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MAKE HUMAN: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Maria Bowler
Weekly podcast with noted human person Maria Bowler. It’s for the culture makers, the visionary creatives who believe that creativity is a spiritual and social thing. It’s chill. We’re just definitively sorting through modest questions of existence, the nature of being, creativity, and meaning making once and for all time. We believe we make the culture that makes us.
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 2 weeks ago1h 1m
Nothing’s wrong with the bee w/ David Bedrick
What if the thing you keep trying to fix is the most intelligent part of you? We tend to think of shame as a hot, exposed feeling. David Bedrick, author of The Unshaming Way and Maria’s own teacher, says most shame is invisible: it looks like performing well, calling ourselves anxious or shy or blocked, and asking to have our symptoms taken away before we’ve ever gotten curious about them.Waypoints[00:01:35] — Shame you can’t feel[00:12:20] — Nothing’s wrong with the bee[00:22:55] — Shy, or scared?.[00:29:30] — The story underneath the story[00:41:50] — Math is when numbers are angry at you[00:49:28] — The critic you don’t know is thereResources David Bedrick — davidbedrick.comThe Unshaming Way: A Compassionate Guide to Dismantling Shame by David Bedrick (North Atlantic Books, 2024)Deborah Keenan — poet and David’s former poetry teacher; her poem about trying to “be good”Cornel West — “I am because somebody loved me”CTAYOUR SECRET INVITATION HEREHave a creative quandary? Submit a question to be answered on the showGot some creative resistance? Get your free audio guide to the Creative Resistance Practice for unblockingTheme song by deadmen
- Jun 30, 20265 min
Be weirder. Make no sense.
You are bored for a reason!Your contradictions were never a problem to solve!Maria shares a quick programming note — Make Human is taking July off and returning in August — and reads you two original meditations. Waypoints[00:00:00] — A summer pause, and two pieces to sit with[00:01:00] — Begging you to be weirder[00:02:30] — A genre of one[00:04:00] — Resist the flatteningCTAYOUR SECRET INVITATION HEREHave a creative quandary? Submit a question to be answered on the showGot some creative resistance? Get your free audio guide to the Creative Resistance Practice for unblockingTheme song by deadmen
- Jun 23, 202643 min
Be a sub to your vision w/ Carin Huebner
This episode is about the tension between the daily “job” of making vs. the need for a big transcendent “why”.Maria's producer Carin Huebner came to the conversation with a live wire. She'd finally gotten into the darkroom after weeks of circling it, and she made, in her own assessment, zero successful work. What happens next?In this episode Why the question "what is this for?" can be both essential and the thing that keeps you out of the roomErotic energy, Eros, and what it actually means to be a sub to your visionAnger as data — what it’s actually pointing toWhy most of us only ever get the next instruction, and how to stop making that wrongWaypoints[00:00:00] — Why Carin finally got into the darkroom[00:03:30] — The tension between the job and the why[00:10:30] — Both ends of the binary are forms of obedience[00:22:30] — Sub to the vision[00:25:00] — What actually is vision?[00:36:30] — Rules as permissionResourcesSally Mann — Art WorkSteven Pressfield — The War of ArtNathan Hill — Wellness Will Arnett — Is This Thing On? Hilma af Klint — referenced for automatic painting and receiving visionMichael Pollan — A World AppearsAnnie Dillard — The Writing LifeHave a creative quandary? Submit a question to be answered on the showGot some creative resistance? Get your free audio guide to the Creative Resistance Practice for unblockingTheme song by deadmen
- Jun 16, 202657 min
If everything's a yes, nothing's a yes — w/ Amelia Hruby
You already know what burnout looks like on the outside. But Amelia Hruby describes something subtler and more insidious: still doing all the tasks, still checking boxes, still showing up, and feeling absolutely nothing. If you’ve ever found yourself completing everything on the list and wondering where the desire went, you’ll love this episode on creative burnout, seasonal rhythms, and the hidden cost of saying yes.Amelia Hruby is a feminist writer, podcaster, and platform critic with a PhD in philosophy. She’s the host of Off The Grid and the founder of Softer Sounds, a podcast production studio she’s currently in the middle of sunsetting. Her new book, Your Attention Is Sacred Except On Social Media, is out now. Maria and Amelia discuss being alienated from your own creative impulse, and why the answer is rarely try harder.YOUR SECRET INVITATION HEREIn this episodeBurnout isn't always inertia Why consistency doesn't require disciplineSeasonal rhythms as a survival strategy, not a spiritual practice"Bridge desire" — Maria's term for the 70%-fit that turns the dial toward what you actually wantWhat makes something feel humanWaypoints[00:01:33] — The burnout practice[00:03:15] — When pleasure stops being accessible[00:10:45] — The sabbatical that became a sunset[00:29:45] — Consistency is desire, not discipline[00:50:00] — What makes it humanResources & mentionsAmelia’s website Off The Grid (podcast) — leaving social media, creative business, and platform alternativesYour Attention Is Sacred Except On Social Media — Amelia's new bookDana Amir — psychoanalyst; saturated vs. unsaturated stories in therapeutic relationshipHave a creative quandary? Submit a question to be answered on the showGot some creative resistance? Get your free audio guide to the Creative Resistance Practice for unblockingTheme song by deadmen
- Jun 9, 202642 min
On feeling qualified, well received, and ready (or not): Listener Q&A 1
What do you do when your work has nowhere to go? When the credentials keep accumulating and you still don't feel like enough? When the scroll takes you under and you don't know why you went in?In this first Listener Questions episode, Maria is joined by her producer, Carin, to answer real questions from real people who are trying to make things, live honestly, and not lose themselves in the process. Carin brings the follow-up you needed someone to ask, the real-life example that grounds, and the reminder that the questions in this episode are more connected than they look. You want to be in relationship. With your work, with the world, with yourself. This episode is about what gets in the way of that, and what you can do today.In this episodeWhy wanting an audience isn't ego and what it actually isWhat autoregulation has to do with your screen time problemWhy getting the credentials, the agent, the gallery slot won't scratch the itch and what mightOn finding form without a mapWhose voice is telling you you're not enough yet?Waypoints[00:01:00] — The photographer with a full hard drive[00:13:30] — On gatekeepers and house shows[00:16:30] — I need more qualifications before I can start[00:28:00] — The scroll problem[00:35:00] — How do you meet the form of your art?ResourcesSecret invitationBig Magic by Elizabeth GilbertThe War of Art by Steven PressfieldKate's episode of Make Human — referenced for its "most epic complaint story"The Dunning-Kruger effect Have a creative quandary? Submit a question to be answered on the showGot some creative resistance? Get your free audio guide to the Creative Resistance Practice for unblockingTheme song by deadmen
- Jun 2, 202644 min
Not separate, not the same w/ Sebene Selassie
Where do you belong? What does it mean to belong? This is a big question for creatives.I'm talking to Sebene Selassie: writer, teacher, and speaker who explores the paradoxes and possibilities of belonging through meditation, creativity, and nature-based practices. Her book You Belong is one of those rare texts that holds the spiritual and the social together without flattening either.We talk about the difference between belonging and fitting in, and the question that haunts a lot of creatives: when am I translating, and when am I disappearing?We accidentally invent several metaphors in this conversation, including one about orchestras that I will now be using forever. We also get into: the paradox that we're not separate and we're not the same, how to know when you're in the wrong room without making it a moral failure, and what silence has to do with finding a voice that actually feels like yours.This one is thoughtful and funny, and if I did my job right, you'll feel something in your body while you're listening.In this episodeWhy belonging and fitting in are not the same thing — and how confusing the two costs you your voiceWhat it means to "translate" yourself for a room, when that's a gift, and when you're disappearingThe orchestra metaphor that neither of them saw coming Why the inner work / outer work divide is a false binary What silence has to do with finding a voice that actually feels like yours (and why ease in creativity is not the same as not doing the hard things)Waypoints[00:00:00] — The belonging question [00:04:00] — Sebene's journey with belonging [00:08:30] — When am I translating, and when am I disappearing?[00:20:00] — Not separate, not the same: the central paradox [00:33:00] — Silence, stillness & the voice that's already yoursResourcesSecret invitationSebene Selassie's Substack You Belong by Sebene Selassie Sharon Salzberg on the healing being in the returnHave a creative quandary? Submit a question to be answered on the showGot some creative resistance? Get your free audio guide to the Creative Resistance Practice for unblockingIf this episode landed for you, please rate and review the show on your listening app — and send it to someone you'd want to talk about this with.
- May 26, 202650 min
Not a “choose joy” episode — w/ Kate Bowler
Are you allowed to feel joy? Also, do you HAVE TO “choose joy”?That question sits at the center of this conversation with my sister Kate Bowler, NYT bestselling author and professor at Duke Divinity School, whose latest book Joyful Anyway is about as far from a "good vibes" manifesto as you can get. Kate has spent years — many of them marked by stage four cancer, medical trauma, and the particular exhaustion of being a highly sensitive person in a world built for optimization — figuring out why joy keeps showing up anyway.Joy and happiness are different. Happiness is math: accumulation, measurement, circumstances adding up. Joy has nothing to do with your gratitude journal and everything to do with whether you're willing to say a weird yes in the middle of a hard no.We go deep on what ambition actually looks like when it's rooted in your aliveness instead of your achievement. We talk about the dance between structure and surrender. We talk about what it means to witness yourself, what our limitations have to do with our humanity, and why the people who've lived through the most nos often feel joy more fully than anyone.It's also one of the funniest conversations I've had on this show. Kate got bitten by a snake. She rented a pirate ship. She asked her surgeon to perform a magic trick. And I roast her at the end about a blanket. You'll want to stay for all of it.In this episodeWhy "choose joy" is kind of a lie — and what you can actually do instead (hint: you can't open the door, but you can unlock it)How a stage four cancer diagnosis cracked ambition back open — and what that revealed about work as a space of self-belongingThe hospital magic trick: what happens when you say a weird yes in the middle of the hardest noWhy the depth of the no conditions the height of the yes — and why people who've been through the most loss often feel joy most fullyWhat our limitations, scars, and very specific kinds of damage have to do with what makes us most humanWaypoints[00:02:30] — Joy is not happiness (and happiness is just math)[00:07:00] — Ambition, aliveness & closing the door[00:17:00] — You can't open the door. You can only unlock it[00:20:00] — The magic trick (and other weird yeses)[00:36:00] — Snake bites, pirate ships & fear palate cleansers[00:45:00] — What makes us humanResourcesSecret invitationJoyful Anyway by Kate BowlerKate's podcast: Everything Happens with Kate BowlerEverything Happens InitiativeThe film Rental Family (Japanese loneliness, witnesses, and the grace we give each other)Nick Cave on AI and the travesty of tribute songs without limitsHave a creative quandary? Submit a question to be answered on the showGot some creative resistance? Get your free audio guide to the Creative Resistance Practice for unblocking
- May 19, 202654 min
My producer asks the big questions w/ Carin Huebner
You want to make something big. Yet here you are with every practice and routine and productivity tool that signals you're trying, and somehow still not at the real thing. What is that?Carin Huebner is a visual artist, former spiritual director, and the producer behind Make Human. She's also a person who has, in tears at a creative salon she was hosting, said: I just want to make. I just want to make. I just want to make. She asked the questions in this episode.This is the foundation episode. We talk about what creativity actually is (not innovation, not art-making, not your output), why the shaming witness is the real engine behind most creative blocks, and what agency means when it isn't code for "your willpower just isn't strong enough." We draw the line between productivity and creativity.We went sideways and came back. We laughed. There were bears.There's a moment in here where Maria describes the thing that makes any transformative practice actually work: therapy, morning pages, a walk in the woods, a friend who just happens to have a lot of love in them. This may just be the foundation of what it is to Make Human.In this episodeCreativity vs. productivity and why that distinction is not about aestheticsShame: what it is, where it comes from, and how it kills the thing before it startsWhat agency actually is when "you can create anything" starts to feel like a threatTruth-telling as the first creative actYour flavor of aliveness: the thing you bring to any room that isn't earned or performedInner work is not self-indulgent because have you ever been around someone at war with themselves?Why makers need to have their say in what counts as human right nowWaypoints[00:00:00] — What this podcast is for[00:03:00] — How Maria got here[00:13:00] — What creativity actually is (And what it isn't) [00:16:00] — Agency without the toxic positivity[00:23:00] — Truth-telling as the first creative act[00:31:00] — Shame, blocks, and the eyes of love[00:46:00] — Your flavor of aliveness [00:50:00] — Why make anything right now ResourcesSecret invitationThe Artist's Way by Julia Cameron — and the morning pages practiceDavid Bedrick's work on shame and the shaming witness Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) The Zen Buddhist "maybe good, maybe bad" storyHave a creative quandary? Submit a question to be answered on the showGot some creative resistance? Get your free audio guide to the Creative Resistance Practice for unblocking
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About MAKE HUMAN
Weekly podcast with noted human person Maria Bowler. It’s for the culture makers, the visionary creatives who believe that creativity is a spiritual and social thing. It’s chill. We’re just definitively sorting through modest questions of existence, the nature of being, creativity, and meaning making once and for all time. We believe we make the culture that makes us.
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