On being with Christa Tippett is supported in part by the John Templeton Foundation,

funding research and catalyzing conversations that inspire people with awe and wonder.

On the Templeton Ideas podcast, they dive deep into conversations with astrophysicists,

psychologists, and philosophers exploring the most awe-inspiring ideas in our world.

Learn more at templeton.org.

Baratunde Thurston is a social creative, comedian, writer, media entrepreneur.

In all of that, I so admire how he befriends the reality of what it means to be alive now.

He operates with eyes open to the contradictions, strangeness, and beauty of being human.

He attends in a generative way, seeing better possibilities already unfolding.

In the histories and stories we tell about ourselves and others.

He sees revelation and learning happening, even amidst our hardest tangles.

And also, so fittingly, in my mind, at the time we inhabit, Baratunde intertwines all of this

with his lifelong joy in the natural world. This comes vividly through in how he has hosted

the innovative and searching PBS series, America Outdoors.

The kaleidoscopic view of life and love and the world that is Baratunde's

builds and builds in this conversation as much as any I've ever had,

towards a wise and exuberant glimpse of how we can all be more fully human and socially creative.

I'm Christa Tippett, and this is on being.

Baratunde's late mother Arnita Thurston is a North Star of his story, a woman who did not graduate

from college but went from distributing yellow pages to becoming a computer programmer.

At the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival, he and I found each other in a small recording studio

with a few of our producers where many podcasts were being made.

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