Krista Tippett: You are both two people who are not religious in a traditional sense — 21st-century people. Maria, you’ve said that you were atheist, and Natalie, that spirituality is something that you — it’s complex. And honestly, you’ve said we don’t have a definition. I think there are as many definitions as there are lives in a room and that it’s never static, so it’s always evolving. And yet both of you ponder and use the language of the soul. And I find that fascinating, and I just want to talk about what that is. What are we talking about? Maria, you actually spoke — you did a commencement address, was it last year?

Maria Popova: I think two years ago.

Tippett: At Penn, your alma mater, Annenberg School at Penn, and it was — the soul was the heart of it. What do you — here’s some language from that: “I mean ‘the soul’ simply as shorthand for the seismic core of personhood from which our beliefs, our values, and our actions radiate.” And you’ve also said that “The people most whole and most alive are always those unafraid and unashamed of the soul.” So what is that?

Popova: There are certain words that have been vacated of meaning by overuse and misuse. And we have the choice of either relinquishing them altogether or trying to reclaim them in some way. And “soul” is one of those words. I chose to go with trying to imbue it with the meaning that I live with in relation to it. It is, of course, related to the notion of the self. Now, I do not believe in a solid self, as I don’t believe in a soul that outlives the rest of the constellation of being, the physical being that is us.

But at the same time, it is where we spring from. The “us”-ness of us is rooted in this very complex interplay of values, beliefs, ideas, friends, places we’ve been, smells we’ve remembered. And it’s impossible to be a person without that. And because of that, it’s impossible to be a decent person without tending to it, the way you would tend to a garden that you want to bloom beautifully.

Tippett: Natalie, I don’t know if you meant this as a definition of the soul, but it strikes me as a way in: “We are that complexity. We are the universe becoming self-aware.”

Natalie Batalha: It took 13.7 billion years for the atoms to come together to create the portal to the universe which is my physical self. So in that statement is this idea, or the fluidity of time and space, and I kind of see it all at once. And I don’t know what “me” is. I just feel part of everything. And I feel such deep gratitude for being able to take this conscious look at the universe — at myself as being part of the universe.

So that perspective, and this idea of the universe evolving from energy into simple matter into gradual complexity into microbes on planet Earth, and then 2 billion years later, the symbiotic merger of a bacteria and an archaea to create a eukaryote, which exploded complexity, creating us, the complexity and intelligent life that we have today — that vision and just how improbable is my birth and this opportunity just fills me with deep gratitude and sustains me through the darkest moments.

I don’t know what that means in terms of a soul. I don’t prescribe to anything more. I don’t need anything more, frankly. I’m completely at home with the idea that I’ve had this ephemeral time here to do this, and I’m just so grateful. And that’s enough.

[applause]

Tippett: I think that deserves applause.

Maria, here’s something else you said in that speech, just extending that. You said, “Cynicism is a hardening, a calcification of the soul. Hope is a stretching of its ligaments, a limber reach for something greater.”

Popova: I do think that cynicism is — you know, it’s easy to judge it harshly, but really it’s a defense mechanism, a maladaptive defense mechanism when we feel bereft of hope. And to live with hope in times that reward cynicism, and in many ways call for cynicism, I think is a tremendous act of courage and resistance.

[music: “Careless Morning” by Blue Dot Sessions]