Why Rituals Matter More Than Ever with Bruce Feiler

Bruce Feiler (0:00)

The body is technically dead, but you've got to get the organs. They say goodbye, and the body goes off to its final destination where it will give the gift of life. And she makes a rule, Missy, that nobody can take a picture, okay? She makes an exception for The Widow, and the next morning, her phone blows up, and it's like, I want to do this. How do I do this? How do I solve that problem? The Widow posts that picture on Facebook. It gets 2 million likes.

And today, there are 50 donor support groups in the country. These rituals have 250 million views on YouTube. We all know that the algorithms of hate on the Internet are designed to divide us. But here's an example where the Internet can create communities of connection that we didn't even know we needed.

Guy Kawasaki (0:48)

Good morning, Bruce, and good morning, audience. This is Guy Kawasaki. This is the Remarkable People Podcast, and we have Bruce Feiler on today. And my god, you've been a New York Times bestseller seven times? Seven times?

Bruce Feiler (1:04)

Wow. But who's counting? I like poetry and math, right? So yeah, sure, I'll take that. There's some poetry to that math.

Guy Kawasaki (1:10)

Huh. Seven times. And you don't strike me as the kind of guy that would stack the deck or somehow cheat the New York Times. So you're legitimate. So that's really impressive, my god.

Bruce Feiler (1:23)

No, I've never done that. I've never like bulk ordered. I've never gone through the machinations that people say. I'm afraid I did it the old-fashioned way, like one copy at a time.

Guy Kawasaki (1:33)

So listen, this seven-time New York bestseller is here to talk about his latest book.

And this book, it really is a mind-expanding book. So it is called A Time to Gather. And it is about rituals. And I learned more about ritual. I had no idea there's so much to rituals. So thank you very much, Bruce.

Bruce Feiler (1:57)

Thank you for inviting me. I'm just, I qualify as that old talk radio line of long-time listener and first-time caller. So I'm honored to be in this conversation. And I've just followed your own passions and your enthusiasms wherever they've led you and led all of us. And I'm just delighted and so much looking forward to this conversation.

Guy Kawasaki (2:14)

Yeah, you say that to all the podcasters.

Bruce Feiler (2:16)

Oh, is this the podcast? Wait, I'm sorry, I changed my script. Let me get my script.

Guy Kawasaki (2:23)

So we got to start off with a very simple definition. So we're all on the same page, so to speak. So you got to define ritual. And you say it's an act and it's shared and it's unnecessary. Those three things wouldn't pop into my mind for a definition of a ritual. So what is a ritual in the eyes of Bruce Feiler?

Bruce Feiler (2:46)

So I'll answer the question directly, and then I'll back up and tell you how I came to be asking this question. But yes, to me, a ritual is a shared, unnecessary act that makes us feel at home. So it's an act here. This is a doing. This is not a talking, right? This is embodied storytelling, using bodies, using communities, using people getting together to mark a destabilizing life experience. So it's an act. It's shared. There's 500 academic studies holding these occasions, synchronize our heartbeats and align our sense of the danger and help people navigate uncomfortable and uncertain situations. They make our families and our neighborhoods and our communities and our classrooms and our teams and our office mates. They make us closer. So it's connecting. But it is unnecessary. And I think that's a strange word to hear. But I think it's essential, as you say, Guy, but it is essential to it because you don't need to get down on one knee to get engaged, right? You don't need to wear black to mourn. You don't need to circle the bride seven times to get married or climb a mountain and see the sunrise in order to mark a graduation or a coming of age or whatever it might be.

But these un necessities become necessary because we assign them collective meaning. And that's really what we're talking about. Sort of the essential act that makes us human is symbol. This was the thing that most distinguished us from our ancestors. So these are ways that we find meaning, build story, chronicle our lives, and connect ourselves to those around us. And it's the sheer act of doing the unnecessary thing that makes us feel at home. And that feels at home is actually the thing that perhaps is most new in my book of Time to Gather because it began as with my kid. So I don't know where your 21-year-old fits in your family structure. But my wife and I, we went from empty nest to full nest 21 years ago when we became parents of identical twin girls. And 18 years later, we went from full nest to empty nest in 32 minutes when we dropped them off at this opposite end of the same college campus. And I walked through our front door and I felt homesick in my own home. And I thought, you can't use this word. This is a cringey word that people use when their kids go away to sleepaway camp.