Each weekly interview features a well-known and/or well-respected leader in the fields of spirituality and/or emotional development.  The focus of the interviews is the topic of LOVE — the interviews look at love from various angles and from within various contexts.

I’ve greatly enjoyed the handful of interviews I’ve listened to.  For the most part, the content is really solid, helpful and coming from a deep, mature place.  I certainly haven’t agreed with everything, but I’ve certainly appreciated many of the thoughts/insights.

There may not be a topic as important as LOVE; in particular, how to grow in our ability to give and receive love.

An interview I listened to recently was with Warren Farrell (in photo at left), author of The Myth of Male Power, and I highly recommend listening to the interview, especially if you have interest in gender, gender roles and how gender is related to giving and receiving love.

Also, I really appreciated Farrell’s spirit — he seems like a deeply mature, loving guy.

You can listen to ALL of the interviews online — browse the archive.  (You may have to register first, which is free.)

Note:  The interviewees come from various spiritual traditions, and they use some language (words) that may be unfamiliar to you and may tweak you.  I encourage you to try to not get distracted by unfamiliar language/words — try to stay focused on the meat (the main points) of the interviews.  There’s a lot of tasty meat!

Here are some of my favorite Daytrotter sessions:

Local Natives

Mates of State

Bonnie Prince Billy (2008) & Bonnie Prince Billy (2010)

Bon Iver

Ingrid Michaelson (in illustration at left)

That’ll get ya started.  There’s SO MUCH MORE.  Check out the session archives.  Let me know who/what you like!

I’ve given money (and still do) to organizations that fight poverty.  Do I know that the organizations are going to use my money effectively to alleviate poverty?  No.  I simply hope and pray that the organizations are using effective strategies and that my money will somehow make a difference.  It feels like gambling, in some sense.

But what works, what strategies alleviate poverty?  Why haven’t we figured this out yet?

In her compelling and enlightening TED Talk (see video below), Esther Duflo says we can find out which strategies are best, and to do that, we need to do more social experiments.  Duflo gives specific examples of social experiments in Africa that have produced valuable insights.

The third season features Zane (skateboarder, age 13), Javon (skateboarder, age 16) and Sean (BMX biker, age 13).  These kids are very different from each other, but all three are inspiring, really, truly inspiring.  Perhaps the thing that inspired me the most is their fearlessness.

Below is the first episode of season three.