Dr. Martha Beck

I mean, I've worked with homeless heroin addicts on the streets of Phoenix because I truly believe that the experience I had in surgery with this light, this absolute homecoming and peace, I actually gravitated to addicts, even though I've never been addicted to substance, because when they say they can't live without that first heroin hit, that's how I felt after coming out of that experience, that light.

I was like, I cannot live without that. And so I would tell the heroin addicts, I believe you're meant to have that feeling you long for so much. But I also think you get to keep your teeth, you know, like there's another way. So I've worked with people like that. I've had billionaires as clients. I have counseled people in prison because I'm a sociologist.

I was like, I cannot live without that. And so I would tell the heroin addicts, I believe you're meant to have that feeling you long for so much. But I also think you get to keep your teeth, you know, like there's another way. So I've worked with people like that. I've had billionaires as clients. I have counseled people in prison because I'm a sociologist.

And if I say something works for humanity, it has to work across cultures and in all situations, poverty, wealth, poverty.

And if I say something works for humanity, it has to work across cultures and in all situations, poverty, wealth, poverty.

You know what? Almost everyone has the same major problem, and it's not what you would think. They want to know their purpose. They want to know why the hell they're even here. Humans are the only animals, so far as we know, that live on a day-to-day basis with the consciousness of our mortality. We are going to die, so why are we even here? What am I doing here?

You know what? Almost everyone has the same major problem, and it's not what you would think. They want to know their purpose. They want to know why the hell they're even here. Humans are the only animals, so far as we know, that live on a day-to-day basis with the consciousness of our mortality. We are going to die, so why are we even here? What am I doing here?

And it's the same whether you're talking to someone on the street or someone with a billion dollars. That desperation to know why we're here. And I think it comes out of a culture that has fundamentally pulled us away from our inherent knowledge of what we're meant to be and put us in a place where we are obsessed with productivity and consumption and production of material wealth.

And it's the same whether you're talking to someone on the street or someone with a billion dollars. That desperation to know why we're here. And I think it comes out of a culture that has fundamentally pulled us away from our inherent knowledge of what we're meant to be and put us in a place where we are obsessed with productivity and consumption and production of material wealth.

And has actually cut us off from our own sense of meaning. And that's actually in the brain that you get stuck in a part of the left hemisphere that is obsessed with grabbing things and owning things and controlling things. And it's always afraid. It's always grasping. And it refuses to believe that anything but itself exists.

And has actually cut us off from our own sense of meaning. And that's actually in the brain that you get stuck in a part of the left hemisphere that is obsessed with grabbing things and owning things and controlling things. And it's always afraid. It's always grasping. And it refuses to believe that anything but itself exists.

But on the other side of the brain, there is the self that connects with meaning, purpose, relationship, connection. And living in a state of nature, as everyone did until a few hundred years ago, almost everyone, we would wake up, a human would wake up hearing wind and birdsong and other people's voices They would rise and go to bed according to the sunlight and the temperature.

But on the other side of the brain, there is the self that connects with meaning, purpose, relationship, connection. And living in a state of nature, as everyone did until a few hundred years ago, almost everyone, we would wake up, a human would wake up hearing wind and birdsong and other people's voices They would rise and go to bed according to the sunlight and the temperature.

They had intimate relationships with animals and with plants and with the earth itself. All of our biology evolved to be in that situation. One anthropologist called it the weird societies, Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic. We have a fundamentally different way of living. We get up surrounded by artificial light.

They had intimate relationships with animals and with plants and with the earth itself. All of our biology evolved to be in that situation. One anthropologist called it the weird societies, Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic. We have a fundamentally different way of living. We get up surrounded by artificial light.

We push ourselves all day to do things that we would never have done 300 years ago, spreadsheets. Sitting next to people we barely know who are assigned to be there because we have similar tasks, which is a system based on factory labor. which is horrible for people, not to solve real problems that matter to you, but

We push ourselves all day to do things that we would never have done 300 years ago, spreadsheets. Sitting next to people we barely know who are assigned to be there because we have similar tasks, which is a system based on factory labor. which is horrible for people, not to solve real problems that matter to you, but

to catch on to something that an adult already knows who's going to punish you or shame you, depending on whether you get the right answer or the wrong answer. It's a bizarre, very left hemisphere dominated society. So Ian McGilchrist, my favorite philosopher and neurologist or psychiatrist, says the whole culture functions like someone with a severe right hemisphere stroke.

to catch on to something that an adult already knows who's going to punish you or shame you, depending on whether you get the right answer or the wrong answer. It's a bizarre, very left hemisphere dominated society. So Ian McGilchrist, my favorite philosopher and neurologist or psychiatrist, says the whole culture functions like someone with a severe right hemisphere stroke.

We live in a bizarre, crazy culture. And we do not know why we're here because we don't have access to our sense of meaning.