Episode #1
The Question I've Been Trying to Answer for 20 Years
When I was 19, I went to Kenya because I wanted to make myself useful in the world. Instead, I found myself caught in the middle of the 2007–08 post-election violence and came home with a feeling of helplessness and a question that has stayed with me for almost 20 years: why do some people keep believing their actions matter while others eventually stop trying? Years later, I went back to the journal I kept during that time and started looking at the experience differently. In this episode, I explore Martin Seligman’s famous dog experiment and the psychology of learned helplessness, and how our sense of agency is shaped by repeated experience. I also look at where I see the same pattern today, from Irish farmers dealing with wool that has almost no economic value to a generation growing up with every global crisis in their pockets. And I ask what it might take to unlearn helplessness and start finding the levers that still work. Pre-order my new book HEAT-SHELTER-WATER-FOOD https://www.harrisongardner.net/heat-shelter-water-food Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/HarrisonGardner CONNECT WITH ME Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_harrisongardner Website: https://www.harrisongardner.net/ Chapters 00:00 Intro: Kenya and Helplessness 01:03 Welcome Back 01:40 Why I Went to Kenya 04:10 Kenya's 2007 Election Crisis 13:03 Reading My Diary From Kenya 24:04 Martin Seligman's Dog Experiment 26:30 Learned Helplessness and Agency 28:00 Why I Thought I Could Change the World 31:20 Finding the Same Pattern Everywhere 33:42 The Irish Wool Problem 38:10 What Today's Generation Is Learning 42:30 What Really Happened in Kenya? 48:20 The Work That Actually Matters 52:50 Looking Back Twenty Years Later 55:40 Finding the Levers Around Us 56:50 My New Book: Heat, Shelter, Water, Food 57:35 Credits Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
