From Big Think.

This interview is an episode from ‪The Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the John Templeton Foundation.

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Watch Bowler’s next interview ► How self-help became America’s religion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3tZR1ZY1N8

American culture demands that pain be productive.

Historian Kate Bowler explores how the obsession with finding meaning in suffering turns into what she calls “purpose monsters”: the need to make every loss, failure, or tragedy count for something. But not everything happens for a reason. And not all pain is a lesson.

Bowler argues that grief deserves the dignity of honesty, not reframing. Instead of rearranging the past to find meaning, she suggests asking a different question: What’s left? And what might still be beautiful?

Read the video transcript ►https://bigthink.com/the-well/is-pain-productive-or-pointless/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description_bigthink

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About Kate Bowler:
Kate Bowler is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, award-winning podcast host, and Professor of Religious History at Duke University.

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About The Well
Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.

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