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Human Nature Odyssey: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Alex Leff
Human Nature Odyssey explores the myths, systems, and stories shaping our unraveling world.Blending history, mythology, philosophy, ecology, and cinematic audio storytelling, the show uses the past to better understand the present — and the possible futures we're creating.You are living the latest chapter in a 10,000-year human story. Join documentary filmmaker and storyteller Alex Leff on a cinematic audio journey through civilization, collapse, meaning, and myth, in search of clearer ways to experience the incredible, terrifying, and ridiculous world we inhabit.A narrative audio documentary for anyone asking how we got here — and what comes next.
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- 1 weeks ago30 min
23 - What Is Human Nature Odyssey?
You, me, and everyone we know were born on the Titanic. Some are warning of icebergs. Some are shoveling coal into the furnaces. Some are jamming out while the band plays louder than ever. In this special episode beginning Year Four of Human Nature Odyssey, Alex gathers friends together in a living room for a live-recorded podcast potluck conversation exploring civilization, collapse, climate change, community, and the strange experience of trying to live a meaningful life while the world feels increasingly unstable. Drawing from Lord of the Rings, the Titanic, Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, ecological philosophy, and the first three years of Human Nature Odyssey, this episode becomes both a reflection on the journey so far and an exploration on what it means to "come home" to the living world. Come join us in the living room. There's still space on the couch. CITATIONS Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien Ishmael by Daniel Quinn If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Substack for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast Music: Celestial Soda Pop By: Ray Lynch From the album: Deep Breakfast Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI All rights reserved.
- May 14, 20261h 20m
Hajar Tazi: Weaving Our Way Back Home
Today Hajar Tazi joins us on our odyssey. Hajar is a poet, writer, facilitator, and self-described "ecosystem weaver." Our conversation is part of a new five-episode miniseries from Resilience that I'm hosting in collaboration with the Omega Resilience Awards. It's called In the Rising Tide and it brings together conversations with five people from around the world, exploring the interconnected unfolding crises of our time—and how each of them is responding within their own communities. Across the series, I speak with a chef and farmer from the Philippines, an Indigenous water defender in Chile, a young organizer in Uganda resisting mega oil projects, and a narrative practitioner in India. I wanted to include this conversation with Hajar here on Human Nature Odyssey because it touches many of the themes we've been exploring here on the podcast. Hajar has been deeply influenced by the scholar and activist Joanna Macy, and facilitates something called the "Great Weaving Game," which draws on Macy's framework of the Great Unraveling and the Great Turning to help people imagine new possibilities for the future. If you want to learn more about Joanna Macy's work, you can check out the recent Human Nature Odyssey episode with Jess Serrante. Today, Hajar and I explore many things: neurodivergence, eco-villages, the IMF and World Bank, surfing, political polarization, and the art of coming home. In The Rising Tide was made with support from a grant from Omega Resilience Awards, a project of the nonprofit Commonweal. Find out more at ORAwards.org You can learn more from Hajar at her substack Remembering the Future. If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Patreon for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes.
- Apr 23, 202653 min
22 - Earth Abides (Part 2): Future Animists
Okay, it's been fifty years since the sudden collapse of civilization - why isn't everything back up and running already? In the 1949 sci-fi novel Earth Abides, Isherwood Williams tries and tries to teach the next generation about law, economics, and geometry but these dang kids would rather explore the streams that flow over abandoned boulevards and overgrown shopping malls. In Part 2 of this two-part series, Alex and astrophysicist Tom Murphy explore the unexpected evolution of life after the fall—when civilization fades into myth, and a new way of seeing the world begins to take root. It's been decades since airplanes filled the skies, since stadiums roared with crowds, since global supply chains stitched continents together. The children born after the Great Disaster have never known that world. To them, skyscrapers wrapped in vines are normal. Mountain lions at the edge of the cul-de-sac are normal. The quiet is normal. And as they grow up, they begin to tell different stories. Stories not of dominance, progress, or control—but of relationship, mystery, and a living world they are part of, not apart from. You don't need to have read the book to enter this world—this episode is an experience in itself. This episode is for listeners interested in societal collapse, critiques of progress, and the big questions about the future of humanity on planet earth. CITATIONS Earth Abides [book]] by George R. Stewart (2026) Tom Murphy's Do The Math blog If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Patreon for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast Music: Celestial Soda Pop By: Ray Lynch From the album: Deep Breakfast Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI All rights reserved.
- Apr 9, 202649 min
21 - Earth Abides (Part 1): Life After Civilization
You ever go on a little trip, to just get away from it all — only to come home and find all of civilization collapsed while you were gone and you might be the last person left on earth? Well then you could totally relate to George R. Stewart's 1949 science-fiction novel, Earth Abides. Earth Abides is not your typical post-apocalyptic tale. It challenges some of our core notions on progress, human happiness, and civilization itself. It's a study of how our built infrastructure crumbles in our absence and becomes home to nonhuman life. It's about how human communities organize without the enforcement of the state, and how culture changes over time—taking us from the immediate aftermath of civilization's sudden collapse to a distant future when the last generation, known only as the Americans, leaves behind a people who barely remember what the United States once was. In this two-part series, Alex is joined by astrophysicist, writer, and friend of the show Tom Murphy to retell and explore this science fiction classic, unpacking its radical ideas about collapse, resilience, and what it means to live a meaningful life. This episode is for listeners interested in societal collapse, critiques of progress, and the big questions about the future of humanity on planet earth. CITATIONS Earth Abides [book]] by George R. Stewart (2026) If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Patreon for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast Music: Celestial Soda Pop By: Ray Lynch From the album: Deep Breakfast Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI All rights reserved.
- Mar 5, 202658 min
20 - Joanna Macy & The Great Turning — with Jess Serrante
How do we live through wild times? Legendary scholar, activist, and systems thinker Joanna Macy named the moment we are living through the Great Unraveling—a time when our ecological, political, economic, and social systems destabilize to the point of no return. And yet, she also insisted that we stand on the threshold of a Great Turning: a profound transition toward a more just and sustainable world. Before Joanna's death in 2025, climate activist Jess Serrante recorded a series of intimate and insightful conversations with her. In this episode, Alex sits down with Jess, weaving in clips from those recordings to explore the questions Joanna devoted her life to asking: How do we live with meaning as civilization unravels? How do we turn toward the grief of this moment—and transform it into action? And how do intergenerational relationships help us become elders for the future - when wisdom is needed most? CITATIONS We Are The Great Turning [podcast] If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Patreon for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts, essays, and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast Music: Celestial Soda Pop By: Ray Lynch From the album: Deep Breakfast Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI All rights reserved.
- Jan 22, 20261h 0m
19 - Modern Myths: Flat Earth, Space Colonization, and the Stories We Tell to Escape Reality
At first glance, believing the earth is flat and dreams of colonizing Mars couldn't seem further apart. But both are built on the same story — that reality can be escaped if we just think big enough. This episode looks at two beliefs that seem opposite — flat earth and space colonization — and asks what they reveal about our urge to escape reality rather than reckon with it. One is the belief that humans could, and should, live in space: that we're destined to leave our planet behind and colonize the stars. The other is the belief that we're not on a planet at all—that the Earth is actually… flat. While one is held by fringe figures and the other by some of the most powerful men on the planet, both rest on the premise that humans are exceptional, unbound by limits, or somehow separate from the earth. To explore these modern myths, we're joined by two guests: astrophysicist Tom Murphy and documentary filmmaker Daniel J. Clark, whose film Behind the Curve follows prominent figures in the fringe—but growing—flat Earth movement. Together, we'll examine the stories we tell ourselves about the world we inhabit, how we determine what's real or possible, and what kind of world these stories create. CITATIONS Do The Math [blog] Behind the Curve [film] (2018) Return to Space [film] by (2022) If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Patreon for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts, essays, and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast Music: Celestial Soda Pop By: Ray Lynch From the album: Deep Breakfast Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI All rights reserved.
- Jan 8, 202625 min
28 Years Later: Embracing Zombies, Death, and Gilmore Girls
This is the first 30 minutes of a longer conversation. The full conversation is available on the Human Nature Odyssey Patreon. === 28 years after the Rage Virus spread across the UK, the British Isles have been completely quarantined from the rest of the world. Zombies roam the forests and countryside while the survivors huntwith bows and arrows and make do in their fortified village. But for 12-year-old Spike, this is all normal. 28 Years Later is director Danny Boyle's sequel to the classic zombie thriller 28 Days Later. In this bonus conversation, Jake Marquez and Maren Morgan from the Death and the Garden podcast join me to explore the post-industrial world of 28 Years Later. If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Patreon for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts, essays, and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast
- Dec 18, 202556 min
18 - Time Machine 2126 (Part 2): Techno-Utopia Or Apocalypse?
Picture the future 100 years from now. What do you imagine? Flying cars? Space colonies? AI talking toasters? But if we can't sustain an endlessly growing economy - even with a transition to green energy - what does a realistic and positive future look like? Alex joins the hosts of Crazy Town to imagine life in the 22nd century: walking from our family farms into communal villages, living off the land in a low-energy lifestyle, taming our pet donkeys, and resisting our local warlords. It's not the future the movies told us to expect. But it might be a future we enjoy living in. CITATIONS Crazy Town podcast If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Patreon for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts, essays, and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast Music: Celestial Soda Pop By: Ray Lynch From the album: Deep Breakfast Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI All rights reserved.
About Human Nature Odyssey
Human Nature Odyssey explores the myths, systems, and stories shaping our unraveling world.Blending history, mythology, philosophy, ecology, and cinematic audio storytelling, the show uses the past to better understand the present — and the possible futures we're creating.You are living the latest chapter in a 10,000-year human story. Join documentary filmmaker and storyteller Alex Leff on a cinematic audio journey through civilization, collapse, meaning, and myth, in search of clearer ways to experience the incredible, terrifying, and ridiculous world we inhabit.A narrative audio documentary for anyone asking how we got here — and what comes next.
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