What is a Good Life? #136
Rootedness in a Changing World with Aadita Chaudhury
On the 136th episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I’m delighted to welcome our guest, Aadita Chaudhury. Aadita is a researcher, writer and arts practitioner inhabiting the intersection of the arts, science, ecology, and spirituality. She is interested in perspectives from the Global South in relation to technoscientific imaginaries, decolonial, feminist and working-class social movements. Aadita has conducted research in the US, Canada, the UK, Italy, India and Mexico. Her academic and public work has appeared in International Relations, Conservation Letters and Al Jazeera.
In this conversation, Aadita explores the themes of rootedness, belonging, and identity amidst a rapidly changing world. She reflects on her journey through liminal spaces, the impact of cultural expectations, and the quest for enough-ness. The discussion delves into the implications of human exceptionalism, the importance of direct communication, and the value of community connections.
Ultimately, Aadita defines a good life as one that embraces honesty, embodiment, and the emergent flux of reality.
The weekly clip from the podcast (3 mins), my weekly reflection (3 mins), the full podcast (72 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip From The Podcast
2. My Weekly Reflection
When it comes to knowing what we want to do with our lives, I think we’ve got it a bit ass-backward. Listening back to my interview with Aadita this week and reading a book on death and grieving, something dawned on me.
In this interview, Aadita laments the overly polite nature of people when they don’t actually mean it—how it would be preferable just to hear the truth or for people to be more direct.
It takes more time and energy to decipher who is being real, and I think we can all relate to that uneasiness on some level.
In the book I was reading, it was suggested that if we take the time to regularly process the smaller losses in life, we build our capacity to engage with the storm of grief that accompanies the loss of someone we love.
I suggested in the interview that this overly polite communication—and the wider habit of doing what is expected of us—is a big part of what gets us lost in our own lives.
We end up making so many choices that conform to the structures within which we are raised that we lose our instincts for what we actually want or prefer.
We then fool ourselves into thinking that the “freedom” of choice we have reflects who we truly are, when in reality it boils down to what is already on offer.
Are you a Coke or Pepsi person? Android or iPhone? United or City?
We end up filling our lives with so many activities that I am convinced many of us don’t want to do, but we comply to save face or avoid a perceived awkward interaction.
We lose contact with our own compass.
None of this is a scathing judgment—it’s all very understandable. We naturally don’t like to alienate ourselves from the group, and when we’ve become used to structure and “certainty,” the freedom and unknown that exist beyond those walls are daunting.
However, when it comes to understanding what we want to do with our lives, we ignore the fact that we live a life others expect of us, rarely letting our true preferences and expressions be known, let alone making choices that go against the grain.
We jump straight to the big questions of “What is my purpose?” “What do I value?” before ever living our own lives.
We reduce these questions to weekend seminars or expect them to fall out of an exercise we read in a book—which is probably why we expect an answer before we have had any experience of living that answer.
It’s how we end up saying, “My dream job is…” when we haven’t spent a single day in that field, or “My biggest value is…” when our time, attention, and focus suggest otherwise.
What I have noticed from interviewing over 300 people around this question, and indeed from my own life, is that the more you tend to the small daily choices, the bigger questions take care of themselves.
How you live and show up to this life will be your true response—not what you imagine or tell others it is.
Paying attention to the smaller daily acts will pave the way—by living your own life first, rather than constructing more answers that aren’t your own.
Thanks for reading What is a Good Life?
3. Full Episode - Rootedness in a Changing World with Aadita Chaudhury - What is a Good Life? #136
4. This Week’s Questions
What helps you feel a sense of rootedness in a world in flux?
Is there something simple you’d like to do that you are not presently doing?
About Me
I am a coach, podcast host, and writer, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed nearly 300 people. I’m not looking to prescribe universal answers, more that the guests’ lines of inquiry, musings, experiences, and curiosities spark your own inquiry into what the question means to you. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience and more meaningful conversations.
If you’re interested in exploring your own self-inquiry through one-on-one coaching, my 5-week group courses, or fostering greater trust, communication, and connection within your leadership teams, feel free to contact me via email or LinkedIn.