TED Talks Daily - Life is hard. Art helps | Liana Finck (re-release)

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

Cartoonist Liana Finck's drawings hold our hands through life's predicaments, big and small: dating, breakups, what to make for dinner, how to leave a party without being rude, how to think about our relationship with God. In a funny, moving talk, she shares some of her drawings and shows how she uses creativity to navigate false starts and cluelessness in the search for belonging.This episode originally aired January 2, 2024.For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDSports: ted.com/sportsTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This podcast is brought to you by WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. With WISE, you can send, spend, and receive up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Plus, WISE won't add hidden fees to your transfer. Whether you're buying souvenirs with Pesos in Puerto Vallarta or sending Euros to a loved one in Paris, you know you're getting a fair exchange rate with no extra markups. Be smart.

Join the 15 million customers who choose WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. Terms and conditions apply. The last time I nicked my finger, I threw on a bandage. Took care of it right away. But when I brushed my teeth and saw blood in the sink, I shrugged it off. It's time we stop ignoring our gum bleeding. Use Colgate Perioguard to significantly reduce gum bleeding and inflammation. It helps fight bacteria that can lead to early gum disease and improves gum health with daily use. So just like you take care of your cuts, help take care of your gums with Colgate Perioguard. Healthy gums, confident smile.

This episode is sponsored by PWC. AI, climate change, and geopolitical shifts are reconfiguring the global economy. That's why industry leaders turn to PWC to help turn disruption into opportunity. PWC unites expertise and tech so you can outthink, outpace, and outperform. So you can stay ahead. So you can protect what you build. So you can create new value. Visit pwc.com to learn more. That's pwc.com.

Pwc refers to the PwC network and or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Sometimes a cartoon is all I need to see in order to understand something really big in my life. For cartoonist Liana Fink, this is what it's all about. In this funny, moving archive talk,

Liana shares how she uses creativity to navigate false starts and cluelessness in the search for belonging, and how drawings have a unique power to guide us through life's predicaments, big and small, whether it's what to make for dinner or how to think about our relationship with a higher power. to think about our relationship with a higher power. The ways of the world often baffle me.

I sometimes wonder if I miss the memo about the most basic things. What are you supposed to make for dinner? What do you talk about in an elevator? Why do people cut in line? How do you leave a dinner party without being rude? Or do you leave at all? Audience member laughs My tendency to see the world like I'm from outer space

was a bit of a liability when I was a kid. True story. Audience member laughs It was a bit of a liability when I was a kid. True story. (*Laughter*) But it's been helpful in my career. I'm a cartoonist. When I first started making cartoons for The New Yorker about a decade ago, I kept my ideas light and quirky. I didn't draw anything too personal.

I figured I was too specific, too hard to relate to and read, possibly too female. It took a breakup to get me to start drawing more autobiographically. The pain I was feeling, although objectively pretty run-of-the-mill, was impossible to ignore. I knew that drawing was my strongest problem-solving tool, so I decided to diagram what I was going through.

(*Laughter*) By making these drawings, I could see how my ex and I had hurt each other and move on. On to other breakups. (*Laughter*) Drawing from my own life was a revelation to me, not only because it helped me understand myself better,

but because it made me see for the first time that people could relate to me. Now that I had this amazing tool, there were so many problems I wanted to solve with it. The problem of scheduling, the problem of too many things happening all at the same time, the problem, relatedly, of time and finally, dating again.

(*Laughter*) There's an endless amount to say about dating. There are, of course, problems that can't be summed up in a single drawing. For these problems, you need many drawings. One more complex problem I have is with God. I'm Jewish, so I'm talking about the God of the Old Testament. My problem with God isn't actually a big problem.

It's just, I don't know, it stayed with me. My problem with God is that he's too confident. (*Laughter*) (*Applause*) For me, creation is an act of solving problems, of figuring things out. God already seems to have everything figured out. He strikes me as more of a king than a creator, and I'm not sure you can be both.

As an experiment, I decided to remake the book of Genesis as a graphic novel. My version of God is not confident, and maybe not coincidentally, she's a woman. (*Laughter*) It surprised me how few changes I needed to make to the original text, which is sparse and ancient and lends itself well to interpretation.

For example, the Bible opens in this mysterious, moody way, with God floating aimlessly on the face of a dark, mysterious void. In my version, I have her floating this way because she's feeling despondent about her limitations as an artist. She's made this messy, wet, mixed-up, dark first draft of the world, and she just doesn't know where to go from here. My version of God doesn't know exactly what she's doing, but she draws a horizon line, and things start to fall into place.

She banishes Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, not because they disobeyed her, but because by eating the apple and becoming wise, she feels they've outgrown the world she created for them, and she needs to let them go. She scatters the builders of the Tower of Babel, not because she's threatened by their power, but because, like any introvert, she needs her privacy.

because, like any introvert, she needs her privacy. (*Laughter*) When she destroys the world in the story of Noah, it's not because she's incensed with mankind, but because she's incensed with herself. She knows she could have done a better job when she made us. My adaptation of the book of Genesis is a creation story full of false starts and absurdities.

But it's a creation story all the same, one in which a self-conscious woman, even though she worries and makes mistakes, is nonetheless a successful, committed artist. When I finished my book, I did feel a new connection to the god of the Torah and a new sense of belonging to my religion. I also felt a new sense of belonging, period.

It's lonely being someone who has no idea how to act normal, but it's profoundly less lonely being that person in a world created for her by an equally awkward, self-conscious God. These days, when I worry that I won't know what to make for dinner, I remind myself that God wouldn't know either. This gives me the confidence to embrace my cluelessness and just wing it. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was Liana Fink speaking at TED 2023. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tonsika Sarmarnivon. It was mixed by Christopher Fazy-Bogan.

Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Ballarezzo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening. This episode is sponsored by Airbnb. It's finally summer, the season of road trips, lake swims, and making memories with the people we love. I have been thinking about exploring Canada for a while, and for a trip like that staying in an Airbnb just feels right.

Whether it's a getaway with extended family or a few close friends, I'd want a place that feels like home, but with better views and more space to unwind. Airbnb has some incredible spots across Canada that go way beyond the basics. Cottages with hammocks, fire pits, even canoes. Imagine staying somewhere with enough room for everyone, including the dog, where bedtime for the kids doesn't have to mean bedtime for you. It's just a different experience relaxing in a cozy living room instead of a hotel lobby. This summer my aim is to check out some of Canada's most loved homes from

lakeside cabins in Bruce Peninsula to breathtaking escapes in Banff or Cape Breton. Because some trips in Canada are just better in an Airbnb. This episode is sponsored by PWC. AI, climate change, and geopolitical shifts are reconfiguring the global economy. That's why industry leaders turn to PWC to help turn disruption into opportunity. PWC unites expertise and tech so you can outthink, outpace, and outperform. So you can stay ahead. So you can protect what you build. So you can create new value.

Visit pwc.com to learn more. That's pwc.com. PWC refers to the PWC network and or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. Say hello savings and goodbye worries with Freedom Mobile. Get 60 gigs to use in Canada, the US and Mexico for just 39 bucks a month. Plus get a one-time use of five gigs of Roam Beyond data. Conditions apply. Details at freedommobile.ca.