Thresholds
A weekly series of conversations with artists about their moments of epiphany and transformation that changed their lives and their work.
I usually don't like interview podcasts. They usually become very predictable especially when the podcasts are focused on 1 specific industry.
With Thresholds, you don't need to worry about repetitiveness. Jordan the host of Thresholds interviews writers, artists, and creators about the "aha" moments in their life. And how those moments affected their work.
Each conversation opens a journey into the unique world of the artists and their perspectives. How one choice led to another and resulted in a body of work.
I love that the podcast is not dwelling on a lot of technical aspects of the creative process. The productivity. The marketing. The growth hacking.
But tries to take us on a journey of exploration through the experiences of these artists.
For this review, I listened to an episode with Rivka Galchen on Choosing What Not to Abandon.
As a generalist, I found this episode very relatable. Every day seems like I have 200 ideas to work on, and I can launch a new project every single week.
The episode touched on the importance of grabbing fleeting attention when the topic captures you.
"To read something you have to be interested in it for 1 hour. To write something you have to be interested in a year"
The unexpected turn of this episode was conversations about witchhunts and Rivka's new fiction book Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch.
It's interesting to listen to the parallels Rivka finds between the 17th-century witch-hunts and the current internet culture. Seems like nothing has changed in these 2 centuries.
"The truth is beside the point," Rivka says, and it's hard to disagree.
Just to add one more option to the mix, I listened to the episode with Amy Fusselman on Writing as Performance.
As the title suggests it was about writing as a performance. The ultimate state of vulnerability and consciousness.
"When you're writing your consciousness is open in the way a performer is open on the stage," Amy says.
The episode dabbled in the brief experience of Amy as a stand-up comedian, and I was surprised to hear how much stage preparation goes into creating sets. It's not that I thought everything is improv, but also I had the feeling that there are high levels of spontaneity.
"There's an appearance of spontaneity but the structure behind it is painful ", Amy said describing why she didn't stay in the role of a comedian.
If you're in the creative rut I can't imagine a better way to spend it than to start listening to a random episode and follow along with the creators and their beautiful minds.