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Where do we go when we realize we aren’t who we want to be? This question stayed with me after listening to this week’s show, featuring journalist Anand Giridharadas. His work examines America’s relationship to wealth and the moral compromises that come from our obsession with it. Especially when it comes to ideas of equality, Giridharadas says, “there’s a chasm between the core of the American self-image and the reality of who we are.”

Giridharadas is not the first to point out the dissonance between America’s potential and its reality. Again and again, we’ve called each other to be accountable to our hope, asking ourselves, as Vincent Harding does: Is America possible? It’s a sentiment expressed...

by Langston Hughes: “O, let America be America again— / The land that never has been yet— / And yet must be—the land where every man is free.”

by Vincent Harding: “What is it that makes for dreams, for visions, for some audacious movement beyond the ‘is’ to the ‘ought’ even in the midst of the most desperate and dangerous situations?”

by Valarie Kaur: “What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?”

What a beautiful question to echo through our history. It’s one that nurses hope and possibility. As Giridharadas says, “We are not who we think we are. That is always a hard thing to hear, but it’s also a creative thing to hear because what I’m not saying is, ‘You've got to live up to my values.’ What I’m suggesting is, ‘We’ve got to live up to our values.’”

What possibilities do you hope our present enables? You can write to me at newsletter@onbeing.org.

Yours,
Kristin Lin
Editor, On Being Studios

P.S. — A few weeks ago, we asked you to recommend a poem that brings you a sense of connection. We received a wealth of responses and will be sharing some of them in the coming weeks — a community poetry well, of sorts. Here’s the first.

This Week At On Being Studios
Our Latest Episode
On Being
Anand Giridharadas
“When the Market Is Our Only Language”

We Americans revere the creation of wealth. Anand Giridharadas wants us to examine this and how it shapes our life together. This is a challenging conversation but a generative one: about the implicit moral equations behind a notion like "win-win" — and the moral compromises in a cultural consensus we’ve reached, without reflecting on it, about what and who can save us.

Photo by Mackenzie Stroh

Listen on:
From the On Being Blog

Thanksgiving is coming up. Here are three pieces grounded in gratitude:

“Creating Tables of Our Own” by Broderick Greer
A Thanksgiving reflection on scarcity, abundance, and the sacred work of inviting our neighbors and strangers alike to the table.

“A Slow and Steady Surrender” by Kaitlin Curtice
The rocks and rivers speak the story of our healing and the renewal of our lost wonder — if only we learn to listen.

“Three Gratitudes” by Carrie Newcomer
A life is composed of the ordinary and extraordinary, remarkable and mundane. An expression of gratitude from Carrie Newcomer for all of it, from big love to good coffee.

Wondering about the On Being Blog? 

Some of you have been asking about the status of the On Being Blog. We're taking a long-planned break from publication so that we can invest all of our energy and creativity into a newly hospitable, accessible, in equal measures beautiful and useful life for our digital presence, including our website and the blog. We are putting our organizational heart and soul into this and are working with everything we’ve heard across the years from our community of listeners and readers. Look for that in early 2019. And in the meantime, as always, we welcome questions, concerns, or comments at mail@onbeing.org.
What We’re Loving
Read | “I Found the Best Burger Place in America. And Then I Killed It.” | Thrillist
Recommended by Impact Lab executive director Casper ter Kuile

Listen | “Talk American” | Code Switch
Recommended by producer Marie Sambilay

Read | “Why You Should Make Time for Self-Reflection (Even If You Hate Doing It)” | Harvard Business Review
Recommended by senior editor Mariah Helgeson
Image: Banner for the Fetzer Institute — "Helping build the spiritual foundation for a loving world."
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The On Being Project is an independent non-profit public life and media initiative. We pursue deep thinking and social courage, moral imagination and joy, to renew inner life, outer life, and life together.

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