Wild Card with Rachel Martin - Kate Bowler wants to tame her inner efficiency monster

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Duke professor Kate Bowler was 35 years old when she was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. Her memoir about the experience, "Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved," became a New York Times bestseller. She now hosts the podcast, "Everything Happens." She talks to Rachel about accepting that religion won't give you all the answers and learning how not to be an "efficiency monster."To listen sponsor-free, access bonus episodes and support the show, sign up for Wild Card+ at plus.npr.org/wildcard See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Do you think there's any part of us that lives on after we die? Yes, 100%. Absolutely. Which part? The eyeballs, mostly. They're the last to decompose. You know, there's all the stuffness of our bodies, but there's this incredible durability to how we think about the soul.

I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard, the show where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life. pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one and to flip one question back on me. My guest this week is author and professor and podcaster Kate Bowler. Love and mystery have gotten me farther, I think, down the road than certainty did. But I do miss certainty.

You know when something bad happens in life and people around you don't really know what to say to make it feel better? And some of them think that the trick to fixing it is to tell you that there must be something, lesson that you're supposed to learn from the bad thing or that your suffering is okay because it's all part of some grand universal plan. We all know those people and they mean well, they do, but when your world falls apart, the last thing you want to hear is that it's all supposed to be that way. This is the gospel of Kate Bowler. Kate is a New York Times bestselling author, a professor at the Divinity School at Duke University, a native of the great country of Canada, and the host of the podcast, Everything Happens.

I first met Kate in 2018 when I interviewed her for her memoir that she had just written about dealing with a stage four cancer diagnosis when she was about 35 years old. She writes about all the not-so-helpful things that people said and did to try and help her get through it. Kate refers to those sentiments as toxic positivity, which happens because there is too much pressure in American culture to find the silver lining in things that just,

suck. Kate Bowler, welcome to Wildcart. I'm Rachel. I'm so glad to see you. It's true. When we first met, I was very, very sick and possibly dying, but mostly like, oh my gosh, it's Rachel Martin. I'm so excited. Oh, for God's sakes. You were my very first interview, and I have super creepy photos of me just like basically cheerleader hugging you or trying to be the big spoon. So it's really good to see you again. Oh, my gosh. It's been a lot of living has happened for you since then. A lot of actual life that you didn't think you were going to have. That's right. And career stuff. And same hair length. I mean, it's all, it comes, it goes.

Well, I'm so glad you were willing to do this with me. I'm excited. So we're going to get to the game in just a minute. But first, I want to talk about what I just laid out there. I introduced you with this whole idea of toxic positivity and the things that we try to tell each other to just like, you know, it's all going to be fine. Where are you on your journey with that? Because, Kate, you are, you're an incredibly positive person. I mean, you are. Like, your whole thing is, like, so positive.

Right. I hear you. That is probably true. I think where I'm really hoping, because American cultural scripts are very limiting. Like, I have read, for instance, as part of a research project I'm doing, every bestseller for the last 50 years. And I will tell you that the cultural prescriptions that we read are, I mean, pretty blindingly optimistic. They're like, hope you don't feel sad because that would mean there's something wrong with you, you, you. So I'm really hoping, I guess, as part of

living into a better cultural story is that we can really learn to ride the roller coaster up and down, that we can feel the incredible highs and the joys and the, of like, humor and hilarity, but that we can also get a lot more comfortable with confusion, dread, you know, that we can go, we can go into the depths with people. Because I think that's where, I mean, this is a psychologist Lisa DeMore's true definition of mental health is that you can feel the appropriate emotion at the right time. And so high or low, I really hope that we can round out our experience of emotion. of emotion. So it's not a warning against framing things in a positive light. No. And in fact,

I mean, I think part of our ability to be hopeful or courageous is to be able to see the places in our life where we actually can't change. It's just there has to be more space between the idea that we all, American culture loves to say like everything is possible. And they worry that if they don't say everything is possible, that they'll be forced into saying nothing is possible. and then they're just sort of French existentialists smoking in the back of the train. But like there is a place in between of like limited agency. And I want to stay there. Like what is possible today, what can be done with what we have with our short, limited, beautiful, dumb lives.

We're going to play a game. I'm excited. Are you? I'm so excited. Okay. Here are the first three cards. And you pick one, two, or three. Two, please.

What's our tradition? or ritual that feels unique to your family. Well, in the spring, my dad was always too lazy to clean the eaves troughs. Sorry, what's the American word? Gutters. Oh, gutter. Yeah, yeah, gutter. Evers sounds way better.

That's well. The eaves trough. We had to climb a ladder to reach the eaves where all the morning doves, huge families of morning doves were always dead. And so my dad would send all of his little girls up on ladders to clean the gutters. This is your family ritual? Yep. Every spring, my dad was too lazy and too determined to teach his little girls a work ethic. So we would climb the ladders and cry for all the birds we'd lost that year.

And that is so burned into my mind as part of our spring ritual. Take that, dad. But did it give you, are you good with the fifth? physical world, Kate? Are you like that you can see a thing that needs to be done around your house? And you're like, I will go clean those gutters. I will go mow the lawn. I'm married into this family, which belongs to this religious group called the Mennonites, and they are insanely practical. Like they're the people who will, if they see IKEA flat pack furniture lying dormant in the universe, they will build it. So I did feel like I joined a tribe of people who are like, oh, like, tut-tut.

Like, is that, you know, just always like testing the structural integrity of drawers? You know, running a hand over the drywall to see if the spackling is smooth. And you're like, stop judging me. So I, like last Thanksgiving, I was very, very sad for unnamed reasons. And so I built a, I built a barrel sauna in my backyard, my sauna of sadness. So yeah, I think I came out kind of practical. You did? I did.

With my Mennonite husband, we built our giant, our sauna of despair. I won't make you tell me right now what was so sad, but does hot steam make you happier? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Oh, interesting. It's like a little confessional in there. You're just like coming to my dark, dank chamber of infinite sorrow. So it's great.

It's my favorite place. Okay. Okay, sauna of despair. We're moving. One, two, or three? One, please. One. What's an early memory of appreciating beauty? Oh. Um, I love Canadian lakes. And so we have, my parents put me in this ridiculous survivor camp when I was young. called Pioneer Camp and you didn't get anything that was nice about camp you just got the outdoor part but the best part is you'd get up like so six in the morning

and you see the mist on the lake and you can always hear like the distinctiveness like at dusk and dawn of the loons and they're weird like booby little sound I think they're the most beautiful weirdest bird on earth

so yeah I think Canadian and lakes will always, always make me think that the world is good. This is round two, okay? So first round was memories. This is insights. Three new cards. One, two, or three? One. One. What do you wish you could let go of? I would love to say a certain regret, because regrets are one of my very favorite topics. I mean, go there. Because I think you think like me that we have them and they exist. Absolutely.

And people who think they don't have them are diluting themselves? Exactly. Yes. Exactly. I think one of the funniest things about American culture is there absolute insistence that there's some kind of relationship between having regrets and not, and then A, not growing or B, not being willing to reframe it. Like a regret is something they just haven't reframed. Geez, Louise, there are so many things we should all regret. I mean, things I ate yesterday at 2 a.m.

Absolutely. But Kate, that cold pizza made you who you are today, so we can't regret it. This is the end of the celebrity interview moment. And it made me who I am today. I couldn't possibly regret my doping scandal. Oh, my gosh. Okay, but since this is the product of a question that was, what's something you want to let go of. Tell me the answer to that. No, that can be a regret or a

trait or however you interpret that. I would love to let go of always, I mean, I think it's something I write about all the time because I'm always really struggling with it is that cultural insistence that we always have to be getting better. I'd love to give up. the idea that in every area of my life, I'm supposed to, you know, come the new year, always have this New Year's moment. But I always end up looking at my life like at some kind of quadrant with, you know, progress and mostly dramatic and sudden failures. And so I just, I am always accidentally measuring, measuring, measuring, measuring, measuring, measuring. And I don't think that's, I think we're supposed to get worse at some things because we're not paying any

attention to it and we found something better to focus on. I wish for everyone that they didn't wake up and think about how much they weigh in the morning. I mean, just what a waste of time. Yeah. Waste of a good woman over here. It's just caring. Yeah. So now I go one step deeper and ask you to share if you would be willing to. One thing, besides like the, besides getting on the scale. Sure. So what's a thing that you find yourself measuring yourself with or against that you want to release? Okay. There's a way of measuring a day that I've been trying desperately to stop doing, and I can't seem to do it.

And it's, it started so long ago that I don't even, I think it was probably the first time I really started thinking about efficiency and treating my life like a Ford Motor company. But when I wake up in the day, I know exactly how many hours it takes me to do some of the most important things that I want to do. Like, I know exactly how long writing should take me for a certain number of words. And that served me really well when I had cancer. I mean, I was like, okay, this is the amount of time I have. This is the amount of energy I have. Like, how do I spend my life? But the metaphor of spending is really corrosive.

So then I find it much more different. difficult to actually focus on some of the really lovely things that I actually need in my life that are not very measurable. Like, I don't read not useful things very often because I'm always trying to put in the time it takes to make the thing I want to make. And so the only way I have, I think, a lot of growth in that area is friends. I can spend an, like, I will waste my life with my friends all day long. But when it comes to me, I would love to have more just like uncounted, completely wasted, doesn't matter time. And I'm so judgy, so judgy with myself.

I have only hopeful feelings that other people will waste their time. But I find it almost impossible for me to waste my time. And I think just I got worse like this when I got sick. And now I'm an efficiency monster and I can't do it. Yeah. But that's it. Especially if you're facing a diagnosis like that, time becomes this. It's just thinking about it all the time.

Three more cards. This is the last one in this round. One, two, three. Two, is there anything you long for? Mm-hmm. All right, young lady. I pick thee. You have to answer it.

Oh, flippity for lippers. I like this card because I like to say the word long for. the two words together. I like the what it evokes. I haven't quite mapped out what that means for me and my answer. Here's the truth, Kate. I am pretty longing free right now. Hey, all right. I have gone through chapters of deep, deep longing. But, you know, I'm, you know, I'm okay. I don't, I'm like, I've gone through some grief. I've lost both my parents and I had for years a deep longing for that not to be so. And, and I've had deep longings about, you know, having a family and I got to do that. I've had deep longings on behalf of other people, wanting other people in

my life to be happier. So I feel like I've gotten on the other side of, a lot of what I defined as longing in my own life. And that feels pretty good right now. I mean, I can always like spin off into the existential, like, what do I long for? A peaceful world. What do I long for? For people of different opinions to get in a room and like hug. Yes, I long for these things. But just on a deep personal level, I am not. I'm not. longing right now. And that feels nice. So thank you for asking me. I clearly needed to vent about that because I got all... And now you still have to answer it. Oh, shoot. Okay. I had a very embarrassing situation happened a couple weeks ago, which I think answers this question.

I had like a marketing company come and look at all this stuff that me and my team makes over and everything happens. We make a lot of like curriculum and, you know, podcasts, but we make a lot of stuff. And we were like, could you help us focus and create better public language around what we do? And they were like, yeah, totally. We'll do a huge deep dive on who you are and blah, blah, blah. And then they put together this absolutely beautiful. presentation about it in front of my entire team and just picture like a very large room full of everyone, including everyone's friend and mom, et cetera. And they go, they're like,

welcome. And they're so good. And they're so good at what they do with this. And they go, welcome. Weaving people come to you. And it was like a picture of me. And it was like, because you are. And it wasn't they are. It was you are. Because you are. Next slide. Lonely. That was the marketing takeaway? That was absolutely spot on. It was like, you are, quote, deeply lonely. I have never seen my own longings in existential angst set to a PowerPoint before. On a screen, just on the one slide.

Enormous. And everybody looked in me, and I was like, damn. Wow. So horrifying about it. It was like, because you seek next slide, belonging. And I was like, screw you. And they were like, is that right? And I was like, oh, can we do this?

Can we do this in private? This is so funny. And this is, I think, partly why. I love Vivick, you know, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's stuff on loneliness because I'm like, one, totally. I am a really lonely person. And I mean, I have wonderful friends and blah, blah, blah. But like that deep. things happen and who and who will I be able to have what I need in the worst moments in my life?

Why does my life continue to stay hard? Aren't I too much when I go through the terrible thing? I mean, that like heartbeat of ache and sadness that really, really has gotten, you know, pretty loud during diagnostic stages of my life. I just thought it was absolutely wild that strangers. Doing a survey. Could look at me and be like, We see you. Oh, they were right.

They were right. They were right. And so I'm trying to, I guess, maybe be a little more comfortable with being honest about that. Thank you for sharing that. Well, that was my tray, honest answer, because it was on a PowerPoint. We're moving into the last round. Three new cards. One, two, or three.

Three, please. Three. Have your feelings about God changed over time. Do you ask everyone this? That's a real question in the deck. I love it. That's, okay, new favorite question. Yes.

I asked Seth Myers and he said no. He did know? They remained incredibly consistent. Never believed, still don't end of story. That's amazing. That's great. Um, yes. I, I used to think of Christianity as an answer factory. And I always loved those books that were like, do you have questions? The Bible has answers. I was like, oh, how satisfying? And it was probably my favorite thing about my parents becoming Christians a little bit later in life is they were so smart and they really thought of their faith as an extension of their curiosity.

So I thought, man, this is just the right place for questions, but also answers and most importantly, answers. I think when I got sick and I didn't, and my life was coming apart and I couldn't come up with a single reason why it would be me and not somebody else. Or conversely, why I would be special enough at all that that was even the right question. I started to feel like my answer factory version was just, I mean, I started to think of it, I started calling it like another prosperity gospel, like the idea that you think your life should be happy, healthy, wealthy, and that God's always going to create a mourness, even if the mourness is a kind of an emotional or intellectual satisfaction. And instead, sometimes what you mostly just get is love and mystery. So love and mystery have gotten me farther.

I think down the road than certainty did. But I do miss certainty. It was a lot more fun and I was better at trivial pursuit. Wait, how is certainty? It feels reassuring, but it actually doesn't sound that fun. Totally. Also, like, are there great mysterious questions of the universe? Would they be good questions if someone had already answered them?

We just had linked it up. No, no. Did you know the problem of evil has been solved? Boom! Right. That's not fun at all. I wouldn't have a show. It'd just be Rachel Martin answers, period.

Right. So very short. But in all, I just want one more tap on this because people who do not prescribe to a religion or spiritual tradition or don't believe in a. in a higher power or a deity. How do you explain why the mystery gives you security? How does not having the answer to things make you feel better? Yeah. Well, I would say there's no...

Security is pretty low on the list of things that faith will give you. I mean, because if you just, I mean, you think about any analogy for love, like you love somebody, it's the most unsafe thing in the world. I mean, you love, you love and you love and you love, and they'll never be enough, and you're loving in the face of knowing that you will always in every version lose them or they will lose you. So there's nothing safe about love. And I think that's just true about, as true about God as it is about other people is we can have a great experience of the adventure of feeling like made for love and released out into a dangerous world with the purpose of loving others. But none of it, I think, will feel secure.

And I really understand why people want to turn to faith as a source of comfort, sure. But safety, security, no, we're stuck with the same questions as everybody else. So I feel deeply loved by God and also deeply confused by most of what happens on this earth. And that seems probably like sanity. Now I'm wishing there's a card I wish had come up. But I feel like you would have. What confuses you in a wonderful way? And I feel like you would have had good answers to that question.

Sporks. Spork. Sporks. Okay. Three more cards. One, two, or three. Three. Do you think there's any part of us that lives on after we die?

Yes, 100%. Absolutely. Which part? The eyeballs, mostly. They're the last to decabon. I mean, it's so funny. There's a, I have, do you have a, if you're ever interested in having a favorite poet mortician. I have one. His name is Thomas Lynch. A poet mortician. Yeah, he, by day,

mortician, by night. Very good poet. That is a fascinating combo. I can hear it. He's a lot of fun to talk about this question with about like what remains. And the like, and even a way, because, you know, there's all the stuffness of our bodies, but there's this like incredible durability to how we think about the soul. And really, it's even in just how we, just how we we remember people, like, what made them this and not that? Like, what odd specificity, like, made that person's laugh and made that, like, wicked part of their sense of humor, like, shine or pissed you off like nobody else? And I just think there's this delicious, distilled absurdity, this, like, tragic comedy that is us.

And I think that pressed into the rare diamond that is our soul. we just that gets to that just gets to live forever do you have you had close people die and how do you feel them how do you sense that soul is that what you do you do constant hauntings constant hauntings are you being serious i really don't believe in hauntings some people i don't know rachel's like this took a weird turn i'm happy to go there with you no i um yes i've had close people die. And I, I really, like my belief in heaven is that we are just, the, the truth of us is carried forward in love, and we get to, and we get to, I mean, we can talk to them whenever we want to. We can feel their love shine on us. We can, but I, I don't know. How much does

your son know about your diagnosis and do you talk to him about death and what that looks like and what happens after people die? What would happen after you died? I always try to be really, I mean, Zach is like the bull's eye of my heart. He's like the core of the core. And I think I was most nervous about anything related to my illness or death or even just other people talking about heaven because I really wanted to be super careful about how he understood. I mean, kind of what we believe as Christians, but also whether he should be scared for me, his mom. And so I always bought these little like dolls with anatomical organs.

And I was like, right now I have a mistake in this. And then we'd like take it out and be like, this is a colon. It is God's food tube. I found that the more like concrete and physical and specific I got, it would feel like just the death being a failure of your organs. All those things would feel a lot easier for him to understand. Because when I was the sickest, he was the littlest. And as he aged, I was significantly better. And so I've always been really careful about how sick he believes that I am at any time.

But I've always wanted him to know in every version, like, this God we love means that when it comes to love, we will never be a part. We'll never be a part. And also, I don't want to go anywhere in which I can't smell your skin. feel your ridiculous chubby hand on my face and watch you accidentally lock yourself in handcuffs and walk past my office 200 times while I'm working. Heaven is nothing compared to you. So I've always been so disappointed by stories of the afterlife because it is not. It's not a story of putting Zach to bed.

So, yeah, that's been always the hardest. because I keep having health problems and in every version I have to be the one that decides how scared everyone is so I've tried to take it really slow Yeah That's also a lot of pressure though

Because it doesn't allow you to just be scared Because you have to think about how your own fear is going to then trickle down and affect everybody else And I'm really resentful of the way most people of faith Talk about Heaven as a solution to the problem of pain And we say it to kids And I just think it's wrong

It's not a solution. It's an ultimate story of togetherness and the restoration in the world. It is not a comfort. It is not a comfort to people who are told that it will solve every problem. It won't. Pain isn't solved by love. It's not. Oh, God.

No. No. So I just want to like, I want him to know this story of faith as one where kind, reasonable people learn how to love each other better. And also ultimately, he will always be known and loved by God and by me. So that's usually the best I can do. So we end the show the same way every time with a trip in our memory time machine, where you go back in time and you pick one moment that you would not change anything about.

A moment from your past, you would not change anything about you would just like to linger there a little longer. What moment do you choose? Well, I have a photograph of it, which is my very, because you never have a photograph of the exact moment that you would never want to leave. But it's the moment that my son asked, what his plans were going to be after he graduated, but he meant kindergarten. And he thought after five and a half, he was going to be fully let off the hook to live as he pleased.

A man about town. Go free. A man of leisure. And I have frozen in my mind the look of like, what the what? That spread across his face when I was like, dude, you've got twosier. 12 more years of this indentured servitude. Because my life is end the school and just watching the true horror show of me being like, you're stuck with me, kid, while he ate cereal in his dinosaur pajamas.

That is, he is the most absurd person I will ever meet. And I like, I like being his co-conspirator. That's a good one. And that's also a little devilish, Kate. that you wanted to revisit the moment of your boy's pain. But he looks, you know, why I want the look of loving,

why have you done this to me? Why? Why? Why? To just be a part of all my relationships. Kate Bowler is a New York Times bestselling author, professor at the Divinity School at Duke, and she is the host of the podcast.

Everything happens. Kate, thank you so much. Oh my pleasure. If you liked this episode, you should listen to the episode I did with author Anne Patchett. She was funny and wise, and I still think about what she said, about being able to sort of curate her Catholic faith.

Check it out. For Wild Card Plus this week, Kate Bowler tells me why jokes feel like prayer to her. I think to me that is like anything that combines honesty with humor is my very favorite thing. You can hear that answer by signing up for Wild Card Plus, which is a great way to support our show and public radio and listen sponsor-free. Find out more at Plus. npr.org slash wildcard. This episode was produced by Lee Hale and Romel Wood and edited by Dave Flanter.

It was mastered by Robert Rodriguez. Wildcard's executive producer is Beth Donovan. Our theme music is by Rom Teen Arablewy. You can reach out to us at Wildcard at npr.org. We'll shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. See you then.