![]() We all inevitably encounter suffering in our lives. “But for me,” I continue, “my attitude towards existence is completely different. My uncle and aunt look at me with amusement. If he could transfer his consciousness into a machine to ensure that he could continue to feel and think indefinitely, Jimmy would do it in a heartbeat.” And the prospect of losing that terrifies him. Jimmy is just so happy to be here, feeling and thinking things. “And when he recognizes just how small the chances were that his consciousness came into existence, he is overwhelmed with gratitude. “Jimmy is in awe of the fact we humans have consciousness at all,” I say. And now that the conversation has turned to consciousness, I chime in and try to explain this difference to my uncle and aunt as our friends bring out more plates of food. Our greatest point of division lies in our philosophies around existence. We reason through problems the same way and have similar reactions to things. They say opposites attract, but Jimmy and I have minds that are wired so similarly. It delights me to see Jimmy at ease with my family. Jimmy, from a scientific perspective, and my uncle, as a Hindu spiritualist. They’re comparing notes on the nature of consciousness. Jimmy and my uncle sit under white fluorescent lights on one side of the room. The room reminds me of my grandmother’s old house with notes of clove and cardamom filling the air. My aunt and uncle chuckle with their playful banter as our hosts serve us snacks: chai served in stainless steel cups, and an assortment of dried fruits, nuts, and fried snacks. Last Thanksgiving, we visited his ancestral homeland, China, and this year it’s my turn. I’m so excited to be showing my relatives off to Jimmy. We settle into the sitting room, the heart of the house. It showcases dozens of glinting metal bowls and statues and paintings of Hindu gods and goddesses in shades of pink, blue, and gold. My husband Jimmy and I tour the small prayer room with our hosts - friends of our family. SHANKAR: The apartment in Chennai, India is simple and spartan, but full of warmth. And that can lead to improvements in our own inner lives.įrom WaitWhat, this is Meditative Story. In this series, we combine immersive first-person stories, breathtaking music, and mindfulness prompts so that we may see our lives reflected back to us in other people’s stories. When her adult life brings a new and unexpected kind of sorrow, she turns to these lessons from her father again to find a balance between the seriousness that comes with loving life and the wise perspective of knowing we’re all just passing through. She turns to her father for perspective - and he takes her on a memorable walk, one that helps her understand her place in the universe (spoiler: it’s not at the center of it). As a girl, she struggles with taking things too seriously: herself, the sufferings of others, the hypothetical misfortunes she imagines for the future. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast A Slight Change of Plans, selected as the Best Show of the Year by Apple in 2021. And what I learn from this gratitude exercise is that I had become so zeroed in on my quest for motherhood, I’d lost sight of how otherwise rich and multidimensional my life is. Shankar is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music’s pre-college division and is a former private violin student of Itzhak Perlman.MAYA SHANKAR: Jimmy invokes all of his warmth and channels my dad to remind me how in these critical moments, sometimes a slight shift in perspective, that little bit of distance is all I need. She has been profiled by The New Yorker and has been featured in The New York Times, Scientific American, Forbes, and on NPR’s All Things Considered, Freakonomics, and Hidden Brain. Shankar completed a post-doctoral fellowship in cognitive neuroscience at Stanford, after receiving a PhD from Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship and a BA from Yale in cognitive science. In 2016, Shankar served as the first behavioral science advisor to the United Nations under Ban Ki-moon. Previously she served as a senior advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded and served as chair of the White House’s Behavioral Science Team - a team of scientists charged with improving public policy using research insights about human behavior. MAYA SHANKAR is currently Google’s global director of behavioral economics.
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