Craig Mod

**Craig Mod** (0:01)
So much boils down to self-worth, and you can't belong if you don't feel valuable. I think a lot of toxic relationships, a lot of abusive relationships come from that desire to belong, but not feeling valuable.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:19)
From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman.
On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on. On this episode, a wide-ranging conversation with Craig Mod about adoption, about walking in Japan, and about how technology is affecting creativity.

**Craig Mod** (0:44)
The abundance of creativity we are losing every single day because of people being sucked into their phones.

**Debbie Millman** (0:53)
Craig Mod is a writer, a photographer, a publisher, a designer, and long-distance walker whose work is rooted in attention. Attention to roads, books, technology, memory, and the lives we pass along the way.
Craig writes the acclaimed newsletters, Roden and Ridgeline, and runs special projects, an independent publishing and membership community devoted to books, walks, photography, and the making of thoughtful work outside the machinery of the algorithmic Internet. He is also the author of several books, including Kisa by Kisa, Art Space Tokyo, and the beautiful memoir, Things Become Other Things, a book about friendship, grief, class, adoption, Japan, and the alchemy by which motion can turn memory into meaning. Craig Mod, welcome to Design Matters.

**Craig Mod** (1:48)
Thanks for having me.

**Debbie Millman** (1:50)
Craig, you grew up in a small industrial town in Connecticut, where an airplane engine factory was not just an employer, it was the center of almost everything.
Your grandparents met there, your parents met there, and nearly everyone seemed connected to it in some way. What did that factory mean to you as a child before you had a language for class or labor or escape?

**Craig Mod** (2:15)
Yeah, I mean, it was probably most through my grandfather, who I think he identified most strongly with being there.
My grandmother, once I think she got married and was pregnant with my mother, she left the factory. So it was really just my grandfather who was there consistently. Then when my parents got divorced, all these things. So everyone ended up leaving it except for my grandfather, and he took a lot of pride of being there. Actually, the factory is Pratt & Whitney, and it was funny. We'd go to Disney World. This was our one indulgence as a family, is every summer we'd go to, I went to Disney World probably literally 10 times, 10 summers in a row. I could still probably to this day navigate Disney World without a map and know exactly where everything is. I'm like, I know where Space Mountain is, I know where this is. We would always go, and I think at Epcot Center, there was a special Pratt & Whitney sponsored ride or exhibition or something, and he had a little card that would get us into the back like VIP.
He was not a VIP at Pratt & Whitney, just a random guy on the floor, his salary was very modest. But we'd be able to go into that space. I just remember that feeling really special, and like, oh wow, this is like an entity that has a certain kind of power and magic to it, which I don't think anyone would be able to say today about car manufacturers or airplane engine manufacturing or things like that.

**Debbie Millman** (3:41)
Things Become Other Things, your most recent book, is a memoir. But it's also a love story between you and your childhood best friend, Brian, who was tragically murdered when he was still a teenager. There's a line in Things Become Other Things where you state the town is nothing to you without him.
First grade is where the two of you meet, and your friendship infuses, almost chemically. What do you remember about the boy he was when you first got to know him?

**Craig Mod** (4:12)
It was just immediately someone I kind of admired. I think I'm adopted, and I think all adopted kids think deeply about their own mythology, where they came from or where they could have come from.
I think we all really crave siblings. And I think Brian was just, we kind of looked enough alike.

**Debbie Millman** (4:32)
Yeah, you were mistaken for brothers a lot.

**Craig Mod** (4:34)
Yeah, and I love that. I remember that being a really important fiction, that as a kid held a lot of meaning. And so I think it was just a combination of these things that maybe made more potent by being an adoptee.