- Love as action
Sheela's idea, from an earlier interview Tamir cites, that 'love is not words, love is action'. Tamir links it to the Upanishads and to finding God more on a mountain or a run than in…
- Need-based relationships
Sheela's diagnosis of most relationships: built on need, which turns into a bargaining point and a business. Both partners lose their freedom, feel captured, and fall into a dependency they…
- Intergenerational Patterns
Patterns, beliefs and shame passed down a family line. Nev went to the Balkans to understand hers, and says shadow work includes these inherited layers.
- Self-trust
Samantha says the point of all her work, and of her dream, hypnosis and sleep-paralysis experiences, is to build self-trust. You build it by keeping small promises to yourself until you…
- Cutting People Off
Tamir's critique of treating cutting people out of your life as progress. Bypassing the conversation to protect yourself is avoidance, not growth; it's fine to cut someone off after they've…
- Equal freedom in relationships
What Sheela learned from Bhagwan: don't be possessive, and give both partners full, equal freedom. She calls negotiating loyalty after one week together creating a prison.
- Grief as Love's Shadow
The episode's central image: grief is love's shadow or ghost, so like love it is a unique thumbprint, inherently personal and subjective, and possibly spiritual in nature.
- Holding Space
Being a 'clean mirror' who listens, observes and asks questions without shock or judgment, as Mia defines it. She argues most people outsource their therapy to hairstylists and Uber drivers…
- Projection
Seeing and blaming in others what we can't see in ourselves. Nev says unintegrated shadows make people more reactive and more prone to projection, as when someone blames avoidant partners…
- Addressed love
From the Osho audio that opens the episode: the 'basic fallacy' that love is always for somebody, and that the moment you address your love to one person you destroy it, as if saying 'I…
- Incel movement
Tamir mentions it as the opposite of Dante's response to unrequited love: telling the world why you're a victim instead of turning the pain into something you share.
- Preemptive agreement
One of Tamir's pet peeves: people agreeing with a statement before it's finished, a kind of tacit approval that shows they aren't listening. You don't know whether the sentence will end in…
- Scapegoating
Attaching your problems to someone else, then 'killing the goat', from the biblical ritual. Tamir says people do this daily and call it progress; Tsukuru Tazaki is his friends' scapegoat.
- Double life in Murakami
The recurring motif of protagonists living two lives, in the real world and another universe, including sex 'without touching' (Tengo and Fuka-Eri, Killing Commendatore's impregnation).
- Listening
Colin says real eye contact isn't staring someone down; it's listening, thinking about what they said and responding. People now hear only the bits they want to hear. He cites the old…
- Living vicariously through characters
Tamir's hypothesis that Murakami, married young, explores alternate life timelines through protagonists who stray from troubled marriages and keep partners in both the real and unreal…
- Prayer as presupposition
Samantha, who isn't religious, thinks prayer is powerful because asking presupposes an answer exists. That breeds faith and trust, and so a feeling of safety in the body.
- Earthly vs. divine love
Tamir's framework: divine love treats the beloved as a conduit for a greater force, while earthly love falls for the smile and the body. Sheela refuses to place her love for Osho on the…
- Love as free fall
Sheela describes falling in love as shutting down all other senses and going into free fall, which teaches trust. Love and trust 'are part of one another', and entering a relationship full…
- Portal conversations
Murakami's one-on-one scenes, a drink or coffee between two people, which Tamir says feel like slipping into another universe, where incredible anecdotes are about to be dropped.
- Subpoena of the Soul
Tamir's superpower wish, as it is named in the conversation: the emperor's power to summon anyone in the kingdom and get an answer, ending the enigma of why people act as they do.
- The Pilgrimage
Taken from Tsukuru Tazaki: when someone cuts you off, you must decide whether to go on the pilgrimage for answers or swallow the bitter pill and move on. The hard part is choosing which…
- The ick
Modern slang Tamir explains: suddenly falling out of love with someone because of something they did. He asks whether Sheela 'got the ick' with Bhagwan; she says no, leaving was about…
- Murakamian
Someone who deeply resonates with Murakami's worlds and joins the online ecosystem of channels, groups and podcasts devoted to them; the episode's self-description for both speakers.
- Reading Fiction Builds Empathy
Tyler cites a study suggesting fiction readers score higher in empathy, because reading is practice in switching places with other people.
- Attachment styles
Ian says you don't need to read a book on attachment styles when you feel needy; just sit with the feeling and name it.
- Radical Acceptance
Mia jokes that two neurotic partners cancel out, and that love lets radical acceptance take the place of neuroticism.
Books 18
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Murakami novel in which the protagonist's cat and wife disappear and he goes down a dry well. Tamir calls it Murakami's greatest work.
- 1Q84
Long Murakami novel built around Aomame and a love that goes unrequited from page one. Tamir counts it as his co-favorite Murakami.
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Murakami novel about a man abruptly cut off by his four best friends, each named for a color, who years later goes on a 'pilgrimage' to ask why. Tamir uses it in two episodes to talk about…
- Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut's anti-war novel, whose protagonist lives through the firebombing of Dresden.
- Think and Grow Rich
Napoleon Hill's 1937 self-help classic, a formative book for Tamir in his early 20s that he read six or seven times.
- Divine Comedy
Dante's epic poem, whose Inferno and Paradiso Tamir draws on in three episodes.
- Meeting the Shadow
A collection of essays subtitled 'The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature', which Tamir holds up while asking Sheela whether love has a dark side. She says she doesn't think in…
- Sputnik Sweetheart
In both guests' top five. Tamir's most indelible visual is Miu on the Ferris wheel seeing herself in her apartment; also the pan-flute music on the Greek island. Salih reads the Ferris…
- The City and Its Uncertain Walls
Murakami novel expanding a 1980s story, his first in six years and a kind of sequel to Hard-Boiled Wonderland. Its English edition was due out on November 19, 2024.
- Abandoning a Cat
Murakami's autobiographical essay about his father, published in The New Yorker. Salih recounts the story of the family abandoning a cat at the beach only to find it home before them, and…
- A Grief Observed
Lewis's account of grieving his wife, the love of his life. Tamir reads the opening ('No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear...') because grief, like love, is crazy-making and…
- Men, Women and Other Adventures
A handmade anthology Tyler gave Tamir for his birthday, assembled by cutting stories out of other collections and rebinding them with Bible onion-skin paper, with images and captions…
- Norwegian Wood
Murakami novel that Tamir notes is his only one without magic realism. It is Grant's favorite Murakami and makes Salih's top five.
- South of the Border, West of the Sun
Murakami novel in which, Salih says, the double-life theme is pushed to its limit as the protagonist nearly leaves and betrays his wife. Also the book at the center of the Literarisches…
- The Dark Forest
Second book of the Three-Body trilogy, and the book Tamir likes best for genre fusion: it opens like a romance, with a writer inventing and falling for his ideal woman, then turns into an…
- Going to Canada
The first story in Grant's collection, about returning from Budapest to Canada, family trauma, and an old friend who finds the narrator's blunt observations off-putting. Tamir reads it as…
- La Vita Nuova
Dante's first book, about his love for Beatrice. Tamir points to it as a way of turning unrequited feeling into art instead of victimhood.
- Masks (poem)
Short poem (from Falling Up) about two people with blue skin who each hide it, search their whole lives for another blue person, and pass right by each other. It is used to show what we…
People 11
- Colin Gerrard
UK-born entrepreneur who built companies and led sales teams around the world (Belgium, the UK, sourcing in China). He also directed the award-winning short film 'Eli', made the earlier…
- Nevena
Nevena (Nev), Instagram @iamnevenag, is a Toronto-raised shadow worker and guide of Serbian/Balkan descent who works mostly with women. She combines shadow work with nervous-system…
- Ma Anand Sheela
Born Sheela Ambalal Patel in Gujarat, India (1949); personal secretary to Osho and spokesperson of the Rajneeshpuram commune in Oregon in the early 1980s, widely seen as its…
- Samantha Chung
Life coach, mindset and manifestation expert and podcast host (Simplifying Sam) who does what she calls 'thought work', helping clients see the imagined walls that block them. Tamir met her…
- Osho
Indian mystic also known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh ('Bhagwan', meaning Lord), whose provocative teachings joined sex and spirituality. Sheela fell in love with him in 1972 at 22 and…
- Dante Alighieri
Florentine poet, author of the Divine Comedy and La Vita Nuova.
- Ambalal Patel
Sheela's father, who took her to hear Bhagwan's discourse because he believed that if this man lived long enough he would be 'the second Buddha'. He read Kahlil Gibran to her on his lap and…
- Marc Harris Silverman
Sheela's first husband, whom she still calls by his sannyas name Chinmaya ('Shin Maya' in the captions). They met at school in the US; he had Hodgkin's disease and was given a year and a…
- Sheela's mother
Mother of six children whom Sheela never once saw with a serious face; Sheela says her own joyful disposition comes from her. It was a visit to her mother after an eye operation that…
- James Joyce
Irish author of Ulysses. Grant is not a fan but admires his aim of exposing his frustration with his own country, which he wants to do for Canada.
- Joe Rogan
Before the recording Colin watched podcasts such as Joe Rogan's to compare, and he tells Tamir he'll do great because he gets the best out of people.
Quotes 4
Grief is crazy making. So is love. Love is crazy making, at the risk of sounding like a pop song.
People have so much problem with relationships because most of the relationships are based in need. Then this need becomes a bargain point. It becomes a business. And neither partner is happy with it, because you lose your freedom.
People who have a bad relationship to sleep often have a really strong relationship to control and fear, because sleep is the ultimate surrender.
So people say I love you, I love you. Better, more honest would be to say: hey, come, we roll together on this carpet. 'Cause it's different. It's not the same thing.
Insights 33
- Get to know someone before you motivate them
Generic motivation can backfire badly, because what fires up one person breaks another. To find someone's authentic self and motivate them, you first have to know their story.
- Ask 'What about me?'
Relationships and lives fall apart, sometimes ending in divorce ten years later, when people forget to ask 'what about me?' Asking what you yourself want is the start of being real.
- Greatness includes painting the picture
The poem moves from discovering new land to painting pictures on the walls, showing that greatness spans every archetype, not just conquest; the manosphere's single template reveals a lack…
- Neutrality under triggers measures integration
How reactive you are when triggered shows how much of your shadow is unintegrated. An integrated person doesn't need to react or project; they make a simple yes-or-no choice based on their…
- Your roots explain inherited patterns
Immigrants and their children can lose touch with the people who came before them, and with it the source of the patterns and shame they carry. Living in her ancestral culture let Nev…
- Clarity about when to leave keeps love from suffering
Sheela says her love never turned dark because, when the time came, she was clear it was time to go and left without looking back. That clarity gave her strength instead of leading her…
- Doubt, not love, creates love's dark side
To Sheela, love has no dark side of its own. The darkness comes from a culture that judges, defines and cancels, and from entering relationships full of doubt, which guarantees there is no…
- Fiction teaches you to value people without status
A narrator who shows you a character's trials makes you respect someone with no Bugatti, six-pack, or partner; extend that to people you rank below you and you realize you're not as low as…
- Grief is not only about death
We grieve lost friendships, ghostings, divorces, pets and miscarriages (the hopes and dreams planted in a future), not just the dead.
- Naming what's repressed dissolves it
What stays repressed does the most harm. Saying it out loud and looking at it directly makes it far lighter, which is why talking openly about sexual shame brings breakthroughs.
- Responsibility for what we share
People cut ties over polarizing posts during wars and elections. If you later realize you no longer believe what you posted, you may have lost friends for nothing, so sharing takes work and…
- What we seek outside is our inner core
Sheela reads the Princess of Kashi as a profound reminder that we look outside for what we already have, our inner self. She adds that her own falling in love was an inner process from the…
- What you attract mirrors what you deny
Painful experiences that keep recurring are mirrors of a repressed self that wants to be integrated. The trait you blame in a partner is often the one you can't see in yourself.
- Wisdom sticks when delivered with love
What stayed with Sheela was not the Gibran text but her father reading it with affection, and teaching his children the stars. As Tamir puts it, the teaching mattered because it came from a…
- Authentic complainers are more likeable than optimizers
Tamir would rather have a friend who is authentic and speaks from the heart but isn't on a track to success than someone optimizing every area of life, who may 'recalibrate around you' and…
- Avoidance compounds with life's stakes
Cutting and running might work at 20, but once there's a marriage, kids and a career the consequences grow; if you don't face the music now, you'll face it later.
- Distance clarifies your homeland
Living abroad for years makes a country's faults clearer. Like Joyce with Ireland, Grant wants to write about Canada from that vantage.
- Falling asleep easily signals safety
The body can only fall asleep when it feels safe, so taking more than 5 to 15 minutes to drop off points to a nervous system on guard. Insomnia often reflects not trusting yourself or life…
- Grief cannot be prescribed
Because grief is as personal as the love it reflects, no one can set a time limit or tell another person where to draw the line. Mia still feels a pull to a mother she barely knew, decades…
- Less fiction, less empathy
The breakdown of decorum and empathy may be partly, though not one-to-one, caused by people reading less fiction. Men read less fiction than women in every age group, and that may help…
- Need turns love into a business
Relationships built on need become a negotiation. Each partner loses freedom, feels captured, and ends up trapped in a dependency of their own making.
- Nobody is born a neo-Nazi
To depict extremists honestly you have to show why people join. The path usually starts with self-discovery and legitimately good advice about accountability. The poison only comes later…
- Sadness is part of love; suffering is optional
Sheela admits there were sad moments after the falling out with Bhagwan, but calls them 'also part of love'. She accepted them graciously and let thoughts and feelings leave as they came…
- You can leave someone without falling out of love
Sheela insists she never 'got the ick' with Bhagwan. She left because staying would have cost her integrity, not because her love ended. In her view, love and leaving are not opposites when…
- Acceptance freed her to take responsibility
Sheela says she could carry responsibility for the whole commune because she wasn't chasing achievement. She did it out of love and accepted life as it came, which she says makes life…
- Books keep closed doors open
Every life choice steers you down one track and closes other doors; any book, from the Odyssey to Confessions of a Shopaholic, reintroduces you to worlds you no longer move in.
- Everyone thinks they're the victim
In a falling-out, both sides usually believe they are the victim. That is what makes it an enigma, and what makes getting through it without bitterness such a hard skill.
- Friend breakups resist rationalization
Being dropped by friends hurts more bewilderingly than a romantic breakup, because romance is volatile and easy to rationalize, while we're raised on 'friends forever'.
- Openness creates higher-fidelity conversations
Not hiding anything, even something as small as admitting to Botox when asked, builds trust and makes conversations higher fidelity. In sales too, connecting with people means openness, not…
- Stories grow when ping-ponged
People often realize how strange or profound their own story is only when they tell it aloud and see someone react; batting it back and forth through two lenses draws out more meaning.
- The simplest answer is usually right
When people vanish from your life, it often isn't because you did something horrific: cutting and running is simply easier for them than having the conversation.
- Tradition makes us call desire love
Sheela observes that when two people are attracted, 'love' suddenly appears because tradition, religion and culture only permit sex in its name. She would rather people be honest about…
- We feel bad because we don't have our own backs
Much of our unease comes from expecting that when something goes wrong we will turn on ourselves ('see, I didn't do it again'). Self-trust is the antidote.
Practices 19
- Grief Dinner Parties
Mia's first pilot of grief support groups: hosting dinners in her West Point Grey home where people cook, eat and share their innermost pain, because 'we heal in a field of connection' and…
- Ask 'What's in it for you?'
In interviews Colin told candidates exactly what he was after, then asked what they were after, to judge whether they were too ambitious or not ambitious enough. Asking yourself the same…
- Orient your life around serving
Get clear on the few things you truly care about and commit to the process of serving them (e.g. giving your partner utmost presence regardless of how they respond), rather than to an…
- Use trigger reactivity as a gauge
When triggered in a relationship, notice whether you react and project or stay neutral. Strong reactivity marks an unintegrated shadow to explore. In conflict, reduce the decision to a…
- Visit your ancestral homeland
For anyone who wants to know themselves at the root, spend time in the land and culture of your ancestors to understand the patterns, beliefs and shame you inherited. Nev says it isn't…
- Be a clean mirror
When someone shares grief, reflect it cleanly by listening, observing and asking questions, rather than reacting with shock ('Oh my god, really?') or telling them how they should feel…
- Build handmade anthologies
How Tyler made Men, Women and Other Adventures for Tamir.
- Dinner without business
To find out what makes an employee tick, take them to dinner and don't talk business at all. Ask about their life, and only at the very end ask about their goals for the year.
- Full, equal freedom for both partners
Don't be possessive and don't set unequal rules. Give both partners full freedom if both want it, schedule time together openly, and end it if jealousy takes over, rather than negotiating…
- Honor the dead by not fighting the living
When there's no will or the wishes are unclear, the best way to honor someone is not to fight with the people still living, and to ask what they would want for you.
- Listen before you agree
Let people finish before you agree. Real listening means hearing the whole thought, thinking about it and then responding, not nodding along preemptively.
- Share short stories instead of books
When recommending fiction, Tamir rarely gives whole books now, because people seldom finish them. He sends a PDF or link to one short story from an author's collection that the person will…
- Sit with the trigger instead of masking
When you notice a shadow pattern (e.g. neediness when a partner is away), name it to yourself and sit with it rather than reaching for a cigarette, your phone, or a book on attachment…
- Speak your shame out loud
Bring repressed shame, including sexual shame or trauma, into the open by naming and talking about it: 'giving it a name and a face'. Nev says this alone often dissolves it.
- Teach children a new star each night
On summer nights Sheela's father had the family sleep outside in the garden and helped the children find a new star in the sky every day. She remembers it as teaching delivered through love…
- Be honest about desire
Instead of dressing attraction up as 'I love you', say honestly what you want. Sheela says honesty is easy for her because she was raised on it, and asks whether a relationship without…
- Evaluate your relationship to sleep
If exploring dreams feels like too much, simply ask how you relate to sleep: can you surrender into it, or do you dread the night? Use the answer as a read on how safe you feel.
- Keep tiny promises to yourself
Build self-trust with very small, keepable commitments. If you want to sleep earlier, go to bed just five minutes earlier tonight and prove to yourself you can deliver.
- Monthly roommate meetings
Tyler learned this from Roland. As a 'typical Canadian' who says 'it's fine' and then flips out later, he uses it to train the skill of addressing conflict early.
Stories 37
- Giving up an art apprenticeship for love
At 21, Sheela was accepted by the well-known Michigan artist Ed Harding to apprentice in lithography and watercolor. Before the semester began she flew to India to see her mother after an…
- From Lisbon to Budapest at 26
At 26 Grant left Canada and traveled by car and train from Lisbon, which he expected to be his home, all the way to Budapest, where he stayed. He returned at 42 and plans two memoir-novels…
- Grandfather's two pieces of advice
Colin's father died when he was two, and his grandfather looked after him until he was about nine. On a walk shortly before he died, his grandfather stopped and told him: don't ever grow…
- Immigrant child discovering her roots
Nev's parents moved to Toronto in 1996, when she was nine months old, and she grew up Canadian with only brief summer trips to the Balkans. Living there, she came to understand her father's…
- SAS soldiers wearing American flags
Colin recounts an interview with a Navy SEAL who, as a newcomer, saw British SAS soldiers in the chow line wearing American flags. Asked why, they said, 'You've got to blame it on somebody…
- Abandoning the cat at the beach
Salih relates Murakami's memoir of his father: the family left their cat at the beach, drove home, and found the cat already waiting there, inexplicably. Salih takes this as Murakami's real…
- Bullied without a dad
Colin was bullied mercilessly as a child, picked on, beaten up, and mocked even for not having a father. That pushed him into boxing. He says it made him stronger, not weaker.
- Ghosted by three close friends
About three years earlier, three of Tyler's nearest and dearest friends cut him off. He was bewildered and feared something about him was 'too much'. What finally smoothed him out was…
- Leaving Bhagwan with tears in her eyes
When Sheela decided to leave Bhagwan, members of her commune 'family' begged her to stay, reminding her of everything she had and all the work she had put in. Tears ran down her face as she…
- Leaving Canada on a full-body impulse
Soon after meeting Tamir, Nev had a 'full-body knowing' that she could no longer live in Canada, though she had few logical reasons. With no expectations, she packed up and went to the…
- Meeting Bhagwan through her father
Sheela wasn't looking for spirituality and 'didn't even know what it meant'. Her father asked her to come with him to Bhagwan's discourse because he believed that if this man lived long…
- Motivating people by knowing them
Colin says daily 'sell, sell, sell' meetings are the worst thing you can do, because you don't know what motivates each person. Some of his staff did brilliantly after he screamed at them…
- Rise of Rajneeshpuram (intro)
Tamir's cold-open history: in 1972 in India, 22-year-old Sheela fell in love with Bhagwan and devoted every waking moment to him. 'Whatever he willed, Sheela made it happen.' When they had…
- The Rock and Kevin Hart on Ellen
On Ellen, Kevin Hart kept needling Dwayne Johnson. When it came up that Johnson had just had another baby girl, Hart joked about him not producing boys. A visibly annoyed Johnson replied…
- The salesman who didn't want to be manager
In one of Colin's offices in Belgium, during a struggling telecoms campaign, one salesman was the only one hitting numbers. Colin pulled him aside and praised him lavishly as his next…
- Car music on dates
In his twenties Tamir always switched the car music to whatever the woman he was driving liked. An article made him ask why he was bending over backwards, and whether she might want to know…
- Drop both lovers if they're jealous
Sheela told her lovers plainly that none of them could compare with Bhagwan, 'a category of its own', and they loved him too, so they understood. If her lovers grew jealous of one another…
- From turbulent reactivity to neutrality
Nev says she began her journey very turbulent and reactive in romantic relationships and friendships, set off 'at the drop of a dime' by comments. After years of shadow work, conflicts now…
- Gibran on papa's lap, stars in the garden
At five, Sheela sat on her father's lap while he read her Kahlil Gibran, which she didn't understand but felt as affection. In summer the family slept outside in the garden, and every night…
- Growing up Serbian Orthodox and strict
Nev grew up in a strict Balkan family in the Serbian Orthodox faith, which gave her a lot of shame. She notes that her clients from strict religious homes now mostly call themselves…
- How can we be against marriage unmarried?
Every evening Sheela and Chinmaya ate sitting back to back on the floor of her little room, talking and philosophizing, as long as it was logical. One night they agreed they couldn't be…
- Learning Jewish culture through Singer
Growing up in rural Alberta, not raised in any church, Tyler learned about traditional Jewish life from Isaac Bashevis Singer's translated Yiddish stories. When he met Tamir and his Jewish…
- The handmade anthology
When Tyler loves a short story, he cuts it from the spine of its book with a carpenter's knife and rebinds his favorites with Bible onion-skin paper, which acts like book glue. He built a…
- Women who call in avoidant partners
Nev describes a pattern she often sees in clients. A woman says she is fully open to love but keeps attracting emotionally avoidant partners. Underneath, unresolved trauma has closed her…
- Arguing a dying man into love
Sheela's first husband, Chinmaya, had Hodgkin's disease and a year and a half to live, so he refused to get involved with her because it would be unfair to her. Both loved logic, so she…
- Bureaucracy in British Columbia
In BC the drinking age is 19, yet signs demand ID if you look under 35, nearly twice the legal age. Grant uses this to explain why it's hard to love Canada with all its bureaucracy.
- Calling her partner twenty times
Mia's relationship is securely attached, but if her partner doesn't say goodbye in his usual way and something feels hidden, she might call him 20 times: 'me going from investigator before…
- Divorcing couple at grief group
The quietest attendees shock Mia most. People going through divorce have brought their ex-spouse to discuss it together in the group, with tears, screaming and yelling.
- Mother of six monsters, never serious
Sheela's mother raised six children ('all monsters, one is talking to you'), yet Sheela never saw her with a serious face. Sheela's eye doctor used to say that when her mother walked in…
- Small-town loyalty that slaughtered him
In a small community you can't cut anyone off; they'll be at your cousin's wedding and at school the next day. Tyler entered the wider world extremely loyal and sentimental, unwilling to…
- Stepfather's Apple shares
Colin's late stepfather joked that Apple would 'come knock on my coffin' to tell him the stock was finally up. Colin uses it to show that small investors trust what they invest in, and lose…
- Tamir's ever-positive 77-year-old father
Tamir sees Sheela's optimism in his father, about to turn 78, who had a very difficult childhood and life but was always positive and having fun, never depressed or dwelling on the past…
- Tamir's superpower: summoning anyone
Asked what superpower he'd want, Tamir skips invisibility, flight and infinite money: he wants an emperor's power to summon anyone in the kingdom, so he could end the enigma of why people…
- Falling asleep in 30 seconds
Samantha can fall asleep in any position or place within 30 seconds, her 'superpower', which she credits to genuinely trusting life and not experiencing the world as hostile. She notes she…
- Ian's wife's 'If' tattoo
When Tamir brings up Kipling's 'If—', Ian shares that his wife has an 'If' tattoo and has the whole poem memorized.
- Married over a lost bet, and mid-flight
Of her two later marriages, Sheela says she married once because she lost a bet, and once because she fell in love again, with the wedding performed by the pilot on a flight to India.
- Met in a high-school play
Tamir and Mia first met in high school while acting in the same play, the root of their shared love of fiction and storytelling.
Films, music and art 2
- The Princess of Kashi
A Vedantic story Tamir tells at the end. A prince falls in love with a 15-year-old portrait of a princess, then learns it is him as a child, dressed for a palace play, and his longing…
- Interstellar
Christopher Nolan's film, built on time dilation and a father and daughter separated across time.
Places 2
- Canada
Home country of Grant and Nev. Canadian character, from bureaucracy to agreeableness, is a recurring topic.
- Balkans
Nev's ancestral homeland. She went there on impulse and spent 11 months uncovering her lineage, its history of war, oppression and sexual shame, and her own inherited patterns.
Organizations and movements 1
- Special Air Service
British special forces. Colin recounts a Navy SEAL's interview praising the SAS for always finding something to lighten the mood even in firefights. It's his example of soldiers who took…