Little Happier: The Value of the “Quality of Keeping People Together.”

Happier with Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin / The Onward Project

Education, Health & Fitness, Self-improvement

4.7 • 13K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2022

⏱️ 3 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Gertrude Stein wrote that the poet Guillaume Apollinaire had the “quality of keeping people together.” This is a rare and important gift. Get in touch: @gretchenrubin; @elizabethcraft; [email protected] Get in touch on Instagram: @GretchenRubin & @LizCraft Get the podcast show notes by email every week here: http://gretchenrubin.com/#newsletter Leave a voicemail message on: 774-277-9336 For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to happiercast.com/sponsors Want to be happier in 2022? Order Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project to see how she approached the question, “How can I be happier?” and start a Happiness Project of your own. Happier with Gretchen Rubin is part of ‘The Onward Project,’ a family of podcasts brought together by Gretchen Rubin—all about how to make your life better. Check out the other Onward Project podcasts—Do The Thing, Side Hustle School, Happier in Hollywood and Everything Happens with Kate Bowler. If you liked this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and tell your friends! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Christian Rubin and this is a little happier.
0:04.4	When I was rereading Gertrude Stein's memoir, The autobiography of Alice B. Tockless, I was
0:09.8	very struck by her observation about the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire.
0:15.3	She writes,
0:16.3	The death of Guillaume Apollinaire at this time made a very serious difference to all his
0:21.6	friends apart from their sorrow at his death.
0:25.0	It was at the moment just after the war when many things had changed and people naturally
0:29.8	fell apart.
0:31.4	Guillaume would have been a bond of union.
0:33.7	He always had a quality of keeping people together and now that he was gone, everybody
0:38.8	ceased to be friends.
0:41.6	The quality of keeping people together seems an important and rare attribute and although
0:47.3	it doesn't come naturally to me, I'm trying to do a better job of it myself and also
0:52.4	to appreciate more the work of those Apollinaire-ish types whose efforts benefit me.
0:59.0	I know how much energy and time it takes to make the efforts that allow people to stay
1:03.4	close.
1:04.7	Who coaxes people into showing up to the reunion?
1:07.7	Who remembers everyone's birthdays and insists that everyone get together to mark the occasion?
1:13.2	Who plans the promotion celebration?
1:15.5	Who organizes the group wedding gift?
1:17.7	Who sends out the group emails?
1:20.1	It doesn't sound very hard until you're the one doing it.
	...

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