Unlocking Us with Brené Brown - Brené with Bono on Songs of Surrender and Carrying the Weight of Our Contradictions, Part 1 of 2

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

Welcome to Part 1 of my conversation with Bono, recorded live at the historic Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas. I have been a U2 fan since the very beginning, and this event, presented by Austin City Limits Festival’s Bonus Tracks, was sheer magic. I don’t know what happened, but we got mentally in sync, spiritually locked in together, and we talked about everything from rock and roll to love and faith. His new memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, is the ultimate love story — to his wife, Ali; to his family; and to all of us who’ve found all kinds of peace and challenges in the music and the lyrics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, everyone. I'm Brene Brown, and OMG, holy crap, this is unlocking us. And let me just tell you right off the bat, I'm talking to Bono. I don't know what happened at the Paramount Theater on that weird Thursday night, but we got mentally in sync, spiritually locked in together, and had one of the most amazing conversations of my life. Now, granted, if you can picture me at 17 with my Walkman hitchhiking through Europe, do not recommend for parents or 17 year olds. And the only cassette I had was U2's War album. I have been a U2 fan since the very beginning, and this event was sheer magic. I'm so excited and grateful to be able to bring this two-parter to you. I'm glad you're here.

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Plus, get great deals on cozy home accessories from October 18th to October 27th. Shop in-store or online at Macy's.com. I just don't get it. Just wish someone could do the research on it. Can we figure this out? Hey, y'all. I'm John Blenhill, and I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox called Explain It to Me. Here's how it works. You call our hotline with questions you can't quite answer on your own.

We'll investigate and call you back to tell you what we found. We'll bring you the answers you need every Wednesday starting September 18th. So follow Explain It To Me, presented by Klaviyo. All right, before we get started, let me just say that this was a live event in front of 1,200 of our closest friends at the Paramount Theater, the historic, beautiful, amazing Paramount Theater in downtown Austin. The event was presented by Austin City Limit Festival's Bonus Tracks, ACL Fest Bonus Tracks for short. And we talked about Bono's new memoir, Surrender, 40 Songs, One Story. Let me tell you a little bit about Bono.

If you don't know Bono, he's the lead singer of the band U2. He was born in Dublin. He met all the members of the band and Allie, his wife, the same week at school. U2 sold over 170 million albums. They've won probably every award you can think of, including 22 Grammys. And this December, the band will receive the Kennedy Center Honors, which, if you don't know, I'm a Kennedy Center Honors junkie. Bono's also a groundbreaking activist. He was a leader in Jubilee 2000's Drop the Debt campaign. He took the fight against HIV,

AIDS, and extreme poverty to just a new level. He co-founded sister organizations One and Red. He has received, again, a lot of awards for his music and activism. And his new book, I just have to say, The Memoir of Surrender, it's a love story. It's a love story to Ali, his wife, to his family, to all of us who found all kinds of peace and challenges in the music and the lyrics. Let's jump into the conversation. Welcome to the historic Paramount Theater. ACL Fest Bonus Tracks is proud to present a one-on-one conversation with researcher and author Brene, and U2 lead singer and activist, Bono, to discuss his new memoir, Surrender, 40 Songs, One Story. And now, I'd like to welcome to the stage, Bono and Brene Brown.

Enjoy the show. What's up? Uh-huh, baby. Glory, glory, hallelujah. Sorry. Okay. I was ready to go Always for Elvis Always

Yes Elvis, Johnny Cash Oh, Johnny Cash, wow You walk the line? Yes, ma'am I'm trying I fall I'm falling each time

But I'm there when I can I stood last night In front of the photograph Of June Carter Cash You were in Nashville? I was I stood last night in front of the photograph of June Carter Cash. You were in Nashville? I was in Nashville last night in... The Ryman?

In the Ryman. It was the original Grand Ole Opry. Oh, yeah. So they have these pictures and I told everyone the story of meeting Johnny Cash over the while,

over the years. And when he was rumoured to be very sick, I mean really sick, I called to see if he was okay and june who's in the photograph right there was just well hi bono how are you how's ali how are the kids how's the burlington hotel i thought it was just a wild thing and i was like that's great the burlington and she oh we missed that hotel and so we talked for about 15 minutes and I said, look, I don't want

to take your time, June, just checking in with Johnny, seeing if he's okay. And she said, oh, he's right here. We're in bed. She passed me the phone and Johnny was, sorry about that. You're at the Ryman at the High Church.

Yeah, baby. Welcome to Austin. Less of a church, more of a congregation. Steady on, Elvis. Steady on. It's my 15 pages of notes. Oh. I'm so sorry.

It is a lot of book. Oh, god. It's, boy, I had such a hard, emotional time reading this book. Is that good or bad? So I'm not sure, because I'll tell you why. I was 17. I had just graduated from high school. My parents were in, my whole family was unraveling.

I was supposed to come here to go to UT. I talked them into, instead of going to UT, hitchhiking through Europe for six months. And I had a Walkman and one cassette. Oh wow. War. Wow. That's it. That's all I had. And it was the only cassette I had for six months. Wow. Drowning woman.

Ah. So I'm going to start with this big question kind of a heavy question I want to get into details I'm a big music person have been since I was young your music war specifically was the first time I had ever experienced music where there was enough room in the songs to hold me. There was room for my rage. There was room for my grief. There was room for my questions. They were big, roomy, spacious songs that you could really move around in and ask a lot of questions. But the thing that pissed me off about that tape the most...

Yeah. It had to be. Yeah. No answers. Right, right. No answers. Right. Big, roomy songs that we can move around in was that intentional you mean the lack of

uh specific directions the lack of no apology for uncertainty yeah, that's really important. Yeah, why? It was hard. I mean, firstly, that album's been on my mind recently. Ali, my missus, is here with me and I had to explain to her on why our honeymoon

album was going to be called War. And it was an album we made out of a desire to find our way through the world, a way we were ready to give up. We were unsure that our music had any utility, that it could just be more of the same vainglorious kind of noise, which we also loved. Nothing like same vainglorious kind of noise, which we also loved. Nothing like some vainglorious noise. But we were at whatever stage of development that we wanted more than that.

We wanted something else from our music. And Edge started working on the arpeggiation and the song structure for Sunday Bloody Sunday. And it answered a sort of question that he was really, more than nagging at him about, you know, can we write about the real world outside our windows in our own country and real people in real situations? And that might answer the spiritual need to be useful in a world

that was you know gone wrong and the old blues song sense world gone wrong and so we we went for the this kind of it's like the religious art meets the clash and yeah and um there were pencil sketches in one in one sense. But that's why they worked, because they didn't fill in too many details. And then you realise that's what's really great about certain works. And even in, dare I say it, it sounds pompous, as I didn't want to say it, like religious art.

Yeah. You know, the great ones for me are more abstract and you know I didn't know then because I was only a kid on my honeymoon I was 22 Ali was 21 and you know it didn't occur to me then that you could only approach certain subjects with metaphor and that you know the big subjects you know especially you can't approach the concept of god without metaphor i mean it's ridiculous so that's where we i suppose left the space we knew what we didn't know and that was that's why we left that be and you're the only the second person to say that to me in 40 years and the other person who mentioned about the space was a person I only met recently to a painter called Colin Davidson done amazing portraits of Seamus Heaney did one of the Queen, actually, Queen Elizabeth, a brilliant portrait artist.

And he was just sitting there talking and he said, I like your songs, the one where there's room. Yeah. Room for me to be in and room for all the different emotions and where you're not being so specific. So. specific. There's another way of looking at it, which is just finish the fucking lyric. Okay, I was really struck by something in the very beginning of the book. We're going to go toe-to-toe on the title before this is over.

So metaphysically, I know that the lyrics and the music come from the band's heart, from the band's head. But tell me about your lungs and tell me about, I can't separate the spaciousness in the songs and your capacity for air. Wow. That's quite, wow, this is going to be a very interesting occasion here in the great city of Austin. I don't feel dissimilar to the first time ever in Austin was in a club with the rather clever punk name of Club Foot. And I don't think there was AC. We played in the summer. It

was 100 degrees. And I felt a little like this, trying to answer this question. You know, the man who opened my heart up at the start of the book I eventually fessed up to this open heart surgery in the Christmas 2016 he was from Texas so his name is David Adams I owe him my life I owe you know this fellow called Valentin Foster was my cardiologist a Spanish man who said this very, very important that you don't die. So listen to me. And I did. And he introduced me to this fellow called David Adams. And he's the one who said, you've got lung capacity.

He said, you've got about 130% lung capacity for a normal somebody of your age. And I had thought that my gift, you know, as a tenor was, you know, just, I just didn't know I was a baritone. But it turns out that I had some ability to just be able to sing at the top of my lungs. I was available early on in my life for, you know, shouting, shouting and roaring at my father and my brother as they shouted at me. But it's much better to be in a rock and roll band and shouting at God. When I read that,

there was a word that they used to describe what they found in your lungs. I think they pulled Ali aside and said jesus his lung capacity and we have to use special wire to sew him back together because this thing yeah went on for a while the sewing up um but you know isn't it incredible this combination of science and butchery that is required to break and enter someone's heart. And yeah, I'm in awe of these physicians. I'm in awe of nurses. I'm in awe, especially in the last couple of years.

We just owe these people. Yes, come on. people. Yes. But air, air it turns out is essential. Yeah. So I thought this was really interesting. Here's what you say, page 348. And you're talking about the best theatrical show people they don't put on what we think of as a big show they just let you into their mood which for those who love them is the most generous thing they can do. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, it's different for me as a performer because with you two, we're trying always to break down the fourth wall. I used to just jump in the crowd.

It was easy. You know, hello, I don't care about this distance between you and I. And, you know, that's what all the stage diving was and climbing up on stuff and then when we started playing bigger venues we had to figure out how to do that and we use video screens and we try to be artful about our use of them and we try to use whatever technology was available to break down the distance between the stage and the crowd I then realized that some people like that distance some

performance like it they actually liked it and you can mean it people say oh I love the clubs because there's no hiding you know in a club man I'm like I've been to see bands in clubs and you know, you could be pressing up against the knee of the singer and be a hundred thousand miles away. It's not about physical proximity, it's about emotional proximity. So therefore, when people point to somebody like Miles Davis and say he'd turn his back on the audience. Miles Davis is one of the five great jazz geniuses, really. And jazz is not my thing. I just want you to know. But Miles is my thing.

And he would turn his back. And he just couldn't look at people when he was in the mood. And there are other performers like that van morrison can people say oh he's very moody and i say moody whatever mood he's in he's van morrison you're lucky to be in the room yeah and yeah you know let him be let just be yourself you choose different our roots to, to revealing ourself, are through the songs and this performance, getting to a place with our audience.

The U2 audience is part of it, and we get each other there. So I have to be honest in the songs, and the text may change only a tiny bit, but I can tell a very different story with the same text, with the same lyrics. In the book, I talk about Sinatra, and I had a recording of Frank Sinatra singing My Way, and in the 50s, it's a boast. It's the one you all know. I did it my way, you know. And then he records it 20-odd years later, and I have a copy of it, and it's an apology. Same arrangement, same key, same lyrics.

And I start to realise the gifts of interpretive singing. If you're true to where you are at, there are ways of communicating honestly with an audience. even if it's the same script. Ask any actor, you know, playing a great play changes every night. But I think letting people in on where you're at is important in the communication. Let me ask a question. Is there a price, spiritually, emotionally, or physically, for letting people into your mood? Yes, but I hate whinging rock stars, so I have to be careful. Don't you hate that? It's like, oh, how did I get here? I so didn't want to be

on the radio this morning. You didn't have to be on the radio this morning. Oh, how did I get here? The spotlight. Oh. Like, fuck off. And so...

But, look, my mate Gavin Friday always said, you know, insecurity is your best security as a performer, you know. And if we are, we are people, we're unusual people who need 20,000 people screaming I love you a night to feel normal. That's accepted. But I think the performers I'm interested in anyway are ones that need the audience. And you can tell, there's ones that I know I need that audience. And it makes me, you know, obsessional.

People going to the bathroom during that song. How could they? Edge will say, actually, there's 70,000 people here. There's somebody going to the bathroom at all times, Vano. But there's a lot of static out there as well as beer. And I think if you're any good, you pick that up. Yeah. And it's a funny one. And you expect the ego to be exploded and blown up, enlarged by this. But there is, if you're asking, there is another side to it which is the

there's kind of imploding and I I you know when I used to come back from tour and I'd come in to see Ali and there was some no it was difficult to find equilibrium and I think it was Ali who told me you know by the way in the film business she said a DP or an actor they'll meet on uncommon ground they meet their partners before they come home to get all that stuff out whatever that thing is the re-sync the transition yeah in recent times that has not been a problem for me, coming off the road. But the bumping on stage, I bumped into some awful versions of myself on stage. And I think it's okay to say, but you know, we got a boxing bag under the stage, so I

could leave the stage and just go at it. And you know, I was like, what is that? I would ask myself, you know, what is it? What am I, who am I fighting with? And I haven't fully answered the question. I just spent, you know, 560 pages trying to, you know, failed. But I didn't know I had to surrender.

But who I was fighting, that's complicated. And I think it's probably ultimately comes down to myself and the different versions of yourself that you might meet out on a stage or in a song. I remember on the war tour, we had a song from our first album called The Electric Company. And I remember I just feeling just so just full of self-loathing and awfulness. And something was going wrong.

I was fighting with whatever I was fighting with. And I kind of just, I put my head up against the drum kit, you know. So Larry likes giving it loads. And I'm just getting, I'm willingly, I suppose, wishing to feel that and the pounding of the drums. And I remember I started singing a sound. I'm just making the middle of it, the edge is turned around. He's turning up the feedback and it's this wild sound going around and I'm just singing.

And I noticed that my voice is forming into a melody. And I ended up singing in that moment. And I'm not exaggerating the despair I felt, real or imagined. I really did. It was a horrible feeling. And I was holding on for dear life. And I could hear this melody. I was wailing Irish banshee.

And then I realized it was Amazing Grace. Oh, my God. But here's the thing. This is maybe obvious to everyone else who ever heard the song, but it wasn't obvious to me. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. And I went, oh, wow. Grace is a sound.

It's a sound. And in that moment, I just, Grace is a sound. It's a sound. And in that moment, I just held onto the sound and I found myself in that moment and I found whatever it was. And I just got back up and behaved myself like a proper pop star. What does Grace sound like? Well, it's some kind of surrender.

And so it depends on the beat. But in that moment, it was not a sweet melody. It was primal, huh? It was primal, yeah. It wasn't in my ear, there wasn't, you'll be all right, pet. You're just on a rock and roll tour, okay? You've been up all night. Give yourself a break.

It was, it wasn't that. It was some other wild, primordial... Thing. Yeah, yeah, it was just a really... I still have it. I still can walk out on stage and be terrified. And I'm not a person who you'd expect to have those kinds of anxieties,

but they can get you, yeah? You might just be thinking, people have gone through a lot of trouble to get tickets. What if you can't make tonight the best night of everyone's life? Well, hello. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah. But, and I will say this, and it's not just me, the band are like that every night. They want it to be, and they got that from punk rock. That's a punk promise. Every night will be the best night we've ever had. But for a singer, it's both exhilarating to reach for that

and terrifying to fear failing that. This is a perfect unplanned segue. Exhilarating and terrifying. So one of my fatal flaws when I'm reading something, especially there's so much here, is my researcher turns on and I start looking for patterns and themes. And every time, I'd go 10 pages in this book and come back to this quote. I'd go another 10 pages and come back to this quote.

Page 143. I wanted to make music capable of carrying our own weight, even the weight of our own contradictions. To be in the world but not of it was the challenge in the scriptures that would take a lifetime to figure out. As artists, we were slowly uncovering paradox and the idea that we are not compelled to resolve every contradictory impulse. Yeah, that's right. That's it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it turns out I can live with or without you. And when I was writing that song, I was just completely torn. Because I couldn't resolve a few things. Can I be an artist? Can I be a lover? Could we have a family? But I'm in a family. That's on the road you know all these kind of things and there was so many sort of things pulling at me and these polarities and I realized it's taken me a while to realize that that was actually what was that was where that was the

terminals I was holding on to them and they were just going through me. Sorry, this is going to sound really bad on the radio. I was reaching out there like Elvis, trying to hold on to the positive and minus terminal and feeling that electric shock through you. But it was a visual joke, is my point. I realised that that was kind of powering, that the contradiction is exactly where to be. And I used to say Sam Shepard taught me that.

And going into that section in the book, I said, you know, Sam Shepard told me that. And we went everywhere to try and find the Sam Shepard quote about right at the center of a contradiction is the place you want to be. But we never found it. And I might have imagined it or just picked it up from his work. But it turns out that's the thing I'm drawn to in everyone's work, in your work, in painters. I know Colin Davidson just mentioned, but duality.

Duality. And it's, you know, it's Mona Lisa, is she happy or sad? It's our music, U2's music is full of joy, but there's despair just right there. And we don't have to resolve everything in these neat and tidy ways. And I might say, you know, your work is a real inspiration to a lot of us untidy people. That's the best compliment. I'm a big fan of untidy people. Yeah. Hello, I'm Esther Perel, psychotherapist and host of the podcast, Where Should We Begin?, which delves into the multiple layers of relationships, mostly romantic.

But in this special series, I focus on our relationships with our colleagues, business partners and managers. Listen in as I talk to co-workers facing their own challenges with one another and get the real work done. Tune into How's Work, a special series from Where Should We Begin, sponsored by Klaviyo. About a year ago, two twin brothers in Wisconsin discovered, kind of by accident, that mini golf might be the perfect spectator sport for the TikTok era. Meanwhile, a YouTuber in Brooklyn found himself less interested in tech YouTube and more interested in making coffee. This month on The Verge Cast, we're telling stories about these people

who tried to find new ways to make content, new ways to build businesses around that content, and new ways to make content about those businesses. Our series is called How to Make It in the Future, and it's all this month on The Vergecast, wherever you get podcasts. Let's talk about that third way, that center space.

Right. So Carl Jung said that paradox is the closest thing humans will ever get to, to true spiritual understanding. And I think it's the marrow of, when I read this book, I was like, shit, this is why those songs piss me off, but I love them. It seems to me that you were born into the space that straddles tension. Bob, your dad, Catholic. Iris, your mom, Protestant.

But that wasn't the only interesting paradox. I love this line. As a kid, I could see that the Hewsons tended to live in their heads while the Rankins were at home in their bodies. Mm-hmm. This is right. You came into this world in that third space. Yeah, even my father, though, you know, he himself embodied those contradictions and enjoyed them so he's working

class from the uh dub as we say in ireland from dublin he's a dub he's like from the center of the city a place called cow town and he's catholic but working class guy what's but he's Catholic, but working class guy, but he's listening to opera. Right. He's playing cricket. He is, I mean, this is like, what? And no strong accent either. Yeah, yeah. And he just, and then he starts dating my mother, who's a Protestant.

And in those days, that was not a good look for him. And at that point, if he'd been up north would have been the other way around so my father's even view of nationalism was interesting and he used to here's another one he used to say you'd be very careful about nationalism and you know Ireland's about to burst into paramilitary flames at this point. And he would say things like, what is Ireland? Ireland is the place that keeps my feet from getting wet. Yeah, that's right. Sing, you, that's, sing said that.

He'd be referring to the playwright, sing. So we went looking for that quote. That didn't exist either. And so either I made it up in my imagination or my dad made it up. I like to think it runs in the family. But you write what you need to hear. Yeah.

And, but, you know, so he enjoyed that contradiction. And then I've been telling people this over the release of the book we used to sit in a pub in in the local village where we live now finnigan's in dorky and we'd sit on a sunday my father would come and sit and i'd sort of we kind of look at each other and sort of not talk about what was going on and he would order the cath, he'd order Bushmills, which is a Protestant whiskey from County Antrim. Already, you know, he's just, he's not going to be ever, don't ever take me for granted for where I am or who I am. And I have that. And he also had the presence. He had enough of that in him to make sure that we were protected going to church.

He would drive us to the little Protestant church. I mean, it was a small little church called St. Canis's. And he'd drop us off there because my mother was Protestant. And so if she wanted to bring us up that way, that was going to be fine. Then he would just drive the, you know, it's like 100 yards up the road to go to St. Canis' Catholic Church. I mean, it's so mad. But he had the character to say,

I will do that, and, you know, he would honour our difference, I suppose, is what you'd call it. So I did learn that from him. I learned things I don't want to do from him also, but I learned some good things. So he, I really liked him. He's a lot of fun, isn't he?

Well, yeah, he really, he kind of dared you with his paradoxical ways. Yeah. Yeah, he kind of like said, You're a baritone. Who thinks he's a tenor? That was his line. And it's very accurate.

It's a put down. But it's very, very accurate. And so he had this kind of confrontational thing when Ali was pregnant with our first child, we came home, and it was a big emotional moment for us. Our first, she's pregnant, we walked in,

he just goes, ha-ha, revenge. And, you know... Yeah. But, yeah, it was, you know, I obviously craved my father's attention. He was lost to music, but he didn't seem to notice it in me so much. And so I just started, the more he ignored me, the louder and louder I became. And that's where those lungs came from, Brené.

It's like, and, you know, I sang my way to right beside you here. I have to say that I also really love this kind of defied description push-pull of Iris, your mom. She was like so practical and so frugal, master seamstress, but could get overwhelmed with and by laughter in a heartbeat. Yeah, there's a scene in the book where my father was a great DIY man and he's up making the shelves and

wardrobes and I'm in the kitchen with my mother and I just hear him. And he runs out and you know, Iris, Iris, you know, he says, get, call an ambulance. And after straightening himself and he's standing at the top of the stairs with an electric drill in his groin like that. And my mother's like, oh, and I'm like, oh my God, this giant tree of 10 Cedar Road is about to be felled in front of my very eyes. And I'm looking at him and she's looking at him. She's about to pick up the phone and she just starts laughing. And he's like standing there like and uh and you know he didn't castrate himself but I think part of her wished he did

but so she had that sort of very you know laughing in church thing and and, you know, laughing in church thing. And she, you know, what's the story? I ended up in Mount Temple Comprehensive where I met Ali and the band. But before that, I went to St. Patrick's Grammar School briefly. It didn't work out well for either of us. But in the interview with the headmaster, my mother was there, and St. Patrick's Cathedral Grammar School had a very famous choir, a boys choir. And Mr. Horner, I remember his name was

the headmaster. And he said, now, Paul, have you any interest in singing? As you know, we've a world-famous choir here. And I remember my throat going dry and I remember this feeling inside me. If you've got the thing, whatever the thing is, you sort of know something's in there. And I knew

I had something. And I knew I wanted to sing. And I was trying to get it out. And my mother goes, no, he's not interested in singing at all, Mr. Horner. And that was the end of that. And now it's very easy to say that my mother was out of touch with her son. Not at all. I think she was in touch with me and she saw my discomfort and she covered for me.

But she was just a very practical person. My mother I get, but my father's a little harder to explain. You would think that he would really encourage his kids to be involved in the music, that he was so betrothed to himself. That is a hard one to explain. In the book, I suggest that he sort of didn't recommend people having dreams because to dream was to be disappointed. Yeah.

And I think this part of him was protecting me. You know, looking at my father now, I realize that I must not have been a comfortable presence. Not just that I was really annoying and loud and a smart arse, but I was doing all the things that he wanted to. And that can happen with your kids. How are yours? My kids are good. And I have to say sometimes every now and then when I feel like being small in my career, I remember a quote by, again Jung who said the greatest tragedy for every child is

the unlived life of their parent Yeah, and so then I think now I got to do my thing but I much preferred him to Freud By a shit ton as we would say here yeah Using buy a shit ton, as we would say here. You've met Richard Rohr, haven't you? Yeah. Franciscan friar. He is the greatest gift to the world of theology and thinking. And I'm writing to him.

I've started on my way here. I'm going to be going past where he lives. I've had the pleasure of meeting him. But he quotes Carl Jung. Is it in Falling Upwards? Falling Upwards. And he says that not only, this is an approximate, this doesn't sound very Carl Jung-ish,

but not only are the things that brought you success in the first half of your life no use to you in the second half of your life, they actually, they get in your way. Do you believe that? Hell yes. Do you want to hear something really weird? If that wasn't... No, I mean, no. I mean, y'all want to know something really weird? Page 10 of my notes, six quotes by Richard Rohr that I wanted to ask you about. Wow. Yeah.

Richard Rohr on St. Francis. Richard Rohr on death. Yeah. I went out to see him. Crazy. And he lives in the desert he's a Franciscan friar he lives out in the desert in Albuquerque and I was really taken by it

it's called the Centre for Action and Contemplation and I really like that order because it's just so contrarian because normally you're supposed to really contemplate before you act. I mean, you know, of course. Theoretically, yeah.

But I just like that about him. And he's the most, yeah, he's a very inspirational figure. I read him and I can't claim to understand everything he's written, but he is, he's on a, he's on a whole other level really. And I, I don't know if you agree with this and maybe this is off topic and please cut it out. But as you know, I've been, I've never found a church I could really feel too comfortable in. And I think that's okay for me. I'm part of a liquid church. I don't mean the pub.

Jack Heaslip, Father Jack, used to say, no, you know, we've got this community on the road, you know. But I am finding myself more and more attracted to being in more formal sacred spaces. And even though I'm suspicious of kind of, I'm kind of finding myself going in the back of cathedrals and enjoying the symbolism. And they're not any one denomination or anything I I'm sure I would feel equally at home in a synagogue or or whatever but I'm is there anyone else out there missing ritual ceremony the routine the dance I suppose and these metaphors I I love stuff like baptism

I'm like wow that's such a powerful thing you know you just we're under the water you died he's have you come back up and and I love weddings I went to a Irish weddings are mental by the way and there are more people having sex at the wedding then the couple, I mean, in the room. It's mad. I mean, people are very, you know, very sexed up at weddings. Very moved by the tradition.

Very moved by the tradition. Anyway, this was not happening at this wedding, or maybe it was, but a friend of ours was getting married, and they're, you know, very kind of clever people and quite sophisticated in their approach to life. And I was taken aback. They had a very traditional wedding. And the bride kneeled and the groom kneeled.

And they took their vows. And I was like, wow, I didn't expect it of these people. They're like, you know, hipsters and kind of, whoo. And I said it to the mother of the bride, who is a family friend. And she said, you know, this has been going around. It's taken about 2,000 years, but they've really got this one figured out by now. And don't you think it's like some of these ceremonies have an economy of design about them that's really attractive and I'm as I said I

don't come from that religious background it's a different thing from where I you know but I just wondered if people are missing that in their life, that let's call it a dance or something else, or just a way to negotiate this, the madness of the moment we are all in. I'm sure everyone agrees, this is mad. And it's, these are, I know everybody thinks their time that they've grown up in is compromise and things have never been this bad. The young people don't know. And no, they do. Young people really do know.

They know this is mad. People are not having kids, young couples, because they think it's mad. They're, you know, where's the future? Where are we going? And this negotiating modernity, I just wonder. I mean, some of the most inspirational people in my life are atheists and committed atheists. Brian Eno has called himself just in the last week to me, I'm an evangelical atheist, he says.

And he said, but I'm dating a Christian to see what it's like. And he just said this this week. And so I'm in awe of the fearlessness and the courage for people to negotiate their lives with the idea that this is it. So let's not get this wrong. And I really respect that. But I think these empty churches, these empty chapels, these empty cathedrals,

these empty town halls, school halls, I think there might be a use for them in the way that there hasn't been for a long time, where people just love to sing together to choral singing have you are you aware of the artist as devlin she works with you too on our on our stuff she's an amazing artist in her own right and she's just done this thing in london but she's doing it in different cities she get her get her to Austin. She's taking all the species that are endlings, you know,

that are dying, and making these sculptures with them, sort of drawings of them. She did one as a mirror image of St. Paul's Cathedral, and then brought these choirs to sing, because choral singing, we don't hear it. In Europe

we hear it at football matches which i do love yeah i know i do too you're gonna get your fucking heads kicked in yeah um there no it's very liturgical what's that it's the soccer games it's very liturgical it's very call and response very from my catholic upbringing right yeah and you're gonna get your fucking head knocked in but then there's a response it's so nice now whilst i can avoid you're going to get your fucking head knocked in, but then there's a response. It's so nice. Now, whilst I can avoid you're going to get your effing hands kicked in, especially if it's my head that's going to get kicked in, but anyway, I just love people singing in the terraces, like Irish rugby games, Welsh rugby games.

Oh my God. Oh God. games and Welsh rugby games. Oh my god. Anyway, all of this just to say that this place that I wasn't comfortable in, I'm not completely comfortable in, but I'm much more attracted to whatever the parade and whatever the procession. Yeah. I'm really attracted to this in a way that I wasn't. And, yeah. I think that's, for sure it's true for me, but I think there is some second half of life there about,

I was listening to 90,000 people sing, I'm a Liverpool fan, but. Wow. Yeah, so I was listening to 90,000 people sing I'm a Liverpool fan but wow yeah so I was listening to them sing you'll never walk again oh no that's not how it goes um you but I was like and my husband was like what are you doing I, I think I miss church. Right. And he's like, at Anfield? And I said, just mostly the call and response, the liturgical, the rhythm, the in communion with. Just not the power over and

the church bullshit part. I just didn't have you down for... Just the people part. I didn't have you down for singing in the terrace, Brené. This is... This is great. All right. Just, I hope y'all love this conversation like I love this conversation.

Part two next week. If you are looking for links to the book, you can find them on brenébrown.com where we keep all of the podcast notes. Just look under Unlocking Us. I really, really recommend the book. I mean, if you're a YouTube fan, you won't be able to put it down, but even if you're not, it's just, it's incredible. And the audio, I read the book and listened to the audio. Both are incredible. I will see you next week with part two.

Stay awkward, brave, and kind. Rock on. Unlocking Us is produced by Brene Brown Education and Research Group. The music is by Keri Rodriguez and Gina Chavez. Get new episodes as soon as they're published by following Unlocking Us on your favorite podcast app. We are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. What software do you use at work? The answer to that question is probably more complicated than you want it to be. The average US company deploys more than 100 apps, and ideas about the work we do can be radically changed by the tools we use to do it.

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