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Slice #6 Awe and the Vastness of Love
15 Plays6 months ago
The host welcomes emergency room doctor and poet, Kai for a deep and thoughtful conversation about the vastness of love, human connection, and the moral courage that drives us through life’s challenges. Kai shares a personal reflection on how acts of love and care, even in the face of suffering, reveal the profound beauty in our shared humanity.
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Some mentions during the conversation:
Alice Coltrane's Turiya and Ramakrishna
Cynicism researcher
Meditation app
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Theme Music
00:00:25
Speaker
are
00:01:07
Speaker
What's up, fellow humans? And welcome back to a little slice of all in wonder, a cozy podcast about my two favorite emotions. So the intro music today is a little different and it's from an upcoming album and book project I'm working on that is kind of broadly based on a lot of the themes from the podcast. So I'm really psyched to hopefully share some snippets with you throughout the process. If you're interested in hearing the whole intro, ah you can sign up to my mailing list that I'll put in the show notes.
00:01:37
Speaker
and I'll be sharing some progress and also some slices of awe found throughout the week.
Introduction to Kai Huang and the Nature of Awe
00:01:42
Speaker
So today I spoke with my good friend and grad school roommate Kai, a poet, an emergency room doctor, and just an exceptional human. um I'm sharing just a snippet of our conversation. I might share more later, but we cover a lot of ground.
00:01:57
Speaker
um mostly about how moral courage inspires awe. And we also delve a little bit into the awe and wonder of spiritual and religious experience too. So without further ado, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Kai Huang.
00:02:23
Speaker
the prompt that I've been asking people is, you know, what's a personal story of awe when you encountered a vast mystery that transcended your understanding? I've been thinking about this question since we last spoke. And for me, again, like there's love again, like the the the vast mystery of love.
00:02:40
Speaker
know The fact that I guess, you know, you could talk about it in the form of altruism as well, or people like helping other people, taking on ah the suffering of others um with no seeming benefit to themselves. And the fact that that that type of force or cohesion between people or between any type of, a you know, sentient being, it seems to produce a positive outcome, you know,
00:03:07
Speaker
yeah Yeah. I love that you bring this up because something I didn't expect from the the research was that they took these 2600 narratives from 26 countries of awe and then just looked and saw what was the most common thing to produce or promote or elicit awe. And it was actually, yeah, it was other people. It was moral courage and that love you're talking about. So it is really something that is the most powerful source of awe.
00:03:36
Speaker
Wow, I didn't know that either. Yeah, because I was trying to think like of ah something like visiting somewhere beautiful that was either you know visually stunning or even just very intellectually rich, historically rich, or something like this. But to me, that what I kept on coming back to was both my life and what I see with people around me, people aren taking on tremendous care for others you know that that are close to them. For instance, this is, I guess,
00:04:03
Speaker
kind of graphic, but I think it's in a way like kind of a twisted example of of what I'm talking about.
Stories of Courage and Dedication
00:04:08
Speaker
But like the other day, I saw a patient with a spinal cord injury that he had suffered like 35 years ago. and He was a teenager and now he's in his 50s. So he's paralyzed and he's down. And he was like having issues with constipation.
00:04:26
Speaker
And so we had to try to like give him animas and help him shit in his is back you know because his these immobile was covered with with wounds. Thankfully, you know they didn't look effective or anything like that. But his partner, his wife, who had been with him for many years, she got with him after the the injury even, and she's just been taking care of him this whole time. Wow.
00:04:47
Speaker
me and the nurse there were just saying like kind of how incredible that is in a way and that type of thing not being uncommon either in in the world is a love that we show for each other. I mean, hey, it's breathtaking, you know, like not oftentimes like a sexy thing, I guess, you know, it's kind of, yeah ah I guess it's kind of like like a Buddhist way of understanding it, you know, of really finding meaning and in the suffering in the toil of what's going on about life.
00:05:17
Speaker
and doing it for us Man, that's powerful, dude. Yeah. One thing I was thinking about was just how, as humans, we just have, and you know I think more and more so, like our generation and Gen Z, our attention spans are so short that we think of everything on these very short time scales. When I was thinking first of like moral courage or something like that, I thought of a one-off event where someone stands up for somebody else. And you know I think that's great too. But it's crazy to think on those long time scales, a whole,
00:05:48
Speaker
three, four decades of your life spent caring for somebody else. like that's ah That's a whole different game you're playing. you're right It is breathtaking when you stop to think about that. like that like More than a single moment or word choice or way you phrase something about loving somebody, like saying, I love you once versus 30 years of dedication. i think There's a difference. you know
00:06:14
Speaker
Yeah, that type of thing is like I struggle with with that. yeah I guess I think we we all do it it in the sense like the idea of the end of life or, you know, caring for the end of life. But somewhere in there is like something that is driving folks to lean into their roles of whatever cards that they've been dealt just to ah get up and and try to do the right thing every day. That I think is you know such a beautiful thing.
Religion, Faith, and Awe
00:06:40
Speaker
It's like you know that the source of all, apparently for for more people than than I knew. I didn't know that that was you know the the number one source.
00:06:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's such a cool point too that there is something like what is it that drives people to, you know, in the face of what might seem like a lack of evidence or like even evidence to the contrary that life might be full of suffering to to continue to act ah that there's like ah an ultimate goodness and a reason for everything.
00:07:09
Speaker
To me, that's like what all religious faith is really about. you know It's faith that the arc of the universe bends ultimately towards goodness and and to not lose that idea. and Somehow that that produces this awe effect in us seeing that. and you know Even in a story where it's like somebody's life didn't go how they planned, but they maybe stay true to their values or continue to do the right thing. It's like somehow that story, i regardless of whether or not they became rich or whatever in the end of it, it's like we find awe in that story. And you know it's like curious why that is. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty cool. It's like the Tao, you know, it's indescribable as soon as you try to grasp it, it escapes. But I think it's a really cool thing that is within us part of the mystery of humanity.
00:08:05
Speaker
Yeah, I like that. like The fact that all face religious experiences, spiritual experiences, trying to trying of point at that. It's like the finger in the moon again. ah But it reminds me actually of this, I don't know if you know this song by Alice Coltrane called Tariah and Ramakrishna. I've been listening to it recently.
00:08:25
Speaker
the fifth and rama christianshley is indian mystic who is's credited i think ah code with three with the ah the idea that all religions are trying to point to some step, a single central truth during the 17 or 1800s. Don't quote me on that. But that's been like a ah theme that we've gotten into during this conversation as well, is the awe derived from ah religious experience, spiritual experience is some type of connection with the unseen. And specifically, as you just alluded to, a benevolent unseen, somebody that has a grander plant plan that is a plan other than the chaos, you know, or no plan, man, sometimes I don't know. And I think that's part that doubt is part of the religious experience as well. Yeah, something that, you know, it's obviously in everybody, you know, in all of us to have doubts about
00:09:26
Speaker
everything really, and and certainly about the existence of of things unseen, you know, God of the Divine, or any type of master plan of any kind, you know, like, even the the suggestion of a master plan with that, kind of like the B side of that, yeah yeah so you know, that the dāni yin yang is doubt, they like, what is it if not?
00:09:49
Speaker
Yeah, and that's necessary. And it's unhealthy not to have doubt, right? I mean, that's just a naivete. ah You know, the people that have this sort of faith that produces this awe, it seems like they're on the other side of that naivete, you know? If that makes sense to not have doubts, that would be kind of unnatural. Yeah, that's part of the I think that's part of the whole wrestling process is doubting.
00:10:14
Speaker
You know, if you lose that function, then you're always open to being manipulated by cults or anything crazy. Yeah. I mean, that's something else I've been thinking about recently, probably because of the Diddy case,
Moral Courage in Oppressive Regimes
00:10:28
Speaker
man. Sorry to bring that into this. Oh, yeah. It's always getting upset with me because I just can't, for the life of me, stop listening to that song, Diddy. You know, the one that goes to D, to I, to D, to D, to I. Yeah.
00:10:42
Speaker
hey But a yeah, just like something like that, the the kind of the depths of human depravity can be like a ah frightening source of awe as well. say Most people would, you wouldn't think that it would it would get that deep, but we have, ah you know, it's like the the angel and the demon ah within us. I think Muhammad even said that God had fashioned us from some of both, you know, some of the angelic and demonic material.
00:11:08
Speaker
There's like, I think it's Solzhenitsyn or something, the the line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every man and and who wants to destroy a piece of their own heart. That's a pretty hot quote. that's Yeah. Wow, that's crazy. Who said that? I think it was Solzhenitsyn.
00:11:26
Speaker
Solzhenitsyn is a Russian philosopher and a writer who was in the gulags and spoke up about what was going on in Russia during the communist regime there. It's crazy as well, man. It would suck. yeah know i could i could I could say that. It would suck to be born in Russia or China or anywhere that had a a communist regime.
00:11:53
Speaker
This comes from someone who used to consider, you know, himself a socialist. Well, you could be sympathetic to like what it claims to do. Right. That's true. Like historically. Yeah, it sucks man. Wait, what were you going to say? I was just wondering if you've seen a three body problem.
00:12:08
Speaker
Do you ever watch that? No. I remember you were recommended this. I got to read the book first, right? Okay. Yeah, you got to read the book, dude. That's just right up your alley, man. Especially since it's Chinese, man. Yeah. Chinese anywhere. And it starts in the... The Cultural Revolution. Yeah, Cultural Revolution. Classic, man. That's it. You know it's got to start. The Cultural Revolution is kind of like that nightmare scene.
00:12:27
Speaker
Yeah, everything is upside down scene, but it really happened. It's crazy, right? Right. Yeah, the first scene in the show, and this is kind of like a sense of moral courage here that pops out is there's some professor that they're putting up in the front of this big crowd. And he won't say what he believes to be false, like about some data, I forget exactly what it is. And because of that, they beat him to death.
00:12:52
Speaker
in that first scene, everyone's like cheering and chanting. It's scary that like, when you can't have even a dialogue about something. Yeah, it is scary, man. I mean, like, that's the statement about the arc of the moral universe, you know, the MLK. It's hard to think about and in a country like that, you know, or, you know, like Russia as well, where it's like, yo, can you even imagine a democracy for Russian and Chinese people? That's like,
00:13:17
Speaker
Two billion people right there. you know yeah It's hard to imagine the next couple hundred years things are going to change dramatically you know so to the point that you'll be able to to just like openly criticize the government, just like simple things like that. It's crazy.
Future of Democracy and Climate Challenges
00:13:30
Speaker
Yeah, man. That's crazy. then you know its It's going to take a lot of moral courage to get there. Absolutely. Absolutely. it's a long It's a long way off. Then looking back at it, it is true that we do seem to be going in an upward trajectory.
00:13:45
Speaker
Things do seem better than they were in the past in a lot of parts of the world. But then I don't know, it's you know some people would would argue now, you know, because of climate. Man, then it becomes like, sometimes I just, like I have a, like a climate acceptance, and at least, you know, to try to just enjoy what we have.
00:14:07
Speaker
yeah and I think so much of news today that comes at you and we have more information just flooding us than ever before.
Cynicism vs. Positivity
00:14:17
Speaker
It's really easy to understand why people feel cynical. But you know I just listened to this other podcast today with Dr. Jamil Zaki. and He's at Stanford or runs a social cognition lab, I think, something like that. But he studies cynicism.
00:14:32
Speaker
and just generally for your own health as a human, it is actually not healthy to be cynical. And we have this weird cognitive bias towards people that are cynical. For some reason, people tend to trust the opinions of critics more. It's called the sin cynical genius illusion he was mentioning. But actually, they do all these tests on really huge large-scale studies and show that, you know, cynics do less well on cognitive tests. They're worse judges of character. They die younger, ah less healthy. They're more depressed, more anxious. And they talk also about how cynicism tends to be this like, you know, it it makes sense. It's a form of self-protection. Like its role is to protect you against feeling bad. you You might have gone through an experience and then it's sort of this like preemptive strike
00:15:23
Speaker
against something that was a threat in your past ah past, and you don't want it to be a threat again. So if you tell yourself, oh, things are shit, they'll never get better, then it's sort of an excuse also to not try in life, or it it is more complicated comfortable to get fatalistic and call it pragmatism, you know, absolutely but there's a lot to do and there's a lot to enjoy.
00:15:45
Speaker
Yeah, that is true. You can never give up. and You really can't. You have no choice. Yeah, you have no choice. That's the thing. You're even a Philly cosmic joke. Yeah, it's nice, man. I mean, I'm glad to be here. And we really do have so many blessings. It's like, a Yeah, man. Minus a Confucius line. You know, poor, but virtuous, rich, but loving the rights. Yo, you're coming with these hot lines today, man. I love it. yeah like drops no You must love the rights, I guess. It's like ah history and tradition of a journey of of humanity, what the way the universe is is. There's definitely no shortage of things to delve into and get interested in. It's like, I guess, you know, it's interesting.
Meditation and Daily Awe
00:16:39
Speaker
Speaking of which, do you have any recommendations for how people might feel more awe in their life on a regular basis, how they might tune in? yeah Well, actually, I guess this is a pretty simple one, but I finally made a regular meditation practice. I've been pretty good with it for the past 30 days. It's 15 minutes. yeah You know, 15 minutes is ike, a quarter of an hour in Chinese. And it's also the same character, ike, is the character for a moment. You know, I thought that was kind of a beautiful thing. You know, just to
00:17:13
Speaker
a moment versus a quarter of an hour, 15 minutes, you know to some higher being, you know something celestial, such a difference would be immaterial. But for us, it really is a huge difference, so much so that when you're sitting there, you know it's really more time than you expect when your mind starts to go wherever it goes and and you try to process whatever whatever you need to process during that time.
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah, like that short amount of time it's been super useful to get centered pretty much like every time you wake up and I think that it's helped me give structure to my day and and It makes sense of of whatever has been going on, you know, like both in the past and and just in the past few days in the short term. And also, even though I don't i don't think you're technically supposed to do this, but to basically set your plans real quick for for the coming day, to either set the intention and figure out the order you're going to do things, figure out a way to relax about what you have to do. And ultimately by the end of that time, you know, let all that go.
00:18:11
Speaker
and just kind of let it unhinge or un unleash the mind ah from its tether. And of course, you don't continue to focus on the breathing. And then by the end, yo what can I say? It it has it has positive effects. know why Why does this happen? It's it's more evidence of the unseen, why people can do it. So it's pretty cool. So I decided to try it out. I recommend it. and you know I'll definitely try to try to keep to it. All right, you heard it. You heard it from the man himself.
00:18:40
Speaker
Uh, test out that meditation practice. I have one as well in the morning. Um, 10 minutes, I should bump it into 15, but it's, it is crazy sometimes how, how time can dilate. Um, you know, 10 minutes can feel like an hour sometimes for me. And sometimes it feels like no time has passed at all.
00:19:04
Speaker
And it's crazy, the vastness, like you were saying, when you say the word vastness, everyone thinks of a spatial vastness. But that temporal vastness really is so crazy, you know, that that dimension of the universe. And I think that all those people went through all that stuff, you know, and it already happened. And then now I'm part of the same flow. It's crazy. And then what it really does, likes I guess, you know,
00:19:32
Speaker
It's totally plausible, and I think, you know, like you were saying, for for us as humans, as sentient beings, it's healthy for us to believe that this flow is moving in a positive direction, or does does have some type of order, and it's not at least pure chaos. Yeah. My heart goes out to everyone who's sparks of awe and wonder that can keep you going.