Why Rituals Matter More Than You Know, And How to Design Your Own | Bruce Feiler
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What is the significance of rituals in our lives?
A ritual is a shared unnecessary act that makes us feel at home. It's the glue that holds society together. I've started calling it the original human algorithm. It's a mechanism by which the group tends itself.
So there's a particular kind of loneliness that tends to hit in the middle of a full life. Not because you're isolated, but because the relationships that used to hold you steady, they're just all being renegotiated, often all at once. The kids have left, a parent has passed, a marriage needs new terms. We need ways to process these moments, rituals. And yet the very rituals that help people move through moments like this for 10,000 years have largely vanished forever. and very little has replaced them.
How does homesickness relate to modern life transitions?
Bruce Feiler is a seven-time New York Times bestselling author. In this conversation, he walks us through why rituals matter and how to design your own rituals for the moments that no existing ceremony really knows how to hold anymore. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. And the place I want to start with Bruce is a feeling that he described that I never heard named quite the way that he names it before. We'll jump right in after this short break.
I'm Shannon Maldonado, the founder of the Jaui gift shop, which sells handmade artisanal products. I chose Shopify because I thought it was one of the easiest to use devices. Minulla oli tärkeää pohtia kehittymistämme tulevaisuudessa. Kaikki myyntiin tarvittavat työkalut, kuten varaston suunnittelu, ovat kätevästi dashboardissa. Aloita ilmainen kokeilu shopify.com-sivustolla.
You and I have talked a number of times over the years. You spent about three years or so visiting, if I remember correctly, 26 different countries, participating in 100 or something different ceremonies. But I want to start a little bit closer to home. In the introduction of A Time Together, you write about walking through your own front door after dropping your daughters off at college and feeling – I think these are kind of your words – homesick in your own home. And it's like I knew exactly what you meant. Even though my circumstances are different, everyone joining us is going to have a different circumstance. What is the thing that you discovered in those first few weeks that made you realize –
Oh, this is the feeling. And this also is not a private problem or feeling. This is something much bigger that's happening. We just maybe been calling it by the wrong name.
Well, I appreciate this question, and this is where it started for me. I mean, to sort of go back a little bit, my wife Linda and I went from empty nest to full nest in 32 minutes 21 years ago when we became the parent of identical twin daughters. And 18 years later, we had the inverse happen. We went from full nest to empty nest when we dropped them off at different sides of the same college campus. And we— I drove back to Brooklyn Heights where we live and I walked through the front door, as you say, and I felt – and it was so distinct, Jonathan. Like this was the feeling. Like I wasn't searching for the right word, right? You know, I'm that kind of person. Like what am I – I knew it right away.
I felt homesick in my own home. And my initial instinct was don't tell anybody about this. Like that is not an acceptable word to use in public discourse in this day and age. Like that's what a child feels when they go on their first sleepover or what an adolescent feels the opening days or weeks of sleepaway camp. But that's what I felt. It wasn't just my children. My dad had just died. My mother was aging. I had some conflict with my siblings.
What are the five building blocks of designing a ritual?
My marriage needs to be renegotiated at this point, and my friendships need to be remade. And my initial thought was, oh, I'm ready for this. I mean, you and I met Six years ago, as I recall, when I published Life is in the Transitions, and I have spent most of the last decade collecting and analyzing life stories of now 500 Americans all across the country, every circumstance and walk of life. And I wrote everything.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the significance of rituals in our lives?
0:00–0:43
2
How does homesickness relate to modern life transitions?
0:43–3:56
3
What are the five building blocks of designing a ritual?
3:56–6:49
4
What is the concept of a celebration recession?
6:49–9:41
5
How can we create new rituals for contemporary challenges?
9:41–13:38
6
What steps are involved in designing a personal ritual?
13:38–16:50
7
How do rituals help us process grief and change?
16:50–21:03
8
What are the actionable steps to create meaningful connections?
21:03–55:07
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Good Life Project
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