71. The short and long arcs of time | with Mandell

Tankespjärn with Helena Roth

It fascinates me how me and Mandell cannot speak without dropping at least a douzen book titles/recommendations or so. This episode is not different in that regards, but before we went all booking, I shared a story of the adventures of Pop the cat, who was definitely cheating on me during the summer, while on vacation in Vejbystrand where my mom lives.

(Can a cat cheat on his owner? Well. Yeah. Listen and find out how!)

The type of pets that are common to an area, and how those pets are tended/kept, shifts. There’s a cultural aspect to this, in much the same way that cooking provides a lens into a culture. Turns out, Mandell always tries to get to a cooking class while travelling, even though he also says Cooking is not my thing. Well, you could have fooled me…

“For some reason a cooking class gives me an advantage on the culture. You learn so much from the food and I especially I love the cooking classes where they bring you to the market and show you how they shop.” ~ Mandell

Then our conversation came upon a shift.
From the short arc of time (a human life span; cats and dogs, travelling and cooking classes) to the long ones. The really long arcs.

“The aspect of the long arcs is one of my favourite things. A human life is a really small arc of time. It's like nothing, but the long arcs of time… what was it like a thousand years ago, 10,000 years ago, a hundred thousand years ago? When you look at the long arc of time, what happens? What shifts? Opening up to the fact that a human lifespan is a very short, very brief moment in time, and what am I doing with that? Am I influencing the long [ongoing] arc? How am I influencing it? Can I influence it?” ~ Helena

And boom. There we went, down a deep rabbit hole, asking questions, challenging ourselves, providing tankespjärn for ourselves, as well as, hopefully, for you, dear listener.

Links:

Find Mandell Conway through his websiteGiving is like or onLinkedIn

Pop the cat can be found on Instagram

All Reddy-conversations from season two (on Spotify)

The AKIMBO workshops, all but altMBA running for the last time in the fall of 2022

The signature of all things, a book by Elizabeth Gilbert

Range - WHY GENERALISTS TRIUMPH IN A SPECIALIZED WORLD by David Epstein

Big Magic, also by Elizabeth Gilbert