Ologies with Alie Ward - 100th Episode: Best Life Advice from Ologists + 100 More Ologies

Episode Date: August 14, 2019

ONE HUNDRED EPISODES, kiddos. From slimy hagfish coils on the ocean floor to the outer reaches of space. Into our brains and out a bird butt and beyond. Ol' Dadward reflects on the past 100 episodes by distilling the 5 best peptalk lifehack self-helpy pieces of advice she's learned from making Ologies for the last nearly two years. Also: a list of 100 potential more episodes and what's cooking for the next few weeks.A donation went the SciCommCamp.com scholarship fundSponsor links: betterhelp.com/ologies (code: OLOGIES); TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/OLOGIES; TakeCareOf.com (code: OLOGIES)Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month: www.Patreon.com/ologiesOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, pins, totes!Follow twitter.com/ologies or instagram.com/ologiesFollow twitter.com/AlieWard or instagram.com/AlieWardSound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray MorrisTheme song by Nick ThorburnSupport the show: http://Patreon.com/ologies

Oh, hey, it's your weird old internet dad ward von podcast back with the... Let's do a drum roll, might as well. One hundredth episode of oligies. Question, can you even? Are you able to even? I can't. And I thought for my hundredth episode, I couldn't just throw up a rando topic. I needed to do something numerical.

I thought about doing numerology just for fun and for kicks, and then I just couldn't in good conscience put that out for my hundredth. So I thought for folks who have listened since the very beginning in September 2017, or folks who have just cherry-picked episodes without realizing that they may have skips and real gems, I would give you a recap of the best life lessons I have learned from the last almost two years studying other people's oligies. Overall, just the top five things I have learned about life from making oligies. These are things that I wish I knew when I first started.

So here it is. This is the one hundredth episode. I'm going to give you the top five self-help things I have learned from making oligies, as well as after the break, the next one hundred episodes of things I'm going to cover. Okay? Are you ready? We're a hundred. Okay, let's get into it.

Okay. The first thing. Paths are not linear. Wait, what? Paths are not linear. I always used to think that other people's lives were like that airport people mover, just like straight, very determined, measured, a consistent pace, hopped on at the beginning and just coasted up to their gate of life.

But that's not it at all, even a little bit. What I've learned from oligies is that I am not the only person who has had hairpin turns and stops and starts and stalls and sprints and point-point, like hopping onto different paths like a Mario brother. Sitting down and hearing a hundred stories, give or take, has taught me nobody knows what they're doing and it's great. Some of the best field biologists bailed on vet school and some really amazing doctors thought they were only good at the arts.

I never intended oligies to be a podcast in the beginning. I had this idea to do a series and I thought way back then, like 15 years ago, I came across this list of oligies and I thought, oh, I should make a book about this. I'm going to do maybe an illustrated book and it sat on the back burner forever. And then I pitched it as a TV series and no one wanted it. And finally, I thought I could do a podcast now that they exist. And it's been the best way for me to just make it on my own terms. I can leave all the swearing in, I can talk about butts.

I can make it as many minutes as I want to make it with as many episodes as my brain and fingers and Zoom recorder can handle. So if you feel like your life has taken some twists and turns, that just means that you're like everyone. Also it's the switchbacks that kind of get you up the steepest hills and you just can't really see it until you're at the top. So keep trucking. Also hydrate and check your crevices as long as we're at it.

But don't worry if your path is not a straight line. No one's is. And that's great. Okay, another thing that I've learned from making this podcast is it's really good to figure out what you love. What do you love so much? So when we pick jobs, we don't always lead with the thing that kind of burns a big love hole through our chests.

We pick based on what's going to pay back student loans or maybe what we think our family would be proud of or what someone like us seems capable of. And then we forget to ask, what do we like? What do we dig? What makes us nauseated with excitement? What are we infectiously affectionate toward? What would we do for free? And I love stories about coral scientists who volunteered before they went pro and squid

experts who badgered labs into hiring them. This feeling of these whole new worlds opening up. And this is where volunteering helped me so much. And I talked about it in the field trip episode, I was so bummed out at this point in my life that I just wanted to volunteer doing something that felt like me. They didn't have a lot at stake and didn't have to be permanent. That kind of put me in a place I didn't usually get to be with people I would otherwise never meet and it completely changed my life.

And I realized that talking to scientists and learning and communicating all that was what I wanted to do more than anything. And I really would not have connected those dots years ago if I didn't start out very sad, newly single with a margarita hangover lamenting that none of my current friends at the time wanted to talk about spiders with me. So let yourself have a little corner time, a little notepad and write down the things that you love the most, the stuff that gives you butterflies and then ask yourself if you can spare like three hours a week to go volunteer somewhere in that field.

The worst thing that could happen is that you use that time learning new things instead of like scrolling on your ex, roommates, cats, Instagram feed. Like did your molecules spend this long in the universe and line up to make the person that you are just so you could see a not even well composed photo of someone else's cat on a couch that you never liked? No. Go figure out what makes you horny for living, not sexy horny. Just like, oh hell yeah, I like being alive.

And then maybe if you can volunteer. So figure out what you love. What do you love so much? Another huge lesson in making allergies is just do the thing. If you have a thing you want to do or a painting that you want to make or a garden that you want to plant or a poetry book you want to write or maybe a grad program you want to apply for someone you want to be friends with, just hop in, give it a try. You know, you can watch double Dutch jump rope for years, but nothing prepares you better

than just getting your old patootie in there and just screwing it up till you get it right. There are so many inventors I interview for my TV jobs and other science communicators and scientists who have told me that they learned as they went and that to get a dream to exist you have to just start and fail until you get there. Experiments go wrong all the time. Do you know how many rockets have blown up without people in them? A lot. Rough drafts get edited, mistakes get corrected, you just learn as you go.

And as a perfectionist and a workaholic, my favorite thing to do is to just wring my hands from the sidelines, mentally doing and imagining failing at something before I do it. Well, guess what? That doesn't work. I started recording this podcast and sat on it for nine months before I was forced to put the first episode out on a deadline. My biggest regret is that I was too chick and shit to start earlier, so nothing will be perfect the first time.

Nothing will ever be perfect, but you're going to learn as you go. This is why experiments are repeated. You got to get a larger data set. This is why bands practice in garages and paintings start out as sketches. Failure is success because failure and learning is progress, no matter what. So go do the thing. You not only have my permission, but you have my eager paternal impatience and some of my projected regrets.

So deal with that. Another lesson, if all this evolutionary biology has taught me one thing, is to embrace your mutations. Every weird mantis that looks like an orchid, or your dog, or pine needles, or sea slugs, each of these things are the result of just a heap of mutations that worked out for the best. The stuff that's weird about you is your greatest asset. Look at Gros Michel Bananas.

They were all clones, fungus came in, wiped them all out. They all died. There was no variation. So in the words of international phenologist, variation is a feature. It's not a flaw. So if you're weird, or you have a great memory for medieval cookware terminology, or you're fascinated with slime molds, or always silently psychoanalyzing your coworkers, or maybe you could read history books that put others to sleep, or you just don't feel like you fit

in at any particular lunch table, that's great. Your weirdness is the best thing about you. When it came to making allergies, I was worried about doing a podcast with so many fucks and shits, because no other science podcast in the top 10 had an E next to it for explicit. I was like, there's got to be a reason why I can't do a science podcast for adults. If I work on kids science shows, there's got to be a reason why everyone keeps this clean. In the asides I do, what if people find them annoying? The weirdest stuff about allergies ended up being the thing that makes it what it is.

So embrace your mutations. There would be no progress, no evolution, no adaptability without that weirdness. So don't be a banana clone. Embrace your mutations. Oh, you're weird. Thank you. And the last thing I have learned from doing allergies and interviewing so many people who literally like swim with sharks and give TED talks and teach students and find cures

for things and travel the world, literally turning over rocks and finding new species is that sometimes you just have to get out of your own damn head. Like the sports psychology episode recommended just be in the moment. And I have a thing I have to tell myself when I'm nervous and that is to show up like you belong and have fun because imposter syndrome is very real. Everyone you admire probably has it. I feel like a charlotte and sometimes I worry this podcast isn't good enough. Sometimes I'm plagued with regret over how many air horns I dropped.

Sometimes I'm like, didn't drop enough air horns, but no one could make this podcast better than me because I love it the most. Likewise, no one could do your life as well as you can. So you got to show up like you belong because you do. And if you don't see anyone that looks like you in the room, you belong even more because that room needs you and needs your perspectives and have fun. It's such a stupid sounding advice. But as again, a perfectionist, I will sometimes like robot myself for the sake of professionalism.

And I'm just going to go on record to say that that sucks. I mean, yeah, in a business interview, you should show up with pants on and not drunk. But it doesn't mean you can't enjoy the experience and be a human being. Just know you belong there. Have fun. Be loose. Don't police yourself into a fugue state. I have done that in the past.

It never goes as well as when I just tasked myself with chilling out and goofing off a little. So show up like you belong and have fun. So many episodes, so many lessons. I did not expect to make this episode like this, but I hope it helps someone. I wish I knew these things years ago when I started, but now we all know them as well as so many facts about lizard dicks and sky burials and volcanoes and personality quizzes and exploding whales, fungus gennies. And if your pet turtle loves you, yes, it does.

So are we out of allergies? Is that it? A hundred episodes? Oh, hell no. Oh, we're not done. How dare you? After the break, you're going to hear about some very nutty allergies I haven't yet covered and what they mean.

And let's just get pumped for the episodes that come up next. But before I mention the sponsors, I want to let you know I'm going to be keynoting this year's SICOM camp, which is run by my friends, Kara Santa Maria and Sarah Curtis and Jason Goldman. I'm so excited about that. So I'll be giving a talk about science communication. Again, it's SICOMCamp.com. In case you want to see the lineup, it's an incredible lineup.

I'm very, very honored to be included. And this week, a donation will go to their scholarship fund to help folks afford the conference fee. So I'm donating ad revenue from this podcast to go toward a scholarship for that. And I'm excited to see some of you there. So for more info, that's at SICOMCamp.com. It is the first weekend in November and the lineup is amazing. OK, so some sponsors that made that donation possible. OK, so what allergies are coming up next?

So many of you on Patreon have asked for musicology, so many. In fact, right now, I'm going to say your names with my mouth. OK, Amber Wood Park, Howard Yermish, Ivernay, Kelly King, Christopher Loren, Alicia Lynn, Sarah Sexton, Raiden Markham, Liana Joe Weinemansen, Katie Stomps, Rihanna Humany and Kendall. So many want musicology or ethnomusicology. I'm in LA. UCLA has a really great program.

So, yeah, musicology has got to happen. I feel like that needs to be a 17 part episode. How many parts should it be? Should it be 18? Let me know. Also, so many of you are just begging for bats. So, chiropterology, I'm hoping that'll be up in October. I was supposed to go to Austin to go interview Merlin Tuttle, like the king

of bats of chiropterology in Austin, and I wasn't able to go last week. So I have to find some time to go between now and October. P.S. should I do a whole spooky October with like spectrology, which is go-go-go-go ghosts or parapsychology or demonology or arachnology. Spiders, osteology is bones. Should I just do spooky October? Spooktober. Should I do it?

Okay, let me know. I also really want to do meteorology, which is like weather, tornadoes, hurricanes, a ton of you want lagomorphology, which is about bunnies and rabbits and hairs. Just rabbit holes about rabbit holes. Fuck yes. Maybe I should say that till next spring. I'm not sure.

Okay, cryptology, you all really want. It's code breaking, but you also want cryptozoology, the study of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster and the Yeti. Perhaps I should save that for next April 1st, maybe? Cetology is a study of whales. Y'all want it? And whale, whale, whale. We are in accord on that one.

Big wet leathery pickles. There'll be a whole episode about you. Audiology is how people hear. I really would like to do that one. Analogy is about wines. Garbology is a real thing. I have so many questions about garbage. There are actual garbologists out there.

Oh, I want to sit down with one so bad. I want to smell them because I bet there are garbologists who smell way better than the average person. Firmology about cheese. That must happen. It has to happen. I want to do one on Hippology, which is about horses. Aerospace technology is rockets.

Thank you, Roxanne Parker for mentioning that. I wouldn't have thought of aerospace technology as an allergy. But boom, here we are. Pinnapetology is sea lions and seals and walruses. Hell yes. I definitely want one on pharmacology or psychopharmacology. Glaciology is glaciers. So I should interview someone, I guess,

while we still have glaciers on Earth. I've got New York Times crossword editor Will Shorts ready to record enigmatology about puzzles whenever I'm in New York next. So give yourself a minute to scream about that alone in your car. Y'all definitely want some proctology, and I will be there to administer that episode to you. Also, pathophytology, phytopathology, poisonous plants. It's on the list as is exercise physiology and bromatology, which is food.

Who eats? Everyone's hands should be up. There we go. So that's 25. I've just mentioned. Let's see if I can come up with another 75. I want to do keeping us covered for at least a few years. Again, I may not do all of these in the next 100.

I might swap some out, but these ones are just on my radar. OK, speech language is better. Oh, my God, speech language pathology. That was not intentional. Odentology is teeth, pomology, fruit. Heliology is a study of the sun. Numist mythology is coins and money. There's cartology, maps, megadrology is a study of earthworms.

I want to talk about their dirty, dirty guts. Mechanology is opiates and the opioid epidemic. Spellology is a study of caves. Curiosity is technically, I think, the study of emojis. Several of you want chickenology. I don't know if that's a thing. Maybe gallology would be chickenology. But if we have to invent a chickenology, I feel like it kind of is like we get a pass on that one.

I want to know about chickens. Philomatology, kissing. That's a study of kissing. And there are people who do it. There's futurology. What does the future hold? Does it hold more kissing? I don't know.

Campanology is a study of bell ringing. OK. Odorhinolaryngotology is the study of taste and smell. And yes, I said it wrong. Bryology is a study of moss. I have a neuropsychopharmacologist who studies how LSD in mushrooms may be used in mental health care in the future. Do you know a lotologist studies lottery tickets? I know.

And now you know. And there's one in New Jersey and I want to talk to them. Broleology, they specialize in umbrellas. Limnology, that's a study of water in rivers. Suicidology is a thing. They help with prevention, survivors and grieving families. Fulminology, it's the study of lightning. Toxicology, poisons, pyrology, fire.

Pyrotechnology is the study of how humans used fire to our advantage. There is a whole subsection at Yale of people who study this. And I wanted just to ask them about campfires. How much should you roast a marshmallow? What does it say about me if I burn mine? Anyway, that's 50. Here are a few more I mentioned to do. You ready?

Dermatology, skin, scuriology, study of squirrels, cardiology, the heart. Maritime archaeology is a study of shipwrecks. Coprology is a study of porn. Lattronology is the study of writing on bathroom walls. Agnotology is a study of culturally induced ignorance. Many of us know nothing about that. Is that induced by culture? I'm not sure.

Climatology, of course, very topical. Bacteriology, because they are literally all over us and in us right now, we would be dead without them. Hydrology, the study of water. Bogology is a real thing. It is the study of bogs. Mamiology, mummies. Should I do that in October?

Parasitology, parasites, immunology, neurology, the brain. Metrology is a study of measurements. Y'all want that so bad. I'm on it. Sinology is a study of China. Kremlinology is a study of the Soviet Union. We could do peprology. That's the history of paper.

Diabetesology, metabolism and blood sugar. Distelliology is a study of seemingly useless organs. What? And I'm looking at you, Jacobson's organ, the part where we have an extra nose hole. Plutology is a study of wealth. Seismology, earthquakes, virology, viruses and how things go viral. Maybe I'll do Scientology or Astrology. Rubinology is a study of cities.

Electrology is a study of electricity. What is it? How does it work? Why was Tesla in love with a pigeon? Astrology, the science of crawfish. Who does it? I'm going to talk to them. Rageology, study of fingerprints. Medusology, study of jellyfish.

Nidology is bird nests. We die. Amology is the study of happiness. Probably said that one wrong, too. Ethology is animal behavior. So many types of psychology. I can't even list them. Memology is a study of memes.

Nephology, study of clouds. Ontology is the study of being. Skatology is poop. Tokology is childbirth. I have a feeling those are related sometimes. Lupinology, wolves. Vulpinology is foxes. Ursinology is the study of bears.

Those aren't for sure the next 100, but that is a vague sampling of some that may appear. Now, Ward, you ask, what about a sneak peek at some coming up soon? Well, shucks. Boy, howdy, why not? I've already recorded them and I'm working on these ones for upcoming weeks. One on chronobiology or day, night cycles and circadian rhythms. I'm working on vexillology, which is the study of flags.

There is a bisonology episode that involves three different ologists, and that's a real doozy to put together. But I think you're going to like it. Also, disasterology is the study of disasters and emergency management systems. Oh, that one's recorded. It's going to be great. Also, I did one on porcine virology, which is pig flu outbreaks, and I'm saving that for the dawn of the apocalypse.

Finally, there's one on potterology, and that is a two-part episode from a university chemistry professor about the chemical reactions behind Harry Potter spells that will be a two-parter. That one will knock you around glasses right off your face. OK, so there it is. That's a hundred down, many hundred more to go in each episode. I'm going to ask the smartest people stupidest questions. It will be an honor to make this weird show for you.

The last 100 episodes have just taught me so much from mucus covered, slimy sea spirals at the bottom of the ocean to just to the outer edges of the cosmos and my own brain and back again. So thank you so much to everyone for listening. Thank you for asking your questions. Thank you for supporting on Patreon and thank you for cheering me on. Just like marathon volunteers with some cold Gatorade each week with bad hair and crispy contact lenses.

I'm just hustling to the finish line to get these up. So this is the best job in the world. I feel very lucky to be up in your ears. So cut bangs, stare at the sky, observe a snail, text your crush, do the thing, follow a dream, volunteer if you need to shake things up and just be truly you. Don't be afraid of looking stupid because no one knows anything seriously until they ask. So to find me, I'm Ali Ward with 1L on Twitter and Instagram. We're at oligies on Twitter and Instagram.

Thank you to Hannah Lipo and Aaron Tauber for admitting the Facebook group and being such wonderful friends. Same to Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dutch of the You Are That podcast. They manage merch at oligiesmerch.com and are wonderful people. You can tag your photos, oligies merch on Instagram so we can post you on Mondays. Thank you to Jerry Sleeper for being so encouraging these past hundred episodes. Thanks, of course, to Stephen Ray Morris, who helped from the beginning, showing me how to edit and eventually taking over edits so we could crank them out faster.

Here's to a hundred more, at very least. Thank you to all my wonderful nerd brigade friends for always encouraging me to make things in my voice. I love you all. Also, thanks to my family who listens, even though I swear so much during this. The theme song was written and performed by Nick Thorburn of the Band Islands. And if you listen to the end, you know, I tell you a secret. And today's secret is that I'm really glad that the hundredth episode is now done so that we can just go on and keep making them.

I was like, what do I do with a hundred? What do I do? And I was so really, I was weirdly like, it's got to be big. But then not too big and self-congratulatory. So anyway, I'm glad we're through it and now on to the next ones. Also, I was in a bad mood for half of today and I couldn't figure out why. And then I realized it was just because I didn't have a hair tie and my hair just kept getting in my mouth. I got a hair tie and I was like, I'm a new woman. We're all just big babies in large pants.

Anyway, I think you're great. Bye bye. Urology. Fepthology. Nephology. Cereology. Cereology.