1 00:00:05,769 --> 00:00:08,690 I want to tell you about my search for purpose as a journalist 2 00:00:08,714 --> 00:00:12,134 and how Dolly Parton helped me figure it out. 3 00:00:13,038 --> 00:00:15,649 So I've been telling audio stories for about 20 years, 4 00:00:15,673 --> 00:00:17,594 first on the radio and then in podcasts. 5 00:00:17,981 --> 00:00:21,195 When I started the radio show "Radiolab" in 2002, 6 00:00:21,883 --> 00:00:24,620 here was the quintessential story move we would do. 7 00:00:24,645 --> 00:00:26,178 We'd bring on somebody -- 8 00:00:26,203 --> 00:00:28,797 (Audio) Steven Strogatz: It's one of the most hypnotic 9 00:00:28,821 --> 00:00:31,265 and spellbinding spectacles in nature, 10 00:00:31,289 --> 00:00:34,384 because, you have to keep in mind, it is absolutely silent. 11 00:00:34,409 --> 00:00:37,068 Jad Abumrad: Like this guy, mathematician, Steve Strogatz, 12 00:00:37,092 --> 00:00:38,504 and he would paint a picture. 13 00:00:38,528 --> 00:00:40,827 SS: Picture it. There's a riverbank in Thailand, 14 00:00:40,851 --> 00:00:42,424 in the remote part of the jungle, 15 00:00:42,438 --> 00:00:44,861 you're in a canoe, slipping down the river. 16 00:00:45,535 --> 00:00:46,956 There's no sound of anything, 17 00:00:46,980 --> 00:00:50,273 maybe the occasional, you know, exotic jungle bird or something. 18 00:00:50,297 --> 00:00:52,622 JA: So you're in this imaginary canoe with Steve, 19 00:00:52,646 --> 00:00:56,177 and in the air all around you are millions of fireflies. 20 00:00:56,201 --> 00:01:00,296 And what you see is sort of a randomized starry-night effect. 21 00:01:00,606 --> 00:01:03,566 Because all the fireflies are blinking at different rates. 22 00:01:03,590 --> 00:01:05,091 Which is what you would expect. 23 00:01:05,487 --> 00:01:08,178 But according to Steve, in this one place, 24 00:01:08,202 --> 00:01:10,884 for reasons no scientist can fully explain -- 25 00:01:10,908 --> 00:01:12,058 SS: Whoop. 26 00:01:12,996 --> 00:01:14,177 Whoop. 27 00:01:14,924 --> 00:01:16,121 Whoop. 28 00:01:16,145 --> 00:01:19,073 With thousands of lights on and then off, all in sync. 29 00:01:19,097 --> 00:01:26,097 (Music and electric sounds) 30 00:01:26,327 --> 00:01:27,763 JA: Now it's around this time 31 00:01:27,787 --> 00:01:30,978 that I would generally bring in the beautiful music, as I just did, 32 00:01:31,002 --> 00:01:33,010 and you'd start to get that warm feeling. 33 00:01:33,034 --> 00:01:34,816 A feeling, that we know from science, 34 00:01:34,840 --> 00:01:36,760 kind of localizes in your head and chest 35 00:01:36,784 --> 00:01:38,237 and spreads through your body. 36 00:01:38,261 --> 00:01:39,879 It's that feeling of wonder. 37 00:01:39,903 --> 00:01:43,143 From 2002 to 2010, I did hundreds of these stories. 38 00:01:44,693 --> 00:01:48,138 Sciency, neurosciency, very heady, brainy stories 39 00:01:48,162 --> 00:01:50,860 that would always resolve into that feeling of wonder. 40 00:01:51,780 --> 00:01:53,419 And I began to see that as my job, 41 00:01:53,443 --> 00:01:55,817 to lead people to moments of wonder. 42 00:01:56,269 --> 00:01:57,753 What that sounded like was: 43 00:01:57,777 --> 00:02:01,585 (Various voices) "Huh!" "Wow!" "Wow!" 44 00:02:02,094 --> 00:02:03,259 "That's amazing." 45 00:02:03,283 --> 00:02:05,316 "Whoa!" "Wow!" 46 00:02:05,340 --> 00:02:08,371 JA: But I began to get kind of tired of these stories. 47 00:02:08,720 --> 00:02:10,673 I mean, partially, it was the repetition. 48 00:02:10,697 --> 00:02:13,387 I remember there was a day I was sitting at the computer, 49 00:02:13,411 --> 00:02:14,807 making the sound of a neuron. 50 00:02:14,831 --> 00:02:15,982 (Crackling sound) 51 00:02:16,006 --> 00:02:19,325 You know, take some white noise, chop it up, very easy sound to make. 52 00:02:19,349 --> 00:02:23,214 I remember thinking, "I have made this sound 25 times." 53 00:02:23,238 --> 00:02:25,252 But it was more than that -- 54 00:02:25,276 --> 00:02:27,443 there was a familiar path to these stories. 55 00:02:27,467 --> 00:02:29,959 You walk the path of truth, which is made of science, 56 00:02:29,983 --> 00:02:31,133 and you get to wonder. 57 00:02:31,157 --> 00:02:33,185 Now, I love science, don't get me wrong. 58 00:02:33,209 --> 00:02:35,332 My parents emigrated from a war-torn country, 59 00:02:35,356 --> 00:02:36,578 came to America, 60 00:02:36,602 --> 00:02:41,427 and science for them was, like, more their identity than anything else, 61 00:02:41,451 --> 00:02:43,518 and I inherited that from them. 62 00:02:44,268 --> 00:02:46,737 But there was something about that simple movement 63 00:02:46,761 --> 00:02:48,047 from science to wonder 64 00:02:48,071 --> 00:02:49,908 that just started to feel wrong to me. 65 00:02:49,933 --> 00:02:52,051 Like, is that the only path a story can take? 66 00:02:52,945 --> 00:02:54,599 Around 2012, 67 00:02:54,823 --> 00:02:59,076 I ran into a bunch of different stories that made me think, "No." 68 00:02:59,466 --> 00:03:00,632 One story in particular, 69 00:03:00,656 --> 00:03:04,673 where we interviewed a guy who described chemical weapons 70 00:03:04,697 --> 00:03:07,325 being used against him and his fellow villagers 71 00:03:07,349 --> 00:03:08,587 in the mountains of Laos. 72 00:03:08,611 --> 00:03:10,547 Western scientists went there, 73 00:03:10,571 --> 00:03:13,140 measured for chemical weapons, didn't find any. 74 00:03:13,164 --> 00:03:14,791 We interviewed the man about this, 75 00:03:14,815 --> 00:03:16,449 he said the scientists were wrong. 76 00:03:16,473 --> 00:03:17,878 We said, "But they tested." 77 00:03:17,902 --> 00:03:20,362 He said, "I don't care, I know what happened to me." 78 00:03:20,386 --> 00:03:22,537 And we went back and forth and back and forth, 79 00:03:22,561 --> 00:03:24,449 and make a long story short, 80 00:03:24,473 --> 00:03:26,167 the interview ended in tears. 81 00:03:26,981 --> 00:03:28,131 I felt ... 82 00:03:28,751 --> 00:03:29,901 I felt horrible. 83 00:03:31,036 --> 00:03:34,249 Like, hammering at a scientific truth, when someone has suffered. 84 00:03:35,045 --> 00:03:36,997 That wasn't going to heal anything. 85 00:03:37,021 --> 00:03:41,589 And maybe I was relying too much on science to find the truth. 86 00:03:41,918 --> 00:03:43,776 And it really did feel, at that moment, 87 00:03:43,800 --> 00:03:45,879 that there were a lot of truths in the room, 88 00:03:45,903 --> 00:03:47,838 and we were only looking at one of them. 89 00:03:47,862 --> 00:03:50,053 So I thought, "I've got to get better at this." 90 00:03:50,077 --> 00:03:51,648 And so for the next eight years, 91 00:03:51,672 --> 00:03:55,230 I committed myself to doing stories where you heard truths collide. 92 00:03:55,254 --> 00:03:57,394 We did stories about the politics of consent, 93 00:03:57,418 --> 00:04:00,299 where you heard the perspective of survivors and perpetrators 94 00:04:00,323 --> 00:04:01,530 whose narratives clashed. 95 00:04:01,554 --> 00:04:02,807 We did stories about race, 96 00:04:02,831 --> 00:04:05,457 how black men are systematically eliminated from juries, 97 00:04:05,481 --> 00:04:08,305 and yet, the rules that try and prevent that from happening 98 00:04:08,329 --> 00:04:09,529 only make things worse. 99 00:04:09,553 --> 00:04:12,093 Stories about counter terrorism, Guantanamo detainees, 100 00:04:12,117 --> 00:04:13,893 stories where everything is disputed, 101 00:04:13,917 --> 00:04:16,258 all you can do is struggle to try and make sense. 102 00:04:16,282 --> 00:04:18,964 And this struggle kind of became the point. 103 00:04:20,031 --> 00:04:22,427 I began to think, "Maybe that's my job." 104 00:04:22,451 --> 00:04:24,444 To lead people to moments of struggle. 105 00:04:25,015 --> 00:04:26,483 Here's what that sounded like: 106 00:04:26,507 --> 00:04:28,594 (Various voices) "But I see -- I, like --" 107 00:04:28,618 --> 00:04:29,919 "Uh, I --" (Sighs) 108 00:04:29,943 --> 00:04:31,935 "Well, so, like, huh --" 109 00:04:31,959 --> 00:04:33,379 "That, I mean, I --" 110 00:04:33,403 --> 00:04:37,546 "You know -- golly -- I --" (Sighs) 111 00:04:37,570 --> 00:04:40,355 JA: And that sigh right there, 112 00:04:40,379 --> 00:04:43,119 I wanted to hear that sound in every single story, 113 00:04:43,143 --> 00:04:46,176 because that sound is kind of our current moment, right? 114 00:04:46,200 --> 00:04:50,566 We live in a world where truth is no longer just a set of facts 115 00:04:50,590 --> 00:04:51,751 to be captured. 116 00:04:51,775 --> 00:04:52,942 It's become a process. 117 00:04:52,966 --> 00:04:55,312 It's gone from being a noun to being a verb. 118 00:04:55,336 --> 00:04:57,419 But how do you end that story? 119 00:04:57,443 --> 00:05:01,300 Like, what literally kept happening is we'd be, you know, telling a story, 120 00:05:01,324 --> 00:05:03,507 cruising along, two viewpoints in conflict, 121 00:05:03,531 --> 00:05:06,229 you get to the end and it's just like -- 122 00:05:06,253 --> 00:05:07,404 No, let me see. 123 00:05:07,428 --> 00:05:08,721 What do I say at the end? 124 00:05:08,745 --> 00:05:09,896 Oh, my God. 125 00:05:09,920 --> 00:05:11,951 What do you -- how do you end that story? 126 00:05:11,975 --> 00:05:13,745 You can't just happily-ever-after it, 127 00:05:13,769 --> 00:05:15,277 because that doesn't feel real. 128 00:05:15,301 --> 00:05:16,451 At the same time, 129 00:05:16,475 --> 00:05:18,864 if you just leave people in that stuck place, 130 00:05:18,888 --> 00:05:20,729 like, "Why did I just listen to that?" 131 00:05:20,753 --> 00:05:23,309 Like, it felt like there had to be another move there. 132 00:05:23,333 --> 00:05:25,943 Had to be a way beyond the struggle. 133 00:05:25,967 --> 00:05:29,772 And this is what brings me to Dolly. 134 00:05:30,254 --> 00:05:32,777 Or Saint Dolly, as we like to call her in the South. 135 00:05:32,801 --> 00:05:36,445 I want to tell you about one little glimmer of an epiphany that I had, 136 00:05:36,469 --> 00:05:39,631 doing a nine-part series called "Dolly Parton's America" last year. 137 00:05:39,655 --> 00:05:41,336 It was a bit of a departure for me, 138 00:05:41,360 --> 00:05:44,539 but I just had this intuition that Dolly could help me 139 00:05:44,563 --> 00:05:46,316 figure out this ending problem. 140 00:05:46,340 --> 00:05:48,094 And here was the basic intuition: 141 00:05:48,118 --> 00:05:49,396 You go to a Dolly concert, 142 00:05:49,420 --> 00:05:52,118 you see men in trucker hats standing next to men in drag, 143 00:05:52,142 --> 00:05:54,031 Democrats standing next to Republicans, 144 00:05:54,055 --> 00:05:55,206 women holding hands, 145 00:05:55,230 --> 00:05:57,483 every different kind of person smashed together. 146 00:05:57,507 --> 00:06:00,372 All of these people that we are told should hate each other 147 00:06:00,396 --> 00:06:02,126 are there singing together. 148 00:06:02,150 --> 00:06:05,570 She somehow carved out this unique space in America, 149 00:06:05,594 --> 00:06:07,983 and I wanted to know, how did she do that? 150 00:06:08,007 --> 00:06:12,705 So I interviewed Dolly 12 times, two separate continents. 151 00:06:12,729 --> 00:06:14,500 She started every interview this way: 152 00:06:14,524 --> 00:06:16,864 (Audio) Dolly Parton: Ask me whatever you ask me, 153 00:06:16,888 --> 00:06:19,087 and I'm going to tell you what I want to hear. 154 00:06:19,111 --> 00:06:20,119 (Laughter) 155 00:06:20,143 --> 00:06:22,800 She is undeniably a force of nature. 156 00:06:22,824 --> 00:06:25,102 But the problem that I ran into 157 00:06:25,126 --> 00:06:29,617 is that I had chosen a conceit for this series 158 00:06:29,641 --> 00:06:32,054 that my soul had trouble with. 159 00:06:32,078 --> 00:06:34,014 Dolly sings a lot about the South. 160 00:06:34,038 --> 00:06:35,673 If you go through her discography, 161 00:06:35,697 --> 00:06:37,967 you will hear song after song about Tennessee. 162 00:06:37,991 --> 00:06:40,879 (Music) DP: (Singing, various songs) Tennessee, Tennessee... 163 00:06:40,903 --> 00:06:42,369 Tennessee homesick ... 164 00:06:43,150 --> 00:06:47,617 I've got those Tennessee homesick blues runnin' through my head. 165 00:06:48,682 --> 00:06:49,856 Tennessee. 166 00:06:49,880 --> 00:06:52,658 "Tennessee Mountain Home," "Tennessee Mountain Memories." 167 00:06:52,682 --> 00:06:54,419 Now I grew up in Tennessee, 168 00:06:54,443 --> 00:06:56,459 and I felt no nostalgia for that place. 169 00:06:56,483 --> 00:06:59,478 I was the scrawny Arab kid 170 00:06:59,502 --> 00:07:02,784 who came from the place that invented suicide bombing. 171 00:07:02,808 --> 00:07:05,069 I spent a lot of time in my room. 172 00:07:05,093 --> 00:07:06,689 When I left Nashville, 173 00:07:06,713 --> 00:07:08,848 I left. 174 00:07:08,872 --> 00:07:10,324 I remember being at Dollywood, 175 00:07:10,348 --> 00:07:14,149 standing in front of a replica, replica of her Tennessee Mountain Home. 176 00:07:14,173 --> 00:07:15,912 People all around me were crying. 177 00:07:15,936 --> 00:07:18,309 This is a set. 178 00:07:18,705 --> 00:07:19,872 Why are you crying? 179 00:07:19,896 --> 00:07:22,185 I couldn't understand why they were so emotional, 180 00:07:22,209 --> 00:07:24,759 especially given my relationship to the South. 181 00:07:25,356 --> 00:07:27,991 And I started to honestly have panic attacks about this. 182 00:07:28,015 --> 00:07:30,154 "Am I not the right person for this project?" 183 00:07:31,491 --> 00:07:32,641 But then ... 184 00:07:33,297 --> 00:07:34,447 twist of fate. 185 00:07:34,471 --> 00:07:36,301 We meet this guy, Bryan Seaver, 186 00:07:36,325 --> 00:07:38,562 Dolly's nephew and bodyguard. 187 00:07:38,586 --> 00:07:41,959 And on a whim, he drives producer Shima Oliaee and I 188 00:07:41,983 --> 00:07:43,261 out of Dollywood, 189 00:07:43,285 --> 00:07:45,269 round the back side of the mountains, 190 00:07:45,293 --> 00:07:46,697 up the mountains 20 minutes, 191 00:07:46,721 --> 00:07:48,150 down a narrow dirt road, 192 00:07:48,174 --> 00:07:51,366 through giant wooden gates that look right out of "Game of Thrones," 193 00:07:51,390 --> 00:07:54,921 and into the actual Tennessee Mountain Home. 194 00:07:57,048 --> 00:07:58,397 But the real place. 195 00:07:58,421 --> 00:07:59,575 Valhalla. 196 00:07:59,599 --> 00:08:01,176 The real Tennessee Mountain Home. 197 00:08:01,200 --> 00:08:03,356 And I'm going to score this part with Wagner, 198 00:08:03,380 --> 00:08:05,007 because you've got to understand, 199 00:08:05,031 --> 00:08:06,197 in Tennessee lore, 200 00:08:06,221 --> 00:08:09,007 this is like hallowed ground, the Tennessee Mountain Home. 201 00:08:09,031 --> 00:08:11,785 So I remember standing there, on the grass, 202 00:08:11,809 --> 00:08:13,650 next to the Pigeon River, 203 00:08:13,674 --> 00:08:16,044 butterflies doing loopty loops in the air, 204 00:08:16,068 --> 00:08:18,334 and I had my own moment of wonder. 205 00:08:19,012 --> 00:08:21,758 Dolly's Tennessee Mountain Home 206 00:08:21,782 --> 00:08:25,545 looks exactly like my dad's home in the mountains of Lebanon. 207 00:08:26,023 --> 00:08:29,705 Her house looks just like the place that he left. 208 00:08:30,276 --> 00:08:33,575 And that simple bit of layering led me to have a conversation with him 209 00:08:33,599 --> 00:08:34,857 that I'd never had before, 210 00:08:34,881 --> 00:08:36,991 about the pain he felt leaving his home. 211 00:08:37,015 --> 00:08:39,058 And how he hears that in Dolly's music. 212 00:08:39,082 --> 00:08:42,900 Then I had a conversation with Dolly where she described her songs 213 00:08:42,924 --> 00:08:44,186 as migration music. 214 00:08:44,210 --> 00:08:46,098 Even that classic song, 215 00:08:46,122 --> 00:08:48,669 "Tennessee Mountain Home," if you listen to it -- 216 00:08:49,610 --> 00:08:51,571 (Dolly Parton "Tennessee Mountain Home") 217 00:08:51,595 --> 00:08:55,816 "Sittin' on the front porch on a summer afternoon 218 00:08:56,570 --> 00:09:00,324 In a straight-backed chair on two legs, 219 00:09:00,348 --> 00:09:03,888 leaned against the wall." 220 00:09:05,356 --> 00:09:09,737 It's about trying to capture a moment that you know is already gone. 221 00:09:09,761 --> 00:09:12,507 But if you can paint it, vividly, 222 00:09:12,531 --> 00:09:16,150 maybe you can freeze it in place, almost like in resin, 223 00:09:16,174 --> 00:09:18,374 trapped between past and present. 224 00:09:19,039 --> 00:09:21,239 That is the immigrant experience. 225 00:09:21,801 --> 00:09:24,952 And that simple thought led me to a million conversations. 226 00:09:24,976 --> 00:09:28,928 I started talking to musicologists about country music as a whole. 227 00:09:28,952 --> 00:09:31,365 This genre that I've always felt so 228 00:09:31,389 --> 00:09:33,460 having nothing to do with where I came from 229 00:09:33,484 --> 00:09:36,332 is actually made up of instruments and musical styles 230 00:09:36,356 --> 00:09:38,285 that came directly from the Middle East. 231 00:09:38,309 --> 00:09:42,086 In fact, there were trade routes that ran from what is now Lebanon 232 00:09:42,110 --> 00:09:44,534 right up into the mountains of East Tennessee. 233 00:09:45,007 --> 00:09:48,816 I can honestly say, standing there, looking at her home, 234 00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:51,967 was the first time I felt like I'm a Tennessean. 235 00:09:52,957 --> 00:09:54,424 That is honestly true. 236 00:09:54,802 --> 00:09:56,489 And this wasn't a one-time thing, 237 00:09:56,513 --> 00:09:57,877 I mean, over and over again, 238 00:09:57,901 --> 00:10:01,830 she would force me beyond the simple categories 239 00:10:01,854 --> 00:10:03,380 I had constructed for the world. 240 00:10:03,404 --> 00:10:06,225 I remember talking with her about her seven-year partnership 241 00:10:06,249 --> 00:10:07,427 with Porter Wagoner. 242 00:10:07,451 --> 00:10:11,658 1967, she joins his band, he is the biggest thing in country music, 243 00:10:11,682 --> 00:10:14,119 she is a backup singer, a nobody. 244 00:10:14,143 --> 00:10:16,602 Within a short time, she gets huge, 245 00:10:16,626 --> 00:10:17,785 he gets jealous, 246 00:10:17,809 --> 00:10:20,602 he then sues her for three million dollars 247 00:10:20,626 --> 00:10:21,840 when she tries to leave. 248 00:10:21,864 --> 00:10:24,785 Now it would be really easy to see Porter Wagoner 249 00:10:24,809 --> 00:10:28,070 as, like, a type: classic, patriarchal jackass, 250 00:10:28,094 --> 00:10:29,406 trying to hold her back. 251 00:10:29,430 --> 00:10:31,464 But any time I would suggest that to her, 252 00:10:31,488 --> 00:10:32,645 like, come on. 253 00:10:32,669 --> 00:10:35,495 (Audio) This is a guy, I mean, you see it in the videos too, 254 00:10:35,519 --> 00:10:37,383 he's got his arm around you. 255 00:10:37,407 --> 00:10:41,343 There's a power thing happening, for sure. 256 00:10:41,367 --> 00:10:43,904 DP: Well, it's more complicated than that. 257 00:10:43,928 --> 00:10:45,689 I mean, just think about it. 258 00:10:45,713 --> 00:10:47,301 He had had this show for years, 259 00:10:47,325 --> 00:10:50,451 he didn't need me to have his hit show. 260 00:10:50,475 --> 00:10:54,009 He wasn't expecting me to be all that I was, either. 261 00:10:54,348 --> 00:10:57,312 I was a serious entertainer, he didn't know that. 262 00:10:57,336 --> 00:11:00,586 He didn't know how many dreams I had. 263 00:11:00,610 --> 00:11:02,285 JA: In effect, she kept telling me, 264 00:11:02,309 --> 00:11:05,332 "Don't bring your stupid way of seeing the world into my story, 265 00:11:05,356 --> 00:11:06,856 because that's not what it was. 266 00:11:06,880 --> 00:11:09,824 Yeah, there was power, but that's not all there was. 267 00:11:09,848 --> 00:11:11,582 You can't summarize this." 268 00:11:13,501 --> 00:11:15,017 Alright, just to zoom out. 269 00:11:15,041 --> 00:11:16,318 What do I make of this? 270 00:11:16,342 --> 00:11:20,533 Well, I think there's something in here that's a clue, a way forward. 271 00:11:20,557 --> 00:11:22,263 As journalists, we love difference. 272 00:11:22,287 --> 00:11:23,888 We love to fetishize difference. 273 00:11:23,912 --> 00:11:26,348 But increasingly, in this confusing world, 274 00:11:26,372 --> 00:11:29,213 we need to be the bridge between those differences. 275 00:11:29,237 --> 00:11:30,770 But how do you do that? 276 00:11:31,261 --> 00:11:34,070 I think for me, now, the answer is simple. 277 00:11:34,094 --> 00:11:36,443 You interrogate those differences, 278 00:11:36,467 --> 00:11:38,991 you hold them for as long as you can, 279 00:11:39,015 --> 00:11:42,189 until, like up on that mountain, 280 00:11:42,213 --> 00:11:43,414 something happens, 281 00:11:43,438 --> 00:11:45,105 something reveals itself. 282 00:11:45,800 --> 00:11:47,705 Story cannot end in difference. 283 00:11:47,729 --> 00:11:49,544 It's got to end in revelation. 284 00:11:50,277 --> 00:11:52,999 And coming back from that trip on the mountain, 285 00:11:53,023 --> 00:11:56,435 a friend of mine gave me a book that gave this whole idea a name. 286 00:11:56,856 --> 00:11:59,450 In psychotherapy, there's this idea called the third, 287 00:11:59,474 --> 00:12:01,064 which essentially goes like this. 288 00:12:01,406 --> 00:12:04,667 Typically, we think of ourselves as these autonomous units. 289 00:12:04,691 --> 00:12:07,356 I do something to you, you do something to me. 290 00:12:07,380 --> 00:12:10,197 But according to this theory, when two people come together, 291 00:12:10,221 --> 00:12:12,769 and really commit to seeing each other, 292 00:12:12,793 --> 00:12:15,427 in that mutual act of recognition, 293 00:12:15,451 --> 00:12:17,539 they actually make something new. 294 00:12:17,563 --> 00:12:20,229 A new entity that is their relationship. 295 00:12:21,006 --> 00:12:25,095 You can think of Dolly's concerts as sort of a cultural third space. 296 00:12:25,119 --> 00:12:27,825 The way she sees all the different parts of her audience, 297 00:12:27,849 --> 00:12:29,039 the way they see her, 298 00:12:29,063 --> 00:12:31,927 creates the spiritual architecture of that space. 299 00:12:33,293 --> 00:12:35,626 And I think now that is my calling. 300 00:12:36,237 --> 00:12:37,816 That as a journalist, 301 00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:39,729 as a storyteller, 302 00:12:39,753 --> 00:12:41,681 as just an American, 303 00:12:41,705 --> 00:12:45,094 living in a country struggling to hold, 304 00:12:45,118 --> 00:12:48,094 that every story I tell has got to find the third. 305 00:12:49,001 --> 00:12:52,342 That place where the things we hold as different 306 00:12:52,366 --> 00:12:54,504 resolve themselves into something new. 307 00:12:55,792 --> 00:12:56,942 Thank you.