 Questioning and following the evidence is the pathway to the future. That is how we've gotten as far as we have as a species and it's a good thing and asking deep questions is valuable and the other thing I would say is you know as I said earlier the divisions between groups of people that seem really important are artificial and minute compared to what we share and if we have the perspective of the pale blue dot of zooming out we can realize that we are all in it together and we're so so so astonishingly similar that if anyone came from the outside they would not be able to detect the differences that we seem to think are very important. Sasha Sagan is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Sasha has worked as a television producer, filmmaker, editor, writer, and speaker in the US and abroad. Her essays and interviews on death, history, and ritual through a secular lens have appeared in the the cut, oh the Oprah Magazine, literary hub, mashable, violet book, and beyond. She regularly speaks on ways science can inform our celebrations and how we can mark the passage of time inspired in part by the work of her parents Carl Sagan and Ann Drian. Sasha is the author of Four Small Creatures such as we, rituals for finding meaning in our unlikely world. An exploration, the marvels of nature as revealed by science which require no faith in order to be believed. The book is an exercise in skepticism without cynicism told through memoir and social history. Kierkus' review called it profound, elegantly written, renumerations on exquisite splendors of life. Inverse name Sasha one of their future 50, a group of 50 people who will be the forces of good in the 2020s. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts with her husband and daughter and you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at Sasha Sagan. This is her book and this is her. Welcome to the show Sasha. So good to see you. Thank you so much Mark. I'm so happy to be here. I told you this in the pre and I'm so glad to have you here. I've read your book twice. So it's a fabulous work and I enjoyed the audio version the best because you read it all and honest to goodness. I feel like I know everybody in your family you know your great grandparents or grandparents you're you know the big history of you and your family which is so beautiful. It's such a nice glimpse into into your life and and this big history of Sasha Sagan and the journeys and adventures and the experiences you had everything from a little controversial drug experiments, sexual love making you know and and some absolutely love it. It was so fabulous. Thank you so much. I don't I can I don't need to watch any Netflix or any series. I'm totally fulfilled and it's right with in line with the with what I with what I like to read what I like to hear about and explore. So I don't want to make your head blow up but I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much but it but it transitions nicely into how we're going to begin our our dialogue and discussion today. This big history not all of all of our listeners will know that but if you could kind of give us a kind of a quick synopsis from you know to current to present how how you've gotten here and how how how we've come to to talk about your book and what's really influenced you if you don't mind. Yeah absolutely and thank you thank you for your very kind words um and it's true it's so funny when you write something that is partly very personal and then you meet people who have read it there you have those moments where you think oh my goodness they know a lot more about me than I know about them and that's certainly true of writing a book like this um so my my work is as you said in the introduction is very much informed by the work of my parents um my dad was the astronomer and educator Carl Sagan and he and my mom Andrea and together um wrote many essays and books and they created the television series Cosmos um which aired in the early 80s originally with my dad as the host and now my mom carries on that that legacy um writing and producing the new version with Neil deGrasse Tyson um and my parents really instilled me with this and and and many many other people who who read their work and watched their show with this sense of awe and wonder about the universe as revealed by science um this sense that um the more deeply we understand reality and the more information we're able to discern um the closer we we feel to one another and and that sense of grandeur that we all crave when we feel connected to this vast universe and um they've really they've really showed me so much delight and joy about science and about following the evidence and looking looking for you know deep questions and and finding answers sometimes and sometimes letting that space be open when we don't have the answers yet and so that's that's how I was brought up that's my worldview and then um when I was 14 my dad died and I started to wonder about how do we grieve and do the other go through the other rites of passage the other markers in life changing of the seasons celebrations coming of age marriage all of these turning points um and important moments to process without the infrastructure of religion because I was brought up in a secular household where science rather than faith was the pathway to revelation for lack of a better word and so that's sort of where I started to to think about some of the questions that eventually led to the book um and you know for those of us who are are without faith um we still need to celebrate and we still need um holidays and weddings and funerals and so I think there's a lot to be explored about how we do that without without the infrastructure of belief I totally agree in your book you call it cosmic rituals which I totally agree that whether we call it a discipline whether we call it a ritual and how you involve the word cosmic and how that it is much bigger of a thing for us all to really connect to that it's actually something that's very unifying instead of something that separates us from one another as human beings and then another profound thing in the book is your real poignant way of and maybe you can say it more eloquently than I just how love is so important that we not only love our family units we love each other we love our earth we love our space we love everyone and that through that love that really fixes a lot of problems it also helps us uh on this journey of life a lot but I don't know if I'm saying it how you would say you say it so eloquently in your book is you know only through love yeah so the title of the book for small creatures such as we is the beginning of a quote from contact the only novel that my dad ever published which later became a movie and it's a line that my parents collaborated on everything and it's a line that my mom actually wrote and the rest of the line is for small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love and that really does encapsulate the ethos that my parents raised me within this idea that you know once you get to the other side of the existential crisis once you reckon with this idea we're tiny the universe is big we live for the blink of an eye we don't know if there's anything after and if there is it's not this so whatever this is comes to an end and um you know it's very easy to spiral out of control with those ideas and I get it and I've been there um it is really hard to reckon with that stuff but then once you sort of get through that crisis what what's on the other side what do we have that that we can that's tangible that's that we can really show that we have and it's one another you know if we're just on this little lifeboat of a planet in all this vastness in every direction and we don't know if there's anyone else out there and we don't know what our fate will be but we're here right now and we have one another and from the from the perspective of the universe you know the things that seem to when we're down here on earth and we see someone from another side of the planet speaks a different language has a different culture it's so easy to get so wrapped up in those differences but from the perspective of the solar system the galaxy the universe those differences are so imperceptible so tiny so irrelevant um and I think that that's one of the great gifts that my dad got from from his work in astronomy and that he passed on to me is as is this idea that we are really in it together and the divisions that we create um are artificial in comparison to the reality that we evolved on this planet together and we are the same so I mean your father said so many wonderful things that I absolutely love I'm also a big follower of his works and and try to consume everything that came up I actually um probably in a much different way grew up with cosmos your father and your mother's work um through my father he we'd watch it as a family all the time and so it's it's a absolute beautiful things the thing that you were just referring to uh and I don't know because you're probably more correct on this is uh the is it where he talks about the pale blue dot and his kind of discussion about there and how you know um there's a couple videos and one one he's in front of this tree and he's kind of talking about the pale blue dot and he's talking about wars and and whoever's existed and and um goes through the big cosmic perspective of things is that uh what you were referring to just now yeah I think that that that soliloquy for lack of a better word word that you know if you google Carl Sagan pale blue dot you can hear which is so poetic I mean it really is like a poem and the the crux of it is this idea that everyone you whoever lived everyone you ever heard of lived out their lives on this pale blue dot and it's this image you know we're so used to that frame-filling image of earth where it feels so important and that's beautiful and it's good we have that but there is another image that is from much further away where the earth is a tiny dot suspended in a sunbeam and um that image which my dad was instrumental and yes having having that photograph come to fruition you know 40 years ago um or more um that I think that idea that we are on this little little little tiny pinpoint in in all this space um in all this darkness um I think that that that really inspired this beautiful um passage that he wrote and that passage I think crystallizes something that's in so much of his work so much of my parents work together um that you know the the big the bigger our perspective the further we zoom out the more clarity we have about um how small we are but also how lucky we are to be in it together and you know one of the things I write about a lot that I'm really interested in is you know if you believe everything happens for a reason or everything's destined then it's it was this moment right here where we're talking of course it was going to happen there was no question but if you think that we are the beneficiaries of a lot of random chance and that a lot of things could have gone differently and that um you know the the the idea that even our solar system formed that life started on earth that all the steps that were required for each of us to be born could have gone potentially a different way um then I think every moment is so much more special and so much more worthy of celebration and you know maybe maybe the reality there's some some things where you know a series of events were set in motion and and certain things were inevitable and certain things weren't we don't know but um I think there's something about the randomness that's really beautiful so I I follow your mother still I follow Neil Tyson the grassian I don't know if your father said it as well but Neil Tyson the grassy um I said it several times that for us to just be born is like a a trillionth of a chance to just even come to this earth and have that opportunity um to live out this life and and I I really believe that we're fortunate and if we can use those those moments and also embrace that love to get us through these existential moments or these moments where we're grasped with these enormous things that we just can't comprehend or don't understand the cosmic perspective on it I don't know if you know I'm a environmentalist a climate activist and and very active around food and our world and environment and that is it's an existential threat we're kind of so it's so big that we're like I just I don't know how we're gonna do it I don't know how you know once you understand it clicks and you say wow we're really in a in a weird situation I I believe your tool you know or your you know your mantra or how how you embrace it only through love you know only through love loving our planet loving one another through breaking down nations and borders that's a fabulous tool to address and solve some of these problems because it makes you an integral part not only of humanity homo sapiens uh as a symbiotic earth but also it makes you part of our environment in our world and as our only home which are many things that your your father said as well yeah that leads me nicely into the question that I that I really want to ask is one of the first that I kind of ask standardly and it is do you feel like you're a global citizen and what if in the future there were no nations walls borders or division dividing or holding humanity back from one another or also from interacting with all different parts of our planet yeah I certainly see myself as a earthling first and I think that you know one of the things that's so crucial in this perspective especially what we're just talking about in terms of you know random chance if that's the case then any of us like myself who was born into very lucky set of circumstances you know never talking about food like never knowing hunger never having and you know never wanting for anything for those of us who have that you know if if it's all just random chance then we're just very lucky and it's up to us to create a safety net if there's not a grand plan and you know if we don't believe that the bad guys are going to get their comeuppance and the good guys are going to get their reward then for secular people I think there is a call to social justice and to you know making the world more fair especially what you're talking about with food you know and all the environmental issues that of course will affect people who are impoverished before anyone else you know those things are all related all the environmental issues all the social justice issues they're all wrapped up together and if we don't think that you know being if you're lucky enough to be born in a place where there's plenty of food and plenty of jobs and somebody else isn't and it's just random then it's up to us to create the the grand safety net that doesn't exist if our theology or philosophy doesn't you know if we don't believe that there is one and I think that that's something that's often missing from the conversation but yeah I think that our idea of identity you know and that's one of the things that I think is is something that um when you're secular you know you still have this urge to sort of at least connect to your ancestors and have you know there may be certain traditions that you love even if they don't fit philosophically with you know your beliefs with the people who who maybe brought those traditions down the generations to you I think the way that we see ourselves and especially right now so entrenched in our identities in terms of nationalism I mean obviously it's a huge problem in the United States um I think that there's there's so much there that once we take that step back you know all of these borders all of these ideas of being a part of one group or another that's all temporary those change the things that feel really traditional to us are very new on the scale of human history and they will change borders will change language will change you know all these things that seem like the you know seem very old and very important will change but what won't change you know is that this is our one planet and you know maybe we'll go somewhere else eventually but right now this is where we are this is where we came from and this is the system you know that we have evolved to be part of and I think that that the more that we see ourselves as part of a whole rather than this little faction and this little group um the better off will be I believe you were as you said truly truly blessed with the right circumstances but it's a very diverse set of family circumstances so to say so if I get it right uh from from the book uh Jewish uh Orthodox is it Greek Orthodox no Orthodox Jews Orthodox Jews and then and then also Christian my husband my husband's family's Christian Christian but then that I thought well he's not I mean we're both secular but our ancestry yeah ancestry and then there was there then there was something with Russian and Greek somewhere in there as well um well it's well it the the Greek part is maybe what you're getting from is that we are we chose our daughters we there's a lot of ancient Greek mythology that I draw from in the book and it was something that fascinated me immensely throughout my childhood um and we chose our daughter's name Helena is from Helios from the Greek Sun God but that that's kind of just that's really great yeah um but yeah I mean and and the other the other element that I talk about in the book is um in my house growing up um the third adult besides my two parents was Maruha Farhe who was my nanny who lived with us and was a very close part of um our lives and was one of the dearest people to me of my whole life and she was a very devout Roman Catholic she had been a cloistered nun in the Andes Mountains um and she left her convent not because of a crisis of faith she was a true true believer um I talk a little bit more about her her life story but one of the things that was so powerful to me was she was totally I know I knew that what she believed and what my parents believed was different and that was not a problem and I think and my parents there was no censorship and it's been really interesting actually because um in uh a lot of the conversations that I've had since the book has come out and some of the interviews I've done with religious um outlets media outlets um uh the there's some element of surprise that my parents didn't shield me from from religion and it's quite the opposite they would have felt that my education was not complete if I didn't know these grand pillars of civilization that were so central to how we got to this moment as a species and part of that was you know Maroha would take me to church sometimes and she was very open about her beliefs and I write in the book one of the most um meaningful memorable moments of my childhood was I was sort of um a little bit morbid and fascinated with death as a child as I as I remain and um I went to my parents and I said you know Maroha says when you die you go to heaven and you're with God and you guys say that it's like you're asleep forever without dreaming um you know who's right and they said in unison so joyfully nobody knows and that idea that there are some answers that we don't have and instead of saying well we think we're it's probably we're probably right you know they they they let that space be open for these questions that you know in time every one of us will get the answer but until then it's an open question and I think that that getting used to my parents would call it call it tolerating ambiguity and I think that that is something that's so important in science and so important in life and that I think that that was something that was really powerful um for me as a child and and also just this idea that there are infinite number of belief systems throughout history um sorry there's a train going by I don't know if you heard the horn um but um you know that there's an infinite number of ways to look at things and eat and different philosophies and different religions and and even within one sect or another there's so many variations that each one of us has to reckon with these deep questions ourselves I think that that's um that's something that it's very easy to say oh this group is all this way and this group is all this way but there's an infinite number of shades of gray and I think that you know we each have to sort of figure out what we want to take from the traditions that we were brought up with and what we want to let fall away you um and I'm kind of leading you in a direction here with the questioning so you discuss uh many different religions not only those ones that you are involved in closely but you also mentioned the Mormons and some ancient religion religions as well um which I really like that diversity the view that you're really taking that the big the look at everything and kind of exploring that understanding that embracing that as well um you we said at the beginning that you guys live in in Boston Massachusetts I used to live in Beverly Massachusetts oh yeah we have friends who live there yeah not too far away and um um my father's American my mother was German my grandparents were German and relatives Spanish and Italian and and Austrian and and so kind of this global citizen from birth and and I see that uh you and John have a wonderful home for Helena and that uh this this nice insight in your book into your family and how you live and the big history and what kind of shaped you and the journey you took of of discovery you didn't take everything for face value you are also uh very much let's explore let's find out what I believe and um get this cosmic perspective this uh cosmic understanding of rituals um I I believe but I would like to find out that all that has prepared you very well to this last little I don't know last little is probably not right to the point that we're at now we've just experienced you know this huge pandemic and black lives matters and all sorts of other tumultuous things in our world that are going on and still not over uh yeah and still going on um now we're seeing some some big things bubbling up on on food security and and uh Lebanon and and yeah geez just just you know it's a it's a crazy time that we're living in has any of this past experience given you resilience hope um things to weather the pandemic and what are they how have they been what tools have you used what things really helped you to get through this time and how has it been how how how have you and the family weathered the pandemic yeah I mean thanks thank you for asking we're fine you know it's it's definitely um like everyone it's been difficult I'm I'm an extrovert so it's not it's been a little bit difficult in terms of that like I like being around people so but I we have a wonderful family and we're very lucky and everyone health wise everyone's been fine and and you know we're in the grand scheme of things we're extremely extremely lucky so um but in terms of this moment I mean the two things that come to mind that in turn that I carry with me from the way I was brought up and the way I see the world um one is that we are at this moment where you know science is going to be the way out of this with this health crisis around the world you know no matter what no matter what that is the pathway out and we can't sometimes it's a really long process sometimes it's really difficult sometimes there are a lot of false starts but there is one road out of a plague and it is science and understanding what works and what doesn't and in this in the United States there is a deep fear I think of science and a deep skepticism about information from the scientific community and we have a leader who has no grasp of how it works and believes seems to believe that wishing something makes it so and you know says things like it's just gonna go away and that is so dangerous and you know if we had a system in this country where children were brought up with a really strong scientific uh not just not just you know an hour a day as part of school but science as a worldview as a pathway to scrutinize what can what can stand up to questioning and what cannot and and a way of understanding reality not just like you know not just oh well if you're gonna go become a biologist or if you're gonna be a doctor or you're gonna be an astronomer but as a philosophical perspective that allows you to discern fact from fiction I think that we would be in a lot better shape than we are right now and so you know this this battle and this um moment that that right now is you know people just refusing you know there's so much misinformation there's so many people who um you know in a way it's because as a skeptical person and as a person who loves questioning I can't say that I want to discourage people from being skeptical or questioning but I what I want is for people to have the tools to look at the evidence and look at um who's presenting the evidence and what motives they might have or might not have and you know the thing about science is if you come to it you know when people make claims um sometimes it's hard to know what's real or what's not real but when someone has devoted their life to let's say the I don't know for an example uh how viruses spread you know and that is their area of interest and they don't have a um chorus in the race it's you know it's not that they can't be questioned everyone should be questioned but if they should be questioned by the people who also have a background in this information and and you know that debate and that testing each other and questioning authority is so powerful but only if you're willing to then look at the answers and see what the information actually is um so that's a huge part of what's going on here and the the the other half of of that questioning authority and questioning the status quo that's so powerful I think is so central also to everything that's happening in terms of Black Lives Matter and this reckoning with the extremely I mean I'm excuse my language but fucked up history of this country and we you know I think again talking about the things that seem traditional that we're so afraid to let go of this country is brand new you know in this scope of things there is nothing that is so old that we have to hang on to it change is inevitable and it's constant the only question is what kind of change do we want and when I see this you know obviously the movement for civil rights and social justice is centuries long in this country and some progress has been made but not enough and I think that this the the idea that you know as a value science as a value has this idea of questioning why are things the way they are what why is the status quo the way it is why do we believe what we believe um and you know my parents would always say you're a better scientist if you prove that those who came before you were wrong you know that's that's an achievement and I think that there's something really valuable about bringing that mindset to also you know history I'm looking at why are things the way they are in this country and once you start to dive into the history of it and you can understand that this is a nation and listen I've lived here the majority of my life I lived abroad for two years but mostly I've lived here there are amazing things about this country um I often feel lucky to live here but um we're not perfect and the pre pretense that we're perfect and that this country is the best country in the world and the only place where people you know can have these you know great dreams of of grandeur and all these you know is so it's so dangerous to be trapped in this prison where we cannot admit that we are wrong and we are damaged and we have these deep deep deep centuries old flaws that we have to reckon with and so my hope is that we're at a moment where even if the people you know my age and older can't face this that the young people um people who are growing up at this moment and who are growing up understanding that the system is flawed um will will make make a real change and that that's something that you know we can see in the coming decades but I think you're almost taking me down a whole nother rabbit hole that's not that's not quite where I was leaving you or where I wanted to go but I thank you for for that view um I have to agree with you um it's not just the U.S. there's a lot of world leaders you know whether it's the Trump apocalypse the Putin's the Shays the Erdogans the Bolsonaro's uh on and on that we feel this unrest this uh um civilization framework that is failing humanity yeah in many respects it's not working for us all so I'm totally in alignment um with you there and that that something new needs to emerge while we spin the plate and keep the the the bad ones still functioning as long as we can transition to something new um I definitely don't believe we should go back to normal it needs to be a great reset something new that we need to use the science and the mass and and really catapult us into the 21st century that we've been talking about for so long yeah the the the visions and dreams the eloquent way your your father and mother put things there even in your book the way you do it um for me make it easy to imagine and envision a resilient desirable future what what a beautiful future could look like with family and nature and environment and how you can have these cosmic rituals of of a bright future and I really feel that that is something that is lacking today we see a lot of media besides from your mother besides from cosmos and and Neil Tyson and a few other spots that is very dystopian it's very sci-fi in a negative way or very dystopian fighting over water and resources and you know um water world terminator whatever mad max black mirror um it's all pretty dystopian and so because we don't have these beautiful images or media or or or content that is constantly streaming in front of us whether it's netflix or amazon prime or tv or whatever the movies are um it's failing us to have a nice beautiful vision of how to engineer how to create how to architect for that future because we don't even the current visions even if it is movie magic it's all dystopian so how you know i mean we can we can create dystopian but how do we know how to create that future and when i was younger star trek obviously things your father things that nick uh does yeah um you know kind of in gaming and books and things uh who's your brother for the listener yes yes my brother nick amazing writer but but uh to create these futures that that we can start to engineer create and and strive towards reaching you know yeah instead it's all satire and so the the real question in where i was trying to lead you uh is um that of your past and what you've experienced and even during this pandemic yeah you've applied some of those things you've been in a better position as a family as a unit yeah help others to maybe have those discussions with others or to give them tools and say hey you know what i'm doing pretty good let me help you if you need food if you need resources let me help you if you need advice and um that was really what i'm trying to pull out of you because you are the you know tv film writer producer you know how to have these visions and you've thought of these big questions and um and so if there's some wisdoms or things that whether it's from your book or just in the time that really need to come out that's what i want to hear or want our listeners to know it's so true and i think so often you know art comes from our fears or you know it comes i mean right it comes from what you know the drama of a television series or something like that comes out of the the feeling of fear of what's going to happen and it's maybe it's a little bit harder to have um an ongoing series of a utopia opposed to a dystopia but i think that one of the things i've seen that's been so fascinating um is so many people i know have you know and i i live in boston now and and i lived in in new york for most of my adult life and i lived in london and i really think of myself as a city person but during this pandemic myself and so many other people i know who live in large cities have chat suddenly felt this overwhelming desire to be in nature in a way that i never heard um them talk and i've never i mean i i've felt that way from time to time and i like i love like you know the ocean i feel very connected to but this sense of like i want to be in a forest as much as possible and so one of the rituals that my husband and daughter and i started um is every weekend we started going on a hike in and there's a national park not far from here that you know the facilities were closed but the trail stayed open it was very easy to stay you know six or 30 feet away from anyone else and we started doing that every weekend and um it was absolutely magical and our daughter started saying you know when everything goes back to normal can we still go to the forest and we're like yes and you know normally we would have gone to museums and the aquarium and that sort of thing every weekend but because everything was closed um we started this other tradition and i think it really meant a lot means a lot to all three of us and it really tapped into something that that is there and i think that you know one of the things i write about and i think one of the things that um i'm really fascinated with is the way all of our traditions and holidays and the markers that we have throughout our lives no matter what the specifics of the culture or tradition or religion require there is a biological or astronomical event that is underneath whether it's the solstices and the equinoxes or you know birth coming of age which is you know it's very easy when you're at a bat mitzvah or quinceanera or you know a suit a sweet 16 to not think of it as a biological event but it's a child is going through puberty and becoming an adult that's what we're celebrating that's what is so amazing and you know and and a funeral is also about a biological event and i think that you know it's not as we're not as removed as we seem to be from our connections to the natural world we just sometimes have to peel back the curtain a little bit and see what's really there and i think that in this moment where everything is on hold and all the normal rhythms of life are just you know impossible to experience um there's so much that we're realizing is important to us and i think that's so much of it has to do with our connections to the natural world and you know all of a sudden i think you know people are appreciating like a sunset so much more than they used to and you know and i think that my hope is that this global step back from the everyday um will give us a chance to to really examine what we value and um what's important to us and i think that a lot of people who maybe otherwise might not have felt this way are are really having a deep connection with the natural world boy you touched on so many things there that i could really we could really go down some rabbit holes i want to kind of kind of maybe tickle the surface of a couple of them um whether you need to make a comment about them or not so i i truly believe that the pandemic and what we're experiencing is closely tied to the biome of our earth which is tied to our biome our our physiological and biome of our gut and our health as human beings are very closely interlinked um and that that biome is is not only kind of doing a seasonal reset but also this what you also tickled or teased about this rite of passage the sweet 16 and you also discuss this in in your book um this might be a way that the earth saying okay it's time for humanity for homo sapiens to have a new form of rite of passage we need to transition to another form of living could connect our personal biomes with the earth biome or realize that they are connected already and that if our earth our planet's suffering that that's really going to affect us and how human health is and also how how long our lifespan could be and and remain the way we are so right now we're in this social distancing and and wearing masks uh scenario i i can't think of too many scenarios in our world where we've had uh situations or pandemics whether it's Ebola sars mirrors or whatever it may be that we haven't went when the next one has occurred that we've actually taken a step back and say oh this time we don't need masks so currently the model that we're operating on is face masks distancing hand washing personal protection equipment things like that the just you know hopefully common sense and some of us um yeah hopefully for for some of us um but the next step would be so a gas mask the next step would be an oxygen mass the next step would be a spacesuit the next step would maybe we're living in bubbles maybe we don't go out all together now we're investing in air purifiers and certain things what actions what things are we taking what right of passage or in this great reset like the world economic form is talking about instead of going back to normal or going back to old models what are we doing to make sure that the the next time or or the future is much brighter so that we're not taking more measures now you've got to have Helena wear a gas mask and the whole family and she can't kiss grandma and grandpa and you know your grandma and and go about life as uh as a beautiful future and so there might be something in that but there there might not and i believe that you you've had some of these resilience and the wisdoms and you you you nicely mentioned them but that brings me you can make a comment or not but that brings me to my to the next question and it's the biggest uh probably the most difficult question i ask it's the burning question wtf and it's not the swear word it's what's the future so yeah having caveatted that with you know the trajectory the plan the path we're going on do you have one for you your family or or or your view you don't have to do it for the whole world it's just what's the future yeah it's a really good question um and you know we human beings like wrestle with that question every day in small and large ways and i think you know the only clues that we have are the past and i see both i see you know millennial long periods of deep um backwardsness if that's a word um um you know that happens we go down these roads that that really you know historically have have led nowhere and have have not been moments of advancement but have been moments of of of going backwards or standing still and you know i think about like the bubonic plague and those moments and in the middle ages where there we were stuck for a long time you know in parts or in europe at least and i then i also think about these moments of great flourishing and um scientific artistic advancement where we really did solve some of the problems of the past and and didn't go back and i just think you know i go back to what my parents taught me about tolerating ambiguity i a lowly human on this dot um cannot predict the future all i feel i can do is within my family within my community you know thanks to the magic of social media and other technological and scientific advancements you know the small way that i can connect with people around the world like we're doing right now um it's all i can do is put forth the positive constructive pro scientific um view that i have and try to help in the small ways that i can as one individual but you know it's like the thing about like the best way to predict the future is to make it and i think that that's that's up to us and you know the one of the things that's been so astonishing in this moment and one of the things that i've been totally obsessed by is all the anecdotal evidence of like now that you know the daily pollution has gone down so much in their fewer flights and fewer cars on the road all these places where you know animals are coming out of the woodwork and and something that was you know totally polluted has managed to clean itself out and you know all these like stories from around the world where someone's you know just you know oh there's just wild boars walking down the street in Madrid or whatever it is gives me so much hope that we're not as far away especially with the climate change and environmental issues that it's not too late we can make changes and that the earth and the ecosystems and are so powerful that they have the ability given even just a tiny chance to rebuild and that we can reset in a real way but we just have to collectively make that decision and you know i think information education teaching children about these issues from a young age and teaching them how to discern what's real and what's not through the scientific method is the central element of that and i think that you know i'm a hopeful person and so my um my inclination is to veer towards a positive more utopian less dystopian future but um only time will tell i um i agree with you on some of those points that's um wonderful because through this pause and reset numerous fabulous things have happened that's been it's been great um it's not enough even if we now we're forced on a longer pause um the the earth would the earth would do it but what you said is if we unite if we make that decision if we help and leave our planet better than we found it and proactively clean up and take part in this symbiotic earth just imagine how exponentially that would grow how quickly we would see the results if we actually tried to help it instead of just or forced in in this lockdown mode us the other the other interesting thing that ties to this global citizenry and i don't know if you thought about it the only thing that wasn't locked down during this time was food during this great pandemic and lockdown period that was the only thing that was still moving traveling around being distributed and there was numerous problems for that obviously we know why but food is the global citizen and um we need a global food reform because if you look at maslow's hierarchy of needs the bottom two layers are breathing food water resource of body resources security health and those are all so important but they're also food that that's the basic need our our energy source and so we need as food also to make sure that human beings can move around our planet clean it up make it better and that we don't progress this these pandemics these problems and a lot of them have to do with whether we would have had the lockdown um early enough five to ten days the the virus would have spread via the air regardless to other places without air travel without ship travel because of the air streams and the flows of our planet um i want to move into a different direction now and and that is one that you also touch a lot upon in your your book you do it in a different way you talk about rituals you talk about religions you talk about the infrastructures that religions provide and kind of how they help i also um agree to those but i am more on this joseph cambell camp i am big on mythology and you said you're also big on mythology i believe that that religion is a mythology it's a super guide for humanity and help but we can also see the ruins of of mythology all around the world where they haven't evolved where they haven't progressed with our world and collapse whether um it's the 12 plus world civilizations that don't exist anymore today earlier mesopotamia early antiquity uh the Greeks and Romans you know more than 12 of them and um all but two of them really collapse because of an ecological and environmental collapse and so i um that also ties to this civilization framework that we tickled the surface on but in mythology um it is a type of plan it's a type of guideline and infrastructure as you've mentioned infrastructure for religion to guide us to where the future is going to be to give us hold to know how to organize ourselves so kind of how to act as human beings do you believe that there's a plan for the future even to 2030 to 2050 some new form of world mythology or since you since you've delved into the past mythologies and religions um do you see any great plan for our world emerging where we're going and how we can get there well i think that mythology you know i don't really delineate between what we might call mythology and what we might call religion i you know i think there are beautiful stirring profound metaphors um and stories that reveal something about ourselves that we tell ourselves and i think that's great and important but i think it's when we take them literally that we get ourselves into trouble rather than this idea that this is you know um the historian of religion karen armstrong talks about everyone um this this idea that a myth is happening all the time and never it's not literally just not a historical event but it's this this um idea that we can relate to just like other forms of fiction that are profound and meaningful and revealing but we don't take literally so i think that you know all of these stories are really important to us and i think everyone is you know navigating their traditions and beliefs and the things they want to carry on from their ancestors and you know religions and belief systems are built atop previous religions and belief systems you know there's almost nothing comes from scratch you know we are we are just you know taking the threads of historical um moments um and historical ideas and adapting them sometimes for what we need in the present and you know no matter how how traditional and devout you are what you're doing is still totally different than what people were doing a thousand years ago and um and that's okay that's fine you know and i think that in terms of where we'll go forward it's really hard to predict these things it's really hard to know what people will believe in the future i think we have this tendency especially secular people to think oh well now people are becoming less and less religious and that's going to go away i think it's unlikely that that sort of thing goes away i think it ebbs and flows with people's needs it changes of course but i think that um it's more likely to be um a cyclical thing than a permanent change um but my hope is that there is a future where the thrill and the connectedness and that like hair standing up on the back of your neck feeling that people we all crave whether we're secular or religious um that for those of us who do not have faith that is available through our understanding of the natural world as it is and you know i think about like when those first images of the black hole came or just even standing and looking up on a clear night at the night sky and seeing the stars and like or seeing a shooting star or seeing an eclipse or just being in a forest or being in the ocean and like those feelings of i mean it's really hard to not for me at least it's really hard to not use the language of belief when i think about those things it feels sacred it feels spiritual and i think that that i just hope that that is an avenue available to people who are skeptical or you know uh on the fence or who are just secular um and you know i don't think it's my job to dissuade anyone from their belief but if you if you still need that feeling and crave that feeling of being part of this planet and universe um i just hope that people realize how how possible it is to feel fulfilled with that um from a scientific worldview and you know something that celebrates things as as they are when you know supported by evidence i agree so i i want to refer to some quotes and comments and that that your your father mentioned that uh helped me over the years that i use in my my climate presentations and and when i when i speak in my own mythology i'm kind of like this climate environmental evangelist almost like a religion in in some respects but i'm not i try not to be too extreme with it um and it's another form of saving people it is another form of saving people i i get a lot i just barely kept my my beard and hair i used to get a lot of comments about looking at jesus or moses and all sorts of things so it's a you know the the climate savior um many things so your father said uh the sun and stars we are their children he also said something similar to that that we are a way for the cosmos to know itself yeah and the ones the the the quotes that i really use a lot went and i use them right in the beginning because i talk a lot about this overview effect cosmic perspective the pale blue dot the earth rise image and things like that which your father is very instrumental in that whole opening up so many doors of our world of the future of space travel and and things that we have there the one that i use the most is um the nitrogen in our dna the calcium on our teeth the iron in our blood carbon in our apple pies are all made in the interiors of collapsing stars we are all made of star stuff and you also believe mention this as well and uh are very familiar with it you probably have deeper insight than i am i truly believe that and the reason i do is because the birth of our planet if you look at the the way um we we weren't born somewhere else we're born of this earth we're born of this star stuff that is made up of our earth and and your father said it so eloquently if we want to make an apple pie from a scratch we need to first create the universe yeah and uh that is uh in many respects my my religion my view yeah uh that i am deeply ingrained and connected to this earth as um what professor chin uh said that we need to evolve from homo sapiens to a homo symbiote symbiose kind of this integral part of a symbiotic earth and that we need to move in that that direction and um that that also that symbiotic earth i don't know if you if you're aware that has also ties to your father and and his first wife lin margillus and and and yeah also many many different things and that and uh that are all so wonderful and you're surrounded by you know brothers and and your mother and your father and all these wonderful wisdoms and connections that i really believe that as as we come to that realization and as we come to this transition which the the wisdom of what he said that it changes our mythology our cosmic ritual of how we live out our days so that we can be sustainable and be around for multiple generations um it's i guess it's only one generation since you since your father's been gone maybe two because you've got Helena now but um but um the impact that he had and the ones that went before him and even Neil Tyson and your mother and those are going to be impacting us sustainably for many generations to come and these wisdoms and this knowledge give us a guide give us give us some hold and and some wisdom to help us navigate this existential crisis the the embrace death and and and that but also embrace how we interact with our interplanetary our galaxy with our world and so on um that that really drives drives me or leads me to the second most um and last important question that i want to ask you and it's what does a world that works for everyone look like for you oh that's such a good question well i think that you know a world where we have the i mean document food especially we have the resources to feed everyone you know we have the ability to do that and we just a world that works for everyone is a world where we value equally distributing the basic excuse me the basic needs of life food medical care you know education i think it's a world where teachers are paid a ton of money you know where that's something that we agree is like one of the best things you can do and it's a world where no matter what the circumstances of your birth are you have the tools to get through you know get to adulthood safely and well educated in you know that to me is is is the is the crux of it is that every child is born in a world where no where they live is not going to be the or what they look like is not going to be the determining factor of how their life goes and where someone doesn't have to a child doesn't have to work 10 times is hard to get to where another child starts i think that that's that that's a world that works for everyone and it's not that we don't have differences it's not that we're all the same it's not that we all believe the same thing or have the same traditions or celebrate the same things but it's that we all have the same chance and i think that that is that is the world that that i would like to see evolve that would that that would be the greatest what i hear out of that is not not necessarily a universal basic income but a universal global operating system that you can still have your culture your nations your cities your your whatever divisions but the standard operating system for humanity the basic needs that people need and education is is really vital that that bar is raised much higher for all of us and and it will not only get us further into the future because we'll have more wisdom to not make the same mistakes but it will also real really help us that's how that's what i hear out of that i don't want to twist your words but no it's true and and just the idea that how many children who might have grown up to solve some of our deepest hardest questions just never got the chance because they were girls or they lived in a place where they didn't have access to secondary education or they weren't didn't have access to just some something that somewhere else is just um considered basic and i just think of how how much further along we might be if every every child in the world had the chance to you know if go to the best university if they can if if they're cut out for that or or just at the very least um learn and eat and be physically safe um in a place where where their safety um and is not in question yeah and that really something that needs to occur at a very young age younger years good health so there's no stunting no malnutrition so that that they have the lighting and energy and the resources to to learn and actually instead of hauling water or whatever they may be doing that they have the ability to learn and and and receive an education at a at a standard level i i don't know if this is correct but i see you as such um i i say a lot that you know people and the un and the world economic form for many years when you'd say well how do we solve this you know this crisis the climate crisis how do we fix our global warming um we're very hard pressed to give you but you know the top five things that you could do um since paul hawkins book came out draw down and uh there's been much more awareness but you'd be surprised how many people still don't know i try to let everybody know that the top four things are um that are really vital to to fixing some of the problems we have that ties in intrinsically to to education what you discussed and this basic operating system or the basic needs of of humanity number one and the first and foremost is to globally reform food so that we have healthy and nutritious food and that everybody does not need to worry about food and where it comes from and that it's that it's healthy and nutritious and not that entire global food system is reformed that we're not wasting food and things like that the second and third are in my opinion almost more powerful because they really tie into the first the second is to empower women and the third is to empower girls most people don't know that the majority of women and girls on our planet are the harvesters the food producers the farmers the those who are serving making foods and they're also the ones who are starving underpaid who because as a girl as a small child they don't get to go to school because after work on the farm to just get the basic needs uh that they need or be out of street vendor or whatever aspect of the global food system that they work in and the fourth is to rethink refrigeration so in the past a lot of people would say it's all it's we need to get on renewables we need to get rid of oil, coal and gas fossil fuel industry we need to get on some kind of other form of energy and you know the telco and automotive industry or big players they're on the list don't get me wrong but they are much lower on the list those top ones and the ones that involve you and I hope you're doing this not only with your book but with the things that you do when you speak around the world that you're really teaching all women and girls how to be empowered how of a big impact it has well over 75 percent to better our planet for the future when you're paid a fair wage when you're allowed to go to school when you have enough food to eat it's in my mind it's mind boggling that the majority of farmers and food producers are already starving themselves yeah which is just a mind-blowing thing but so heartbreaking I don't know I somehow feel that you're it's not a religious feeling but it's a feeling that you empower women in your own way and that I've heard some of your other talks and your movements and the way you speak about your daughter and things I think you're an inspiration to many others and that's through probably through years of wisdom and learning from from your family and many other things but I really enjoyed our time talking and I only have two little last last questions and you're welcome to ask me anything you want as well if you have some questions about this this new person who knows a lot more about you than you know about him and that is if you were to give or have the ability to go up you know you've written your book but if you were to have the ability to go up to every individual on our planet and just give them one elevator pitch quick message that is your sustainable takeaway that's something that would empower them or change their life or something you've learned or a wisdom that you would like to depart because that wisdom would better our world or make you feel better or whatever it is what would that be oh that's such a good question oh there's there's more than a few things you can take as much time as you want no if I mean I like the challenge of the elevator pitch I think um uh the two things I would say if it's two things one would be uh questioning and following the evidence is the pathway to the future that is how we've gotten as far as we have as as a species and it's a good thing and asking deep questions is is is valuable and um the other thing I would say is you know as as as I said earlier the divisions between groups of people that seem really important are artificial and minute compared to what we share and if we have the perspective of of the pale blue dot of of zooming out we can realize that we are all in it together and we're so so so astonishingly similar that if anyone came from the outside they would not be able to detect the differences that we seem to think are very important if there was aliens that came here they're like why are you guys fighting against each other why are you all divided you guys are all the same I mean yeah I yeah I agree um your book uh though was a deep dive for me and to your family and to your thoughts and mythology and rituals and religion and many other wonderful wisdoms I almost felt like you probably have enough content for seven other books to come out that that there are some things that probably have emerged and and you could actually branch off into a lot of other areas I hope that is the case and that we see many other works from you or maybe we could collaborate on on on some good media content for our world to show them a future that that is desirable to live in that we can create and build from um is there anything like that that has emerged that that you're saying yeah I could it was hard this I had to leave out this I could have done you know yeah I mean I have some some things in the works that I'm excited about and some things I want to do um I I one thing I would really like to do is write a children's book that has some other themes that are in my book and just this idea that you know what we're celebrating so often is so scientific and that you know if we if we explained um some of our holidays and rituals to children from this perspective of this is part of nature this is part of you know the the world and the universe and our bodies um and that that alone just being here alive on this planet is is worthy of celebration Sasha thank you so much for your time and is there anything you want to ask me or anything that we didn't discuss that you want to get out before I say my goodbyes no I I loved this conversation it was wonderful I guess I'll ask you this so in terms of food sustainability what is the one thing that um people who you know in their everyday lives what decisions can they make when they go to the grocery store um that would help thank you for that question that that's wonderful so uh really a food system is very complex it's multifaceted so there's not just one aspect I mean if you that that's a big problem that we have in our world we take this linear and siloed approach to solving our grand challenges so we say okay this is a big one you'll you'll probably get it right away when I mentioned that if we all went vegan that would really solve the problem and be a big big draw down and be a big thing it's one tool and the toolbox that would help but it's it's not the biggest tool in the toolbox uh it's really a multifaceted approach that um we need to take to draw down and fix fix that problem the the great thing is is it's not only food is something that can also be considered a ritual a tradition yeah you know Thanksgiving and Christmas and on and on um that can be very very profound and have an impact but it's something that we do three times a day the reason we do it is because we need energy to regulate our body temperature at a certain degree and we need to eat food in order to do that if we don't then we're not going to have any energy to do anything and so because we all have to do it every single day it's something that every one of us can have an impact on and it's really specific to where you live and where you're at how that works I really like this zero waste movement that the the products that you buy don't buy them in any packaging yeah leave the packaging there for someone else to deal with or eventually the producers to realize yeah they're going to do a different system that doesn't come back to harm our planet because we're on this planet of finite resources that's a big movement I like and the other the other big movement I really like is this um no food waste movement around and it's more so not so in the consumer side but that that plays a little part it's in the production part what worldwide we're wasting more than 40 percent of all the food we we produce and just recently with the brexit we're actually we're actually wasting a lot more because of lockdown we're seeing this all over the world but it was hardest felt in during the brexit in the united kingdom and it still is they voted for the brexit to not have immigrant workers come in to harvest the food right in hopes that all those people would then take the jobs of the immigrant workers well those jobs were never taken and so now 200 plus 100,000 or more clara I've heard numbers up to 600,000 and migrant workers who go there every year to harvest the food aren't there so that food is now had been till tilled back into the ground and wasted so not only the water the resources all around that and so it's an exponential waste the the other thing is this figure of food waste that's globally is 40 percent that we waste of everything we produce that's that's uh the that figure is hard to understand because it's really not 40 percent it's a it's a waste of all the finite resources that went into that 40 percent the water the sun the labor marketing transport logistics the emissions that were created with that and then then when we throw it away it turns into an exponential waste that turns into methane because the top three ways that we get rid of food waste is we we bury it we burn it or we throw it in our oceans in the top way when we bury it is actually the worst way because it aggregates it turns into methane is 80 times more effective at producing heat and it has it's a it's a more potent greenhouse gas in the short term effect more so than carbon dioxide i'd be in the co2 and so now it's not just 40 percent it's an exponential waste that on a finite planet is just unsustainable and when you take that cosmic perspective that view of earth from outer space there is no throw away nothing that we throw away can leave this planet even if we burn it it turns into greenhouse gas right and it comes back to bite us or to hurt us and so as an individual thinking about dehydrating preserving doing sprouting vertical garden in your house doing composting have a victory garden those are just a few of um 10 dozen other tips that i could give you there's a lot of things to do but it's more important to to take this step back and take this big picture of what you're putting in your mouth where it comes from how it's produced was the person who produced a paid a fair wage or was it some girl somewhere who's not going to get to go to school because she's producing your mangoes or your cashews things like that so those are important things sorry to go off on a 10 no that's really interesting that's something that i'm very passionate about could talk days on yeah and it's multifaceted it's not something you do in an elevator pitch or just the the quick silver bullet right that we need to understand the complexity around it and that's how we'll truly solve the problem but i thank you so much for your time Sasha and it was a sheer blessing to have you on the show and and i hope we can continue maybe next year and see where you're at and get an update on what's going on absolutely thank you so much mark this is really a pleasure really enjoyed it have a wonderful day thank you thank you