Dear Reader,

Did you catch the recent conversation with sociologist Corey Keyes on Hidden Brain?

Even thought that show doesn’t usually sit near the top of my podcast playlist, that episode resonated deeply.

Keyes talked about his research into languishing, a state he’s identified as distinct from depression.

It's a space where agency and participation begin to feel irrelevant.

A void.

In contrasting languishing with flourishing, Keyes talked about how important it is to feel connected to a caring community that expects and accepts all the feelings in ways that sustain and grow a sense of mattering.

He talked about how play is a key way for all people to experience that - children, sure, but adults, too.

In our conversation with Mara Krechevsky earlier this month, Mara told us that one reason to make learning visible is that doing so changes the nature of learning. One of those changes, I think, is that it increases the sense of mattering for all involved. Corey Keyes reminds us that’s not simply an academic add-on: It’s what breeds vitality and flourishing.

In my (now not so hidden) brain, Corey Keyes and Shankar Vedantam are sitting in a room right next to Nick Cave and Brian Ferry.

In a post in The Red Hand Files, Cave tells the story of waking from a summer daytime slumber to find Ferry wading in front of him (I know, right???) From the glistening pool, the Roxy Music bard sees that the Bad Seed had fallen asleep writing in his notebook and tells him that it’s been years since Ferry has written a song - that all of the palatial beauty he was surrounded by lulls the pen from his hand.

Cave leaves the encounter committed to a practice of creating daily.

(That’s a thin retelling of a short, provocative post - you really should read it. Find the link below.)

I don’t have any reason to believe that Brian Ferry was languishing, but I do hear Nick Cave saying that his dedication to an arts practice - to telling his stories - is what prevents him from languishing.

In Your Brain On Art - which we'll be reading in The Studio over the coming months - the authors explore in so many ways what is summed up in psychiatrist Meg Chisholm's finding (on p.172 if you're searching your copy): that “the arts are the most effective way to help her students explore what it means to be fully human and to flourish.”

Because I think it matters that all of us work against languishing as we support young people on that same path, I look forward to continuing to go deeper into all of that with you: play, story creation, the arts, and flourishing.

July and August in The Studio are months to think about well-being - our own and that of others in our community - and the role of the arts in that flourishing.

Monthly members will explore that question through reading Your Brain On Art and other selections and hearing conversations with luminaries Miriam Beloglovsky, Jesus Oviedo, Sophie Anne Edwards, Georgia Heard, Cindy Foley, Kirsty Liljegren, and Kelly Goodsir. Adventurers registered for the course (including annual members, who have access to this and all Studio courses) get not only the readings and conversations but also extensive, immersive guided arts experiences, live gatherings, and so much more.

Don’t hesitate to reach out with questions.

WATCHING, LISTENING, READING

Good things:

• ​Why You Feel Empty is the Hidden Brain episode I referenced above. Nick Cave’s encounter with Brian Ferry and not-writing is Issue #286 of the consistently engaging Red Hand Files.
• ​Early Learning Nation asked many thoughtful people - and me - for thoughts about connecting with children over the summer.
• One of those aesthetic engagements that enhance lives is reading fiction. In the last two weeks, I devoured Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland (growing up alien on the East Coast) and am now midway through Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time (getting Covid left me with lots of time for spider civilizations.) What have you been loving?
• Who won’t be devouring novels? Lots of children whose schools are adopting non-reading curricula.
• (Don’t) worry. They can always talk to machines.​
• Who is less likely to be flourishing through the arts? Floridians.
• There still seems to be arts funding in British Columbia. I’m getting excited to head north in a couple weeks for the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. It’s one of my favorite weekends - surprising music mash-ups from around the world, on a glistening beach looking out toward the mountains, with nightly lantern processions - a three-day opportunity to exhale deeply. What is the cultural experience you’re looking forward to?

"We must be like the cicada for children. I must be the teacher who notices and elevates wonder and glory in even the smallest of living things. I must be the facilitator that flaps, crunches, transforms, surprises, and sings like the brood X cicadas to awaken others."

— Marla McLean​

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