#028 Facing Our Fears With Montaigne and Adam Valen Levinson
“To learn that we have said or done a stupid thing is nothing, we must learn a more ample and important lesson: that we are but blockheads.”
In this episode in our series on CREATIVITY with the writer Adam Valen Levinson you’ll learn how overcoming our fears can lead to a more creative life. You’ll also learn what Levinson and the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne have in common and why humor can help us creatively connect with humanity. #thehappierhour
PREVIOUS EPISODES ON CREATIVITY
#027 Reflections In Wonderland With Gwenda-lin Grewal
#026 The Third Way With Émilie Du Châtelet and Amber Baldet
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Invictus by William Ernest Henley
Choice is what gives us stature with the Gods. -John Steinbeck
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. -Søren Kierkegaard
The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
On the highest throne in the world, we are seated, still, upon our arses. - Montaigne
LIBRARY
By Montaigne:
Michel de Montaigne - The Complete Essays (Penguin Classics)
About Montaigne:
How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
By Adam Valen Levinson:
The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah: Fear and Love in the Modern Middle East
“What do you view as a unique flaw in yourself? How might you approach that flaw with humor, if you remind yourself that flaw is part of being human?”
ABOUT ADAM VALEN LEVINSON
Adam Valen Levinson is an affiliate of the Middle East Institute and a Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University, where he studies senses of humor as a key to cross cultural understanding. In other moments, Adam has played trumpet in the UAE Philharmonic, worked for "The Colbert Report" and "The Onion," and done stand up from New York to Shanghai. He is the author of the new nonfiction novel "The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah." Dubbed “East, Pray, Laugh” by the New York Times.