In this episode, Dara’s aged cat has gone to the toilet in the wrong place, and the cause is not feline terrorism but dementia and disorientation. The loss of bearings is a very difficult thing to negotiate because it can result in dislocation. Dara argues that as fundamentally relational beings, we need landmarks and touchstones to position ourselves in the world.
From institutions to abstract emotions to spiritual concepts, as well as innumerable people, we are rooted in connectedness as a means of making sense of wherever we are at any given time. Dara believes that one of life’s ongoing challenges is to adapt to the existential turbulence that comes when parts of our world stop making sense to us. He wonders what the best strategy is to surf the wild ocean of life.
Arguing for the state of ‘being in the zone’, Dara makes a case for that mode been more easily accessed from the heart rather than the mind. Talking about facing fear and owning one’s own challenges, he refers to martial arts, depressive onslaughts, the Yugoslavian Nobel laureate Ivo Andric, and the 1952 classic western High Noon, which he reframes as a metaphor for depression.
Time is also found to consider Erich Fromm’s psychology, Fran Drescher’s activism, and to get to the bottom of why the Lego smells so awful!