Shh. I'm experiencing a moment.
We talk a lot about "living in the moment" as a personal goal or a technique for mindfulness. I think most of our team was able to do this on our company retreat: there's something about Kalamata skies that helps you slow down and experience the here and now. As if God himself were talking to you through the clouds.
It's appropriate, then, that we also spent a lot of time on our retreat talking about moments. Or at least podcasting moments. How we process a file of audio and break it down in our minds. What a visual representation of a moment might mean.
Not unlike a bookshelf, or a playlist, each of us have a list of audio moments in our head that speak to our tastes and personality. We might not have a great place to showcase them yet, but they're buried in there somewhere.
I've been reflecting on a few of my favorite podcasting recently. I think they would include:
This love story on "This American Life." John Perry Barlow recalls meeting his fiancée at a tech conference at the Moscone center and then... the moment he lost her. (CW: This is quite the listen if you hear it on a plane, like I did.)
Augustin Trapenard's interview with Audrey Tautou (French), where she share her favorite poem: Femmes et Hommes by Julos Beaucarne.
Ezra Klein's sharing of his wife's difficulties during pregnancy — an uncharacteristically personal plea from the political commentator that we stop and think about the implications of Texas's recent abortion law.
My memory is fuzzy when it comes to the content that surrounded these moments. A quick Google search reminds me Ira Glass was talking about Conventions (in all senses of the word.) Audrey Tautou was most certainly promoting a recent film. Ezra's guest shared a wealth of information on the technicalities of Texas's law and its implications for American women writ large.
I think the best podcasters structure their show in a way that lends itself to moments — they strive to hit certain beats and provide the constraints that unleash a guest's creativity. But sometimes the best moments are, by nature, unpredictable.
Either way, what sticks in my heart — as a listener — are those moments. The pieces of audio where the host or guest's voice takes on a different tone and signals subtly, "listen up."
If you had your own playlist of audio clips, what would it include?
Wishing you a Friday full of moments in the present,
Alicia