Lidia is a journalist, researcher, professor and speaker. Her PhD, Homo Imago, studies how we use images as a means of survival via extending our lives through memory. She believes that death generates our culture, it makes us create art, morality, religion and technology to both extend our lives and to live better lives.
Interviewed by: Peter Hayward
More about Lidia
Email: lidiazuin@gmail.com
twitter: @lidiazuin
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lidiazuin/
References given by Lidia
Vilém Flusser - Vampyrotheutis Infernalis
Octavia Butler - Kindred
Octavia Butler - Xenogenesis trilogy
Ursula K Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness
Ursula K Le Guin - The Dispossessed
Philippe Ariès - Western Attitudes Toward Death from the Middle Ages to the Present
Phillippe Ariès - Images of Man and Death
Bruce Sterling - Holy Fire
Yuval Noah Harari - Homo Deus
Serial Experiments Lain (animated series)
Blade Runner 2049 (movie)
2001: A Space Odyssey (movie)
William Gibson - Neuromancer
Detroit: Become Human (Video game)
Damien Hirst
Björk
Grimes
Gottfried Helnwein
Andy Warhol
Michael Jackson’s funeral
Hans Belting - Antropología de la imagen
Arthur C. Clarke
Robert Heinlein
Isaac Asimov
Ray Kurzweil - Singularity is Near
Natasha Vita-More - Transhumanist Manifesto
Monika Bielskyte - Protopia Manifesto
Nachtmahr (industrial music band)
Audio Transcript
Peter Hayward
Hello, and welcome to Futurepod I'm Peter Hayward. Futurepod gathers voices from the International field of futures and foresight. Through a series of interviews, the founders of the field in the emerging leaders share their stories, tools and experiences. Please visit Futurepod.org for further information about this podcast series. Today, our guest is Lidia Zuin. Lidia Zunin is a Brazilian journalist, researcher in futurology, professor and speaker. She holds an MA in semiotics, and a PhD in arts. She publishes a quarterly column at UOL about culture, technology in science fiction. Besides being a science fiction writer, Lidia also teaches at the institutio Europeo di Design. She is a freelance researcher at Envisioning, and senior foresight researcher and chair of the Center for Science Fiction at the Disruptive Futures Institute. Welcome to Futurepod Lidia.
Lidia Zuin
Thank you, Peter. Thanks for having me.
Peter Hayward
Lidia, question one, the guest tells their story. So how did Lidia Zuin become a member of the futures and foresight community?
Lidia Zuin
Okay, that's kind of crazy, I guess, because I never thought I would be working with future studies or anything like that. But it all started when I started my bachelor's degree in journalism. And I had a professor, a professor who teaches me about theory of communication. And when he was talking about cyber culture, he mentioned a science fiction book called Neuromancer by William Gibson. Yeah,
Peter Hayward
I thought, I thought that might have been the one that was coming.
Lidia Zuin
I didn't read much before going to the university. But then I listened to this professor talking about this book. And I was very interested. So I read it, I discovered about cyberpunk. And he also was like a leader of Research Center, and their Graduate Research Center at my college. And he really told people to try how to start researching career. And since we would have a discount in our payment for the college, I thought I could give it a try. So the next year, I started in undergraduate research about Japanese animation called Serial Experiments Lain, which is an admission releasing 9989 88. And it was about a future where the internet, they're called wired, is not separated from the physical world. So I tried to understand how that happened. Because people were able to connect to the internet without devices. Basically, what Elon Musk wants to do with neural link, but it was like 98, nobody talked about that. We didn't even have wireless internet back then. So I tried to understand the references because the animation bring so many references to actual events. But also it's Miss mixed up with conspiracy and a lot of concepts that are more speculative. So I tried to kind of translate what were the subjects being addressed there. And by the end of the research, I had a thesis or a monograph that tried to make this comparison between science fiction and science fact. But back in 2009, when I did this research, nobody talked about futurology, your future studies here in Brazil, some people new authors, like records bio, but nobody talked really about singularity or anything like that. But my supervisor suggested that I organised an event at my college inviting engineers, but also mathematicians, physicists, and science fiction writers, researchers, and even fans to contribute and talk about this relationship between science fiction and science fact. So how some science fiction writers used to be scientists to like Arthur Clarke and Isaac Asimov, for instance. Again, it was 2010 nobody talks about that here in Brazil, it was kind of crazy. I was known as the girl who would talk about aliens and dolphins and the internet. Nobody really paid attention. So I decided to study something that is more popular which is art, so people would understand me better I did find a work about industrial music, which is a kind of electronic music. I tried to understand why so many bands adopted these military militaristic for cystic aesthetics, especially dedicated to a band called LACMA from Austria. And I had the chance to go to a summer school at the University of Vienna, and I had the chance to interview the DJ, the artist behind LACMA. So I finished my thesis about this, and I kept studying about culture and imagery. And that's why I entered on my master's degree on semiotics. And they studied another Austrian artist called Gottfried Hellman, who paints hyper realistic paintings of children holding downs with Nazi uniforms. And in also some toys like Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, besides the children holding, wow, it was kind of crazy. So it was the same thing. From my undergraduate research, I tried to understand what he was talking about. And I also had the opportunity to interview him, I went back to Vienna, I jointed his exhibition, and I talk to him. So I kind of made an analysis of his work using union archetypes of the shadow when the child and then I finished this, but I always had this academic profile. So it was very hard for me to find a job here in Brazil, no newspaper or magazine ad, nobody was really interested in my profile. And I also had already a master's degree, which made it more difficult yet. So
Peter Hayward
yeah, you're overqualified for the work you were trying to do.
Lidia Zuin
Yeah, but at the same time, I didn't have too much experience. As a journalist, I only had some internships inside my college and in a public institution, so I wasn't really experienced in journalism. But a friend sent me a job offer from Rockstar Games, which is a video game developer from England. And it was basically a job for localization and QA, testing, translation, and so on. So I tried, I sent my CV and letter, and I never thought it would work or anything like that. But in the end, I was invited to join them. And I moved to England in 2015. I stayed there for 10 months, I guess, because in the end, the work was kind of repetitive. And I always was this kind of nerdy girl who likes to study all the time and learn things all the time. So it wasn't really my style. I decided to come back to Brazil to start my PhD. And I just defeat defended my thesis best Tuesday. And the thesis was basically a combination of these ideas that I was studying when I was 19. And everything that I learned throughout this this past year is about art technology and futurology. So my thesis is called Homo imago emerges as a means of survival and the second body, it's basically concentrated on the works of authors like even bistrita, tongs, belting, but also, and Becker, who wrote wrote that book about the denial of death, and Philippa here, which is a French historian. And basically, I tried to understand how throughout the history of humanity, we used images as a means to extend our lives through memory. I studied how like portraits in the Renaissance, were using these things, so death masks, and death rituals, funeral rituals, or even funeral art, and then to photographs and then ritual reality but mostly concentrated in trans humanistic storytelling or narratives. And I pick it some artists and some works to analyze. I analyzed Andy Warhol series about death in America. And I realized he works like with this idea of celebrity as a means to find the mortality, you kind of reduce yourself as a stereotype and as a something to be reproduced. And then you're no longer a person, but just a stereotype like an archetype. Married immoral, for instance, was not a person anymore. She was just sexy, blonde woman, and it's replicated even after her death. And I also studied godfried, held via gang he has a painting called American prayer, which is basically a boy praying to Donald Duck figure. I also studied Damien Hirst because he has some series of installations using corpses of animals conservative, and he's kind of controversial, but it's this is this combination with With high art and mass culture pop culture, which ends up being Michael Jackson's funeral, which is another event I studied, and finally arriving to more contemporary artists like York and Grimes. So I made this comparison between the two artists in a sense that Bjork is more oriented to a post humanistic narrative. And Grimes is more oriented to a California ideology of transhumanism. So this is basically what I've been doing. And I write about this stuff. Also in my column and some more essays, I publish them online, I'm trying to translate all my stuff that I usually write in Portuguese, but I'm trying to translate all that stuff. And with time, I started to read more about politics and gender studies as well, because that's, that was something that I missed for a long time. I've been reading a lot of this kind of stuff, and also some plastic science fiction. So I can help organizations in this sense organizations or institutions in general. And when I work with companies, like envisioning, for instance, we had made some projects alongside the Swiss Army. And there was one that we analyzed for science fiction titles, Blade Runner, 2049, Neuromancer, Detroit become human, which is a video game, and 2001 Space Odyssey. And we made this comparison between science fiction of technologies addressed in these narratives, and real technology. And we use methodology like NASA as TRL technology readiness level, everyone can check it, you can go to the website, it's envisioning.io. And two years ago, I wrote an interactive narrative for them for Swiss Army. And I addressed the subject about mind uploading transhumanism and radical life extension, which is basically what I'm most interested when it comes to science fiction and transhumanism.
Peter Hayward
Yeah. And then with that intellectual frame, you then landed in COVID in Brazil.
Lidia Zuin
Yes, hello, I'm here, like living these are trying to survive this. And I tried to make sense of what is happening. I mean, I was studying death in the end during my PhD, and all of a sudden, we have over 3000 deaths here in Brazil, and counting. People were still dying in 1000s. Just here in my state, San Paolo, so it's crazy. So I learned a lot. I also lost some people during the past year. So it's been it's been a journey, I guess.
Peter Hayward
In terms of what you were thinking, theoretically doing your PhD and then living in a reality of death? Have your ideas changed.
Lidia Zuin
Um, when I started my PhD thesis, I, I wanted to find the means to believe that it's possible to treat death, or like trying to really reaching immortality as some transhumanists wish. But in the end, I just realized No, this is, this is not possible, at least not for now. We see people like authors like Yuval Noah Harare, saying that today we have technology and scientific knowledge to make something that we're just regarded to faith before to become reality. But that is just an ultimate challenge for us. And I believe that the I think the end is the basic. Well, this is my thesis at the end of my hypothesis in my thesis, it's what generates our culture. It's what makes us create art, culture, religions, morality, and even technology and science as a means to extend our lives and live better lives. But it's crazy because I finished my PhD my thesis asking the following question, which was a question I made to Natasha Whitmore, one of the founders of the transhumanist movement, which is if we knew how to deal with death better, and grief, would we be trying to find a means to survive like to live forever or to leave radically longer than we are able now? So in the end, I finished my thesis thinking that the problem is not death itself, but our lack of ability to deal with loss and grief. So through
Peter Hayward
it's the human condition.
Lidia Zuin
Exactly.
Peter Hayward
Thanks, Lydia. Second question, the one I encourage the guests to talk about a concept or framework or philosophy that is central to how they do what they do. So what do you want to talk to the listeners about?
Lidia Zuin
I tried to combine my practice with my own personal perspectives, and also my experience. So I found in design fiction, a methodology that combines my experience with science fiction, but also some semiotics, communication, and so on. So it was very interesting to know that Bruce Sterling created this methodology because he's an author there, I really appreciate. And I met him here in Brazil in 2011, I guess. And it was great to meet him. We we actually, I had the opportunity to go out for dinner with him. And we had pizza and we talked a lot. I rambled a lot, because I was so young and so. So revengeful, like, I guess, and in the end, I was kind of bad with the, the literary market here in Brazil, it's, it's not a good thing. And then I just rented a lot within and he just gave me a sign it a book that really, he released with another Brazilian author back then. And he gave me a Swiss Army, how they say,
Peter Hayward
Swiss army knife.
Lidia Zuin
Yes, the Swiss Army knife and he said, this is the basic tool that every hacker needs to have. Yeah, so he gave it to me as a gift. And I was like, well, I need to make it for it. I need to grow as a great writer and researcher to make it further the gift that he gave to me. And then I realized he was the creator of science fiction. So I've been using this as a reference for my professional work in the market, but in my heart, like I'm more like an academic researcher. So I usually end up reading all the traditional stuff. So papers, journals, and are even trying to find out new patents. I always try to bring philosophical, sociological critical references to research because in the field of futurology, many times we are tempted to be utopian or propagandistic about technology. But there's so much to be thought in terms of inequalities and prejudice and bias. So I'm trying to work more with these kinds of topics. But bringing science fiction as a means to translate these ideas for people who are not just tech savvy. I usually say that sometimes you don't need to read a paper about artificial intelligence. But maybe you can watch a black mirror episode and you will be alright. You understand what the technologies? So that's what I tried to do.
Peter Hayward
Can you talk about how you might introduce the use of design fiction with a client as their how you would set it up? How would you introduce the idea? How would you make them comfortable with using something like this?
Lidia Zuin
Yeah, I usually bring some quotes from vs. Sterling, who describe it design fiction as a methodology that creates diegetic prototypes. So diegetic means that dialogue so prototypes, that dialogue with people when make them believe and immerse in the the narrative. So it's better for people to understand and leave throughout the narrative. But more than just presenting a framework or anything like that we are narrative species. We like Joseph Campbell always said that. So it's better to tell stories than to just present frameworks. And in the same sense, I bring also another quote by Arthur C. Clarke that he says, fiction is sometimes better than nonfiction. Because you can you make bigger you make it bigger, like the mind of the minds of people. And they can imagine more, more possibilities for the future, then if you bring a nonfiction of example. And it seems it's more important, even now that things are too quick, too fast. And well karkat died in 2003, I guess. So if he said that in the 90s, for instance, now things are even faster. So in the science fiction is even more relevant. So I try to tell my clients how science fiction can can be a means for us to think in a longer term future, and how to bring some questions about politics or inequalities and even new species, new relationships, maybe with robots, artificial intelligence, or whatever, in a more safe on a safer environment, because it's fiction. And then there's many ways we can do this diegetic prototypes can be just a narrative, a short story or a video and just halation it's an experience. There are some companies that are specializing this kind of approach. Like in the United States, we have Sai futures. And he, they have made an experience for visa, which was about the future of payments. And they kind of created a smart house with people dressed as androids or anything by this. So we would imagine throughout leaving an experience of future payments, it depends on the client depends I only it's a very new methodology here in Brazil, I only have one example of a client here in Brazil. But with envisioning, we have done these, these work with Swiss Army, I think three times already. And I see the the French armies also hiring science fiction writers to think about the future. So it's something that that is growing, you know, people are getting more aware of the importance or the relevance of science fiction, as a means to think about the future. Rather than just thinking in a more market perspective or just financial perspective.
Peter Hayward
I wonder whether science fiction, as a cultural container, lets us talk about things in a fantastical concept, when they're actually here now, and I think you're touching on this with issues of gender racism, power. I just wonder whether science fiction offers a chance to people to have conversations about this when they can talk about it in an imagined future rather than talk about it happening right here right now.
Lidia Zuin
Exactly. Margaret Atwood says that she doesn't write about the future but about the present. So if we take examples like The Handmaid's Tale now available as a series as well, she was talking about the present time when she wrote the book in the 70s. I guess, we actually use science fiction as a metaphor. And it's funny because here in Brazil during the military dictatorship, some writers that didn't use to, to write science fiction adopted the style, the genre, to address some topics that were censored by the government. So it's interesting to see how we use alien creatures or robots or artificial intelligence rather as a metaphor to human problems, and not really thinking about different creatures, or different lives. Literally, I can give some examples of writers like Margaret Atwood, but also Ursula K leguin, and also Octavia Butler, who talk about gender issues, or ratio issues. And it's great. It's like when you read stuff that they wrote is just so mind blowing, and so mind opening because they bring these other perspectives that are not really easy to tackle in our non fictional perspective. And that's where Clark comes back. It's sometimes easier to tell a story, a fictional story, but using actually the fictional parts as a metaphor for real stuff. Thanks, Lydia.
Peter Hayward
That's great. Third question. How does Lydia Zuin make sense of the emerging futures around her? What are the things that you are sensing that? cause you to get excited? And possibly, what are the things that you're sensing that cause you anxiety or concern?
Lidia Zuin
Yeah, well, I always like immersive technologies, I started researching a lot of virtual reality. So when commercial headsets were available for us, like Oculus Rift, or HTC, five, I was super excited, I bought one for me. But it's not really that immersive for now. So it's something I I expect to be better in the near future. I thought the pandemic would like serve as a means to speed up the innovation in the sector. But it doesn't, doesn't seem to have help it so much in this sense, but this is something that I really look you look forward. And on the other hand, I tend to be more pessimistic. In a more philosophical and theological perspective. My favorite authors are more pessimistic, like villain flusser, who was a zek, resilient philosopher. He had a critique about technology, but at the same time, he had some very particular perspectives about reality. And, like, he never said that our reality was based on causality, but actually it's okay. So he brought a lot of references from Kafka as well. I Try to be more pessimistic in our way. And I just realized that there was a writer who, who promoted this idea in futurology. And he actually called this idea as comparative futurology. Hans jhanas, was German philosopher who said that we should be imagining the worst sins case scenarios, because then we would be prepared to avoid them or to live through throughout it. Some people don't like it. Some people prefer to be more optimistic. Just you know, you have people like Peter Diamandis talking about abundance and how we mean, we should be more positive about the future and that correct mindset will take us to a better future. But I'm kind of agnostic about these I prefer to. I prefer to stick to those and I think the worst case scenarios and try to avoid them.
Peter Hayward
The stoic philosophy of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca is exactly what you talked about in terms of imagining the worst, and then realizing it, it actually isn't the worst, or to imagine a future that you think everything has gone wrong, and to suddenly realize that you could still do things in it, which is the essence of stoicism. Yeah. The interesting connection for me, Lydia has been that a lot of stoic ideas have been shown to be useful for mental health. It seems anecdotally that actually adopting the worst case scenario as a way of thinking through decisions. He's actually got better mental health outcomes, then hoping that things will work out well.
Lidia Zuin
Yeah, I don't know. My therapist would disagree, I guess, because she's. She says, I'm like the expression. I'm eight or 80. I'm always in the extremes. When you are too pessimistic or too stoic. You kind of never have hope, or you never get excited. When things go go, right. It's more like, oh, okay, I waited for the worst. And it's not that bad in the end. But I shouldn't be so extreme. And that's why I've been reading more about furtopia. It's a concept proposed by Kevin Kelly. But there's other people working on that currently like Monica via Skype. And she's going to publish some collective manifesto about petroleum futures. And basically, the idea is trying to imagine futures that are not dystopian and not even utopian. It's a combination. It's like, looking forward to a future that is better than nowadays, but it's not perfect. It's something that I'm trying to to believe more because I usually, I usually stick to the worst case scenario. So it's something that I'm I'm learning. That was the essence of cyberpunk.
Peter Hayward
Yes. In the cyberpunk was in no way dystopia nor was it utopian. It was kind of a mash up.
Lidia Zuin
Well, some people think it's more dystopian, but I don't know. I think it depends on the author. Each author has a perspective for cyberpunk. I think that the subject room was born with this pessimistic like, no future lemma. But there are some other authors that are more positive like vs. Sterling himself, he published a very interesting book, by the end of the 1980s was a book about post pandemic society by the end of the 21st century. And there were some bad things, but there were also good things. And it's just about not being naive about technology in the end, because some cyberpunk narratives, mostly the mainstream ones are going to be apologetic about technology. And that's not the case. But on the other hand, we will have other narratives that are completely the other way around. So they will say that we will have the earth destroyed by artificial intelligence, we will have terminators and so on. It's not about extremes in the end, but cyberpunk has this perspective or of using extremes because while it's cool, you know, to imagine a destroyed world and not the wonderful world with and that's that's something that some contemporary science fiction writers are working on, like solar punk is a response to cyberpunk as a more positive and a green perspective for technologies in the future. And it's a it's still in the beginning, but there are people like a sorry nollie Berry, who is an editor, and she works with many authors that our writing folder bunk here in Brazil. We also have a recently translated to English collection of short stories called solar punk. I personally don't like positive stories. reading fiction, but it's like we say, we appreciate cyberpunk in an aesthetic perspective, but we would like to live in a solar punk future. Okay,
Peter Hayward
thanks. Fourth questions, the communication question. I'm talking to someone who I think I'd say is a communication expert. The question is, how do you explain what it is you do to people who don't necessarily understand what it is you do?
Lidia Zuin
Okay. Well, I usually tend to say that I'm a journalist and a research in futurology. And then I just say that I study the future, but I don't, I can't like foresee the future. And if someone says that, just be cautious because nobody is capable for seeing the future. So what I do is mostly based on what was a flash time described as futurology. It's kind of sociology or philosophy of the future. But it's a means to understand the present and the past, as a means to plan the future, or to envision the desirable futures we would like to live in. And that's why I always say that we need diverse scenarios. In this case, we need more diversity among futurologists. Because if we only have the same white male American guy talking about the future, we will only have the same idea. And that's why I organized a panel by the beginning of March, called the colonizing futures, especially to address this, and how we should be thinking about other futures rather than just the American perspective or European perspective. That's what I tried to do. I tried to use science fiction as a means to approach people who are not too tech savvy. Sometimes people don't like science fiction, but they end up liking when they meet me and they see my classes they attend to my classes or my talks, they give a chance because some people are prejudiced about science fiction, they think it's all about Star Wars or Star Trek aliens and face wars and so on when I say no, no, please do read other people like Octavia Butler, for instance, or like weeing and so on. And then they realized science fiction is much more than just the hired science fiction by Clark Asimov Heinlein. Or the main mainstream titles like Star Wars matrix and so on.
Peter Hayward
As a field, now there is a field that is taught, there is a professional association, there is a federation, that's interested in future studies. What advice would you give to the field generally about becoming more effective communicators in getting their information or their message or whatever it is out to a public that is bombarded with communication?
Lidia Zuin
Yes. Well, I'm not associated to any futurist associations, I really don't believe in this kind of stuff. But maybe someday, I will kind of be forced to do this, because that's how the world works. I don't know, I think I usually say that people, anyone can think about the future. And I think this is something that UNESCO is working on. Like with future of literacy. They're trying to spread the word about how people should be thinking about the future. in a broader sense. There's also organization of like, teach the future, where you have people working on implementing futures thinking at schools, I think everyone has their contribution to thinking about the future. But it's really difficult to filter all the information we are being bombarded all the time. But my advice would be, find what you love and concentrate on the subject you love. I think the best way to deal with this is kind of thinking like a researcher. So for instance, for the past four years, I've I've dedicated myself to understand the relationship between death grief imageries. And transhuman is so that basically what I read for the past four years, so finding your passion or passions, could help you filter reality and all the information we receive every day.
Peter Hayward
So you're really saying that in a field, as broad as future studies is, is those things that attract you interest you, you are passionate about to actually concentrate your communication in those areas rather than spread yourself?
Lidia Zuin
Yeah, I guess. If you just be too generalistic, you won't be helping anyone because then I would just go to Wikipedia. Maybe it's better to be specialists in some topics and give depth to the conversation rather than just explaining briefly. What is that technology or that innovation? I think there are some people working in No more collective sense of presenting futurology and saying what is innovation and future studies and singularity and so long, but I think it's important to take a step forward and start the conversations that are more that are deeper and more specialized. I usually say that I don't have patience to just teach people the beginning. I like to talk about deeper stuff, I like to talk about immortality or mind uploading or stuff like that. And some people are not prepared. Like they, they didn't read about this before. But if we just stick to the basics, we will never get to the depth to the deeper side of the subject. You know, this is my perspective. Anyway.
Peter Hayward
Thanks. All right, the last question, the open question, is there something that's come up? Or I mean, we've covered a lot in this conversation. But is there something that you'd like to unpack a bit more I'm I'm certainly interested in finding more about your last four years reading as to really what you think that means for yourself and us as a culture going forward. But the whole the whole notion of culture, technology and death, I think, a fascinating threesome to put together.
Lidia Zuin
Yeah, I mean, besides this idea of dealing with grief, and death and loss, I really found interesting the interpretation that have already brings to us in terms of how technology and science, scientific innovation are trying to make what was a belief before into reality, in hormone deals, he really talks much about this subject. And it was interesting to see that we are the same humans that we that our ancestors were. And this is something that Joseph Campbell says his book. But basically, we have the same struggles, the same fears that a medieval person had, for instance, we still struggle with death and loss, or maybe even worse than medieval people, because they leafed among death all the time, with the Black Death, and so on. But all our struggles on our desires and are not so much different from our ancestors, I think we try to it's again, the same idea of taking death as an inspiration, rather than a constant fear that paralyzes you. I think Nietzsche said something like that the nihilist myth is not just saying that the word doesn't make sense, and everything is bad, but actually realize that and do something about it. I understand that as a means of inspiration to do stuff and to give meaning to life. Because we are the only living species that know we are going to die. No animals know about that, they just realize they're going to die when they're going to die. And since we are capable of knowing these early on in our lives, this is why we try to find these meanings and these artificial rituals or creations, such as religion and morality as a means to organize and give sense to our life. And in the end, it's a beautiful thing if you consider that art is a means to forget. Or to address this Damien Hirst says that all arts is about this. Again, it's something dark, but I used to be a goth teenager, and I can't deny
Peter Hayward
something I say, Lydia, when I was teaching was the notion of through uncertainty and through really the hard chaos of and randomness of the world, we can still create something that we think is our purpose.
Lidia Zuin
Yes. Yes, exactly. That's precisely what what I was trying to say like, we need to find purpose, we need to find something that we love, and we are passionate about. Because in the end, if we don't have that passion about nothing, it's basically depression. And then you can't leave like this is just waiting for death. And it's not a good thing to live like this.
Peter Hayward
The other thing about purpose, of course, is we don't always have purpose, but that's okay, too. Because then what emerges is the search for purpose. Purpose isn't necessarily an end state, nor is it a constant. Purpose changes.
Lidia Zuin
Yes, totally, totally agree with that. I mean, so many ideas went through my head. I joke about this because whenever I had some new passion, I wanted to get a tattoo about that. And if I had a tattoo for everything that I was passionate about, I would be covered with tattoos, but I only did my first to last year when I after I completed 30 years. And then I finally understand, well, maybe I'm old enough to stick to a passion and then I got this Two which says that consciousness which kind of summarizes my thesis, it's being conscious about death that makes us struggle or just carry on, you know, create all the stuff we, we create, we, we Rijkaard podcasts, we write stuff, we read stuff, and we talk with people as a means to forget we are going to die or just to give a meaning to our life. It's dark. I know, but it's me.
Peter Hayward
Yeah, I mean, I don't find it dark, I just find it realistic. For me, the other thing we do is we try to make a difference in people's lives. Yes, because while we will die, and to some extent, our memory dies with us to a point. But if you make a difference in someone's life, then that difference goes forward. Even if you don't
Lidia Zuin
Mexican culture, they have these saying, like, we have three deaths. One, the first one is when we realize we are going to die someday. The second one is when we literally die. And the third one is when nobody remembers about us anymore. So we're completely forgotten as a person's individual. So memory is a very important thing in our our society, I guess we maybe we were not conscious about these, we don't think I need to keep the memory of someone I love. But it is something important and see if the ancient Romans bullets say used to say that I'm going to leave out leave through my work through my poetry, my buddy will be deceased. But my work will make me mortal. And it's kind of true if you consider authors like Shakespeare, or even philosophers like Socrates. And anyways, these people who had big ideas, but on the other hand, we are seeing these moments in this pandemic, how people are just being discarded, like in this Necro Necro politics, and it's crazy to see especially here in Brazil, like we are having collective spaces to discard bodies, you know, so it's tragic, I guess, because at the end, everybody is important to someone at least, and discarding people bodies like that. It's just for me, it's it's offensive.
Peter Hayward
Yeah, it's it's not a present or future that any of us should aspire to.
Lidia Zuin
Yeah.
Peter Hayward
Lidia. It's been. It's been great fun. I mean, I, I have enjoyed the talk. I have not found the talk dark and depressing it. I think I have found it very vital and alive. So thank you very much for taking some time out to talk to the Futurepod community.
Lidia Zuin
Thank you, Peter. I'm glad that it's not too dark, because in the end, it just proves my thesis that this is inspirational for life. So yeah, hope I contributed with listeners to and I'm open to conversations in social media, just find me I think there's no other religious wing the world besides the lady that lives in Milan, and it's always Not me, so it's very easy to find me.
Peter Hayward
Thanks, Lydia. This has been another production from Futurepod. Futurepod is a not for profit venture. We exist through the generosity of our supporters. If you would like to support Futurepod, go to the Patreon link on our website. Thank you for listening. Remember to follow us on Instagram and Facebook. This is Peter Hayward saying goodbye for now.