When we interview someone for "To the Best of Our Knowledge," we sometimes have a personal connection. Maybe we knew them before, or bonded over a common experience, or had a surprising and instantaneous clicking of thought or feeling during the conversation.
In this week’s show, “Going for Broke: Making Up Our Minds,” Charles knew going into the interview he’d have some provocative ideas to talk about with Daniel Bergner. Bergner has written a new book, "The Mind and the Moon: My Brother’s Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search For Our Psyches." Bergner’s brother Bob was diagnosed as bipolar, as was Charles. The journey through medications and therapy and choices and the search to try to keep a person as much of himself as possible, while making him better, was true for both Charles and Bergner’s brother Bob.
But then there was a moment you couldn’t have predicted. Bergner read a passage from his book about his brother dancing on a ferry deck. Charles was moved to tears, paused, and then continued. Bergner thanked him for that moment – that connection. I was producing the interview and saw and heard it happen – it was real, and it was powerful. I hope you’ll get a chance to listen to the interview, which is the second of our three-part series, “Going for Broke,” which we produced with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. You can hear the first episode on our web site or on your podcast feeds if you missed it. Thanks for listening.
–Shannon