0:00:05.769,0:00:08.690
I want to tell you about my search[br]for purpose as a journalist

0:00:08.714,0:00:12.134
and how Dolly Parton[br]helped me figure it out.

0:00:13.038,0:00:15.649
So I've been telling audio stories[br]for about 20 years,

0:00:15.673,0:00:17.594
first on the radio and then in podcasts.

0:00:17.981,0:00:21.195
When I started the radio show[br]"Radiolab" in 2002,

0:00:21.883,0:00:24.620
here was the quintessential[br]story move we would do.

0:00:24.645,0:00:26.178
We'd bring on somebody --

0:00:26.203,0:00:28.797
(Audio) Steven Strogatz:[br]It's one of the most hypnotic

0:00:28.821,0:00:31.265
and spellbinding spectacles in nature,

0:00:31.289,0:00:34.384
because, you have to keep in mind,[br]it is absolutely silent.

0:00:34.409,0:00:37.068
Jad Abumrad: Like this guy,[br]mathematician, Steve Strogatz,

0:00:37.092,0:00:38.504
and he would paint a picture.

0:00:38.528,0:00:40.827
SS: Picture it.[br]There's a riverbank in Thailand,

0:00:40.851,0:00:42.424
in the remote part of the jungle,

0:00:42.438,0:00:44.861
you're in a canoe,[br]slipping down the river.

0:00:45.535,0:00:46.956
There's no sound of anything,

0:00:46.980,0:00:50.273
maybe the occasional, you know,[br]exotic jungle bird or something.

0:00:50.297,0:00:52.622
JA: So you're in this imaginary[br]canoe with Steve,

0:00:52.646,0:00:56.177
and in the air all around you[br]are millions of fireflies.

0:00:56.201,0:01:00.296
And what you see is sort of[br]a randomized starry-night effect.

0:01:00.606,0:01:03.566
Because all the fireflies[br]are blinking at different rates.

0:01:03.590,0:01:05.091
Which is what you would expect.

0:01:05.487,0:01:08.178
But according to Steve, in this one place,

0:01:08.202,0:01:10.884
for reasons no scientist[br]can fully explain --

0:01:10.908,0:01:12.058
SS: Whoop.

0:01:12.996,0:01:14.177
Whoop.

0:01:14.924,0:01:16.121
Whoop.

0:01:16.145,0:01:19.073
With thousands of lights on[br]and then off, all in sync.

0:01:19.097,0:01:26.097
(Music and electric sounds)

0:01:26.327,0:01:27.763
JA: Now it's around this time

0:01:27.787,0:01:30.978
that I would generally bring in[br]the beautiful music, as I just did,

0:01:31.002,0:01:33.010
and you'd start to get that warm feeling.

0:01:33.034,0:01:34.816
A feeling, that we know from science,

0:01:34.840,0:01:36.760
kind of localizes in your head and chest

0:01:36.784,0:01:38.237
and spreads through your body.

0:01:38.261,0:01:39.879
It's that feeling of wonder.

0:01:39.903,0:01:43.143
From 2002 to 2010,[br]I did hundreds of these stories.

0:01:44.693,0:01:48.138
Sciency, neurosciency,[br]very heady, brainy stories

0:01:48.162,0:01:50.860
that would always resolve[br]into that feeling of wonder.

0:01:51.780,0:01:53.419
And I began to see that as my job,

0:01:53.443,0:01:55.817
to lead people to moments of wonder.

0:01:56.269,0:01:57.753
What that sounded like was:

0:01:57.777,0:02:01.585
(Various voices) "Huh!" "Wow!" "Wow!"

0:02:02.094,0:02:03.259
"That's amazing."

0:02:03.283,0:02:05.316
"Whoa!" "Wow!"

0:02:05.340,0:02:08.371
JA: But I began to get[br]kind of tired of these stories.

0:02:08.720,0:02:10.673
I mean, partially, it was the repetition.

0:02:10.697,0:02:13.387
I remember there was a day[br]I was sitting at the computer,

0:02:13.411,0:02:14.807
making the sound of a neuron.

0:02:14.831,0:02:15.982
(Crackling sound)

0:02:16.006,0:02:19.325
You know, take some white noise,[br]chop it up, very easy sound to make.

0:02:19.349,0:02:23.214
I remember thinking,[br]"I have made this sound 25 times."

0:02:23.238,0:02:25.252
But it was more than that --

0:02:25.276,0:02:27.443
there was a familiar path[br]to these stories.

0:02:27.467,0:02:29.959
You walk the path of truth,[br]which is made of science,

0:02:29.983,0:02:31.133
and you get to wonder.

0:02:31.157,0:02:33.185
Now, I love science, don't get me wrong.

0:02:33.209,0:02:35.332
My parents emigrated[br]from a war-torn country,

0:02:35.356,0:02:36.578
came to America,

0:02:36.602,0:02:41.427
and science for them was, like,[br]more their identity than anything else,

0:02:41.451,0:02:43.518
and I inherited that from them.

0:02:44.268,0:02:46.737
But there was something[br]about that simple movement

0:02:46.761,0:02:48.047
from science to wonder

0:02:48.071,0:02:49.908
that just started to feel wrong to me.

0:02:49.933,0:02:52.051
Like, is that the only path[br]a story can take?

0:02:52.945,0:02:54.599
Around 2012,

0:02:54.823,0:02:59.076
I ran into a bunch of different stories[br]that made me think, "No."

0:02:59.466,0:03:00.632
One story in particular,

0:03:00.656,0:03:04.673
where we interviewed[br]a guy who described chemical weapons

0:03:04.697,0:03:07.325
being used against him[br]and his fellow villagers

0:03:07.349,0:03:08.587
in the mountains of Laos.

0:03:08.611,0:03:10.547
Western scientists went there,

0:03:10.571,0:03:13.140
measured for chemical weapons,[br]didn't find any.

0:03:13.164,0:03:14.791
We interviewed the man about this,

0:03:14.815,0:03:16.449
he said the scientists were wrong.

0:03:16.473,0:03:17.878
We said, "But they tested."

0:03:17.902,0:03:20.362
He said, "I don't care,[br]I know what happened to me."

0:03:20.386,0:03:22.537
And we went back and forth[br]and back and forth,

0:03:22.561,0:03:24.449
and make a long story short,

0:03:24.473,0:03:26.167
the interview ended in tears.

0:03:26.981,0:03:28.131
I felt ...

0:03:28.751,0:03:29.901
I felt horrible.

0:03:31.036,0:03:34.249
Like, hammering at a scientific truth,[br]when someone has suffered.

0:03:35.045,0:03:36.997
That wasn't going to heal anything.

0:03:37.021,0:03:41.589
And maybe I was relying[br]too much on science to find the truth.

0:03:41.918,0:03:43.776
And it really did feel, at that moment,

0:03:43.800,0:03:45.879
that there were a lot[br]of truths in the room,

0:03:45.903,0:03:47.838
and we were only looking at one of them.

0:03:47.862,0:03:50.053
So I thought, "I've got to get[br]better at this."

0:03:50.077,0:03:51.648
And so for the next eight years,

0:03:51.672,0:03:55.230
I committed myself to doing stories[br]where you heard truths collide.

0:03:55.254,0:03:57.394
We did stories[br]about the politics of consent,

0:03:57.418,0:04:00.299
where you heard the perspective[br]of survivors and perpetrators

0:04:00.323,0:04:01.530
whose narratives clashed.

0:04:01.554,0:04:02.807
We did stories about race,

0:04:02.831,0:04:05.457
how black men are systematically[br]eliminated from juries,

0:04:05.481,0:04:08.305
and yet, the rules that try[br]and prevent that from happening

0:04:08.329,0:04:09.529
only make things worse.

0:04:09.553,0:04:12.093
Stories about counter terrorism,[br]Guantanamo detainees,

0:04:12.117,0:04:13.893
stories where everything is disputed,

0:04:13.917,0:04:16.258
all you can do is struggle[br]to try and make sense.

0:04:16.282,0:04:18.964
And this struggle[br]kind of became the point.

0:04:20.031,0:04:22.427
I began to think, "Maybe that's my job."

0:04:22.451,0:04:24.444
To lead people to moments of struggle.

0:04:25.015,0:04:26.483
Here's what that sounded like:

0:04:26.507,0:04:28.594
(Various voices) "But I see -- I, like --"

0:04:28.618,0:04:29.919
"Uh, I --" (Sighs)

0:04:29.943,0:04:31.935
"Well, so, like, huh --"

0:04:31.959,0:04:33.379
"That, I mean, I --"

0:04:33.403,0:04:37.546
"You know -- golly -- I --" (Sighs)

0:04:37.570,0:04:40.355
JA: And that sigh right there,

0:04:40.379,0:04:43.119
I wanted to hear that sound[br]in every single story,

0:04:43.143,0:04:46.176
because that sound[br]is kind of our current moment, right?

0:04:46.200,0:04:50.566
We live in a world where truth[br]is no longer just a set of facts

0:04:50.590,0:04:51.751
to be captured.

0:04:51.775,0:04:52.942
It's become a process.

0:04:52.966,0:04:55.312
It's gone from being a noun[br]to being a verb.

0:04:55.336,0:04:57.419
But how do you end that story?

0:04:57.443,0:05:01.300
Like, what literally kept happening[br]is we'd be, you know, telling a story,

0:05:01.324,0:05:03.507
cruising along,[br]two viewpoints in conflict,

0:05:03.531,0:05:06.229
you get to the end and it's just like --

0:05:06.253,0:05:07.404
No, let me see.

0:05:07.428,0:05:08.721
What do I say at the end?

0:05:08.745,0:05:09.896
Oh, my God.

0:05:09.920,0:05:11.951
What do you -- how do you end that story?

0:05:11.975,0:05:13.745
You can't just happily-ever-after it,

0:05:13.769,0:05:15.277
because that doesn't feel real.

0:05:15.301,0:05:16.451
At the same time,

0:05:16.475,0:05:18.864
if you just leave people[br]in that stuck place,

0:05:18.888,0:05:20.729
like, "Why did I just listen to that?"

0:05:20.753,0:05:23.309
Like, it felt like there had to be[br]another move there.

0:05:23.333,0:05:25.943
Had to be a way beyond the struggle.

0:05:25.967,0:05:29.772
And this is what brings me to Dolly.

0:05:30.254,0:05:32.777
Or Saint Dolly, as we like[br]to call her in the South.

0:05:32.801,0:05:36.445
I want to tell you about one little[br]glimmer of an epiphany that I had,

0:05:36.469,0:05:39.631
doing a nine-part series[br]called "Dolly Parton's America" last year.

0:05:39.655,0:05:41.336
It was a bit of a departure for me,

0:05:41.360,0:05:44.539
but I just had this intuition[br]that Dolly could help me

0:05:44.563,0:05:46.316
figure out this ending problem.

0:05:46.340,0:05:48.094
And here was the basic intuition:

0:05:48.118,0:05:49.396
You go to a Dolly concert,

0:05:49.420,0:05:52.118
you see men in trucker hats[br]standing next to men in drag,

0:05:52.142,0:05:54.031
Democrats standing next to Republicans,

0:05:54.055,0:05:55.206
women holding hands,

0:05:55.230,0:05:57.483
every different kind of person[br]smashed together.

0:05:57.507,0:06:00.372
All of these people that we are told[br]should hate each other

0:06:00.396,0:06:02.126
are there singing together.

0:06:02.150,0:06:05.570
She somehow carved out[br]this unique space in America,

0:06:05.594,0:06:07.983
and I wanted to know, how did she do that?

0:06:08.007,0:06:12.705
So I interviewed Dolly 12 times,[br]two separate continents.

0:06:12.729,0:06:14.500
She started every interview this way:

0:06:14.524,0:06:16.864
(Audio) Dolly Parton: Ask me[br]whatever you ask me,

0:06:16.888,0:06:19.217
and I'm going to tell you[br]what I want you to hear.

0:06:19.231,0:06:20.119
(Laughter)

0:06:20.143,0:06:22.800
JA: She is undeniably a force of nature.

0:06:22.824,0:06:25.102
But the problem that I ran into

0:06:25.126,0:06:29.617
is that I had chosen[br]a conceit for this series

0:06:29.641,0:06:32.054
that my soul had trouble with.

0:06:32.078,0:06:34.014
Dolly sings a lot about the South.

0:06:34.038,0:06:35.673
If you go through her discography,

0:06:35.697,0:06:37.967
you will hear song after song[br]about Tennessee.

0:06:37.991,0:06:40.879
(Music) DP: (Singing, various songs)[br]Tennessee, Tennessee...

0:06:40.903,0:06:42.369
Tennessee homesick ...

0:06:43.150,0:06:47.617
I've got those Tennessee homesick blues[br]runnin' through my head.

0:06:48.682,0:06:49.796
Tennessee.

0:06:49.820,0:06:52.678
JA: "Tennessee Mountain Home,"[br]"Tennessee Mountain Memories."

0:06:52.682,0:06:54.419
Now I grew up in Tennessee,

0:06:54.443,0:06:56.459
and I felt no nostalgia for that place.

0:06:56.483,0:06:59.478
I was the scrawny Arab kid

0:06:59.502,0:07:02.784
who came from the place[br]that invented suicide bombing.

0:07:02.808,0:07:05.069
I spent a lot of time in my room.

0:07:05.093,0:07:06.689
When I left Nashville,

0:07:06.713,0:07:08.848
I left.

0:07:08.872,0:07:10.324
I remember being at Dollywood,

0:07:10.348,0:07:14.149
standing in front of a replica,[br]replica of her Tennessee Mountain Home.

0:07:14.173,0:07:15.912
People all around me were crying.

0:07:15.936,0:07:18.309
This is a set.

0:07:18.705,0:07:19.872
Why are you crying?

0:07:19.896,0:07:22.185
I couldn't understand[br]why they were so emotional,

0:07:22.209,0:07:24.759
especially given[br]my relationship to the South.

0:07:25.356,0:07:27.991
And I started to honestly have[br]panic attacks about this.

0:07:28.015,0:07:30.154
"Am I not the right person[br]for this project?"

0:07:31.491,0:07:32.641
But then ...

0:07:33.297,0:07:34.447
twist of fate.

0:07:34.471,0:07:36.301
We meet this guy, Bryan Seaver,

0:07:36.325,0:07:38.562
Dolly's nephew and bodyguard.

0:07:38.586,0:07:41.959
And on a whim, he drives[br]producer Shima Oliaee and I

0:07:41.983,0:07:43.261
out of Dollywood,

0:07:43.285,0:07:45.269
round the back side of the mountains,

0:07:45.293,0:07:46.697
up the mountains 20 minutes,

0:07:46.721,0:07:48.150
down a narrow dirt road,

0:07:48.174,0:07:51.366
through giant wooden gates[br]that look right out of "Game of Thrones,"

0:07:51.390,0:07:54.921
and into the actual[br]Tennessee Mountain Home.

0:07:57.048,0:07:58.397
But the real place.

0:07:58.421,0:07:59.575
Valhalla.

0:07:59.599,0:08:01.176
The real Tennessee Mountain Home.

0:08:01.200,0:08:03.356
And I'm going to score[br]this part with Wagner,

0:08:03.380,0:08:05.007
because you've got to understand,

0:08:05.031,0:08:06.197
in Tennessee lore,

0:08:06.221,0:08:09.007
this is like hallowed ground,[br]the Tennessee Mountain Home.

0:08:09.031,0:08:11.785
So I remember standing[br]there, on the grass,

0:08:11.809,0:08:13.650
next to the Pigeon River,

0:08:13.674,0:08:16.044
butterflies doing loopty loops in the air,

0:08:16.068,0:08:18.334
and I had my own moment of wonder.

0:08:19.012,0:08:21.758
Dolly's Tennessee Mountain Home

0:08:21.782,0:08:25.545
looks exactly like my dad's home[br]in the mountains of Lebanon.

0:08:26.023,0:08:29.705
Her house looks just like[br]the place that he left.

0:08:30.276,0:08:33.575
And that simple bit of layering[br]led me to have a conversation with him

0:08:33.599,0:08:34.857
that I'd never had before,

0:08:34.881,0:08:36.991
about the pain he felt leaving his home.

0:08:37.015,0:08:39.058
And how he hears that in Dolly's music.

0:08:39.082,0:08:42.900
Then I had a conversation with Dolly[br]where she described her songs

0:08:42.924,0:08:44.186
as migration music.

0:08:44.210,0:08:46.098
Even that classic song,

0:08:46.122,0:08:48.669
"Tennessee Mountain Home,"[br]if you listen to it --

0:08:49.610,0:08:51.571
(Dolly Parton "Tennessee Mountain Home")

0:08:51.595,0:08:55.816
"Sittin' on the front porch[br]on a summer afternoon

0:08:56.570,0:09:00.324
In a straight-backed chair on two legs,

0:09:00.348,0:09:03.888
leaned against the wall."

0:09:05.356,0:09:09.737
It's about trying to capture a moment[br]that you know is already gone.

0:09:09.761,0:09:12.507
But if you can paint it, vividly,

0:09:12.531,0:09:16.150
maybe you can freeze it in place,[br]almost like in resin,

0:09:16.174,0:09:18.374
trapped between past and present.

0:09:19.039,0:09:21.239
That is the immigrant experience.

0:09:21.801,0:09:24.952
And that simple thought[br]led me to a million conversations.

0:09:24.976,0:09:28.928
I started talking to musicologists[br]about country music as a whole.

0:09:28.952,0:09:31.365
This genre that I've always felt so

0:09:31.389,0:09:33.460
having nothing to do[br]with where I came from

0:09:33.484,0:09:36.332
is actually made up of instruments[br]and musical styles

0:09:36.356,0:09:38.285
that came directly from the Middle East.

0:09:38.309,0:09:42.086
In fact, there were trade routes[br]that ran from what is now Lebanon

0:09:42.110,0:09:44.534
right up into the mountains[br]of East Tennessee.

0:09:45.007,0:09:48.816
I can honestly say, standing there,[br]looking at her home,

0:09:48.840,0:09:51.967
was the first time I felt[br]like I'm a Tennessean.

0:09:52.957,0:09:54.424
That is honestly true.

0:09:54.802,0:09:56.489
And this wasn't a one-time thing,

0:09:56.513,0:09:57.877
I mean, over and over again,

0:09:57.901,0:10:01.830
she would force me[br]beyond the simple categories

0:10:01.854,0:10:03.380
I had constructed for the world.

0:10:03.404,0:10:06.225
I remember talking with her[br]about her seven-year partnership

0:10:06.249,0:10:07.427
with Porter Wagoner.

0:10:07.451,0:10:11.658
1967, she joins his band,[br]he is the biggest thing in country music,

0:10:11.682,0:10:14.119
she is a backup singer, a nobody.

0:10:14.143,0:10:16.602
Within a short time, she gets huge,

0:10:16.626,0:10:17.785
he gets jealous,

0:10:17.809,0:10:20.602
he then sues her for three million dollars

0:10:20.626,0:10:21.840
when she tries to leave.

0:10:21.864,0:10:24.785
Now it would be really easy[br]to see Porter Wagoner

0:10:24.809,0:10:28.070
as, like, a type: classic,[br]patriarchal jackass,

0:10:28.094,0:10:29.406
trying to hold her back.

0:10:29.430,0:10:31.464
But any time I would suggest that to her,

0:10:31.488,0:10:32.645
like, come on.

0:10:32.669,0:10:35.495
(Audio) This is a guy, I mean,[br]you see it in the videos too,

0:10:35.519,0:10:37.383
he's got his arm around you.

0:10:37.407,0:10:41.343
There's a power thing happening, for sure.

0:10:41.367,0:10:43.904
DP: Well, it's more complicated than that.

0:10:43.928,0:10:45.689
I mean, just think about it.

0:10:45.713,0:10:47.301
He had had this show for years,

0:10:47.325,0:10:50.451
he didn't need me to have his hit show.

0:10:50.475,0:10:54.009
He wasn't expecting me[br]to be all that I was, either.

0:10:54.348,0:10:57.312
I was a serious entertainer,[br]he didn't know that.

0:10:57.336,0:11:00.586
He didn't know how many dreams I had.

0:11:00.610,0:11:02.285
JA: In effect, she kept telling me,

0:11:02.309,0:11:05.332
"Don't bring your stupid way[br]of seeing the world into my story,

0:11:05.356,0:11:06.856
because that's not what it was.

0:11:06.880,0:11:09.824
Yeah, there was power,[br]but that's not all there was.

0:11:09.848,0:11:11.582
You can't summarize this."

0:11:13.501,0:11:15.017
Alright, just to zoom out.

0:11:15.041,0:11:16.318
What do I make of this?

0:11:16.342,0:11:20.533
Well, I think there's something in here[br]that's a clue, a way forward.

0:11:20.557,0:11:22.263
As journalists, we love difference.

0:11:22.287,0:11:23.888
We love to fetishize difference.

0:11:23.912,0:11:26.348
But increasingly, in this confusing world,

0:11:26.372,0:11:29.213
we need to be the bridge[br]between those differences.

0:11:29.237,0:11:30.770
But how do you do that?

0:11:31.261,0:11:34.070
I think for me, now, the answer is simple.

0:11:34.094,0:11:36.443
You interrogate those differences,

0:11:36.467,0:11:38.991
you hold them for as long as you can,

0:11:39.015,0:11:42.189
until, like up on that mountain,

0:11:42.213,0:11:43.414
something happens,

0:11:43.438,0:11:45.105
something reveals itself.

0:11:45.800,0:11:47.705
Story cannot end in difference.

0:11:47.729,0:11:49.544
It's got to end in revelation.

0:11:50.277,0:11:52.999
And coming back[br]from that trip on the mountain,

0:11:53.023,0:11:56.435
a friend of mine gave me a book[br]that gave this whole idea a name.

0:11:56.856,0:11:59.450
In psychotherapy,[br]there's this idea called the third,

0:11:59.474,0:12:01.064
which essentially goes like this.

0:12:01.406,0:12:04.667
Typically, we think of ourselves[br]as these autonomous units.

0:12:04.691,0:12:07.356
I do something to you,[br]you do something to me.

0:12:07.380,0:12:10.197
But according to this theory,[br]when two people come together

0:12:10.221,0:12:12.769
and really commit to seeing each other,

0:12:12.793,0:12:15.427
in that mutual act of recognition,

0:12:15.451,0:12:17.539
they actually make something new.

0:12:17.563,0:12:20.229
A new entity that is their relationship.

0:12:21.006,0:12:25.095
You can think of Dolly's concerts[br]as sort of a cultural third space.

0:12:25.119,0:12:27.825
The way she sees all the different[br]parts of her audience,

0:12:27.849,0:12:29.039
the way they see her,

0:12:29.063,0:12:31.927
creates the spiritual[br]architecture of that space.

0:12:33.293,0:12:35.626
And I think now that is my calling.

0:12:36.237,0:12:37.816
That as a journalist,

0:12:37.840,0:12:39.729
as a storyteller,

0:12:39.753,0:12:41.681
as just an American,

0:12:41.705,0:12:45.094
living in a country struggling to hold,

0:12:45.118,0:12:48.094
that every story I tell[br]has got to find the third.

0:12:49.001,0:12:52.342
That place where the things[br]we hold as different

0:12:52.366,0:12:54.504
resolve themselves into something new.

0:12:55.792,0:12:56.942
Thank you.