Ira Glass: So are you thinking about this a lot?

David Kestenbaum: I got sad about it on the training again this morning. It comes at totally random moments, you know?

David Kestenbaum: So the story goes that this is 1950. Fermi's visiting Los Alamos.

Ira Glass: Los Alamos, where they developed the atomic bomb?

David Kestenbaum: Yeah. And they're sitting around at lunch. It's Fermi and a handful of other physicists and they start talking about extraterrestrials.

David Kestenbaum: And then out of nowhere, Fermi says something like, so where are they?

Ira Glass: Meaning?

David Kestenbaum: The aliens.

Ira Glass: And did people know what he meant?

David Kestenbaum: Yeah, somehow everybody knew exactly what he meant. The idea was basically that, like, the galaxy is this huge place, right? Hundreds of billions of stars. It's been around for billions of years. If you believe that intelligent life is something that just arises given enough time, where is everybody?

David Kestenbaum: Like, there have been billions of years, where civilizations could have developed and become way more advanced than we are and traveled from star to star, sent signals or something. Where are they? If that's right, where are they?

XXX

David Kestenbaum: The specific thought I was having was that this would mean that there's nobody out there who knows more than we do, like, about science, about-- there are no better songs. There are no better books. This is it, you know?

Ira Glass: Yeah.

David Kestenbaum: Like, what we know is it. What we are is it.

Ira Glass: Why is your response to this sadness?

David Kestenbaum: Why is your response not sadness? Of course that's sad.

Ira Glass: This whole thing reminds me of just a really, really old Woody Allen movie-- it might be Annie Hall-- where there's a scene of him as a kid. And he's saying to some adult-- she's saying, why didn't you do your homework or something like that. And he's like, well, because the universe is expanding.

Ira Glass: And then the adult is like, why is that any of your business? And that's my question for you. Why is it any of your business?

David Kestenbaum: Oh, I totally read that the other way. I was like, he's making a serious point. Why is no one listening to him?

Ira Glass: Oh.

David Kestenbaum: See, that's the problem. I'm in his shoes and I'm not making a joke. I feel like if you were able to really imagine it, it would make you sad.

Ira Glass: Oh, really?

David Kestenbaum: Yeah. When you look up at the stars, do you think about what they are, and the distances and stuff, and all that?

Ira Glass: No, not in a deep way.

David Kestenbaum: I mean, it's so easy not to feel anything. But it's a crazy thing you're looking at, just how small we are and how big it is.

XXX

David Kestenbaum: So there's this thing that's been bugging me. And every time I tell people about it, they just laugh. 

Melissa Franklin: OK, I'm laughing first.

David Kestenbaum: Do you know what the Fermi Paradox is?

XXX

Melissa Franklin: Look, I mean there's so-- look, compared to seeing all the polar bears die, this is not sad. So here, the point is there were polar bears and now there aren't any. And there, there were never anybody and we're sad. There's still nobody there!

David Kestenbaum: I guess, I get that it's a weird kind of sadness, but it's a real thing I feel.

Melissa Franklin: I know you feel that. I know. I know. I know you do feel bad, but what do you feel about the polar bears?

David Kestenbaum: This was something I also felt very alone in my worrying about it, you know? Yeah. I would say to my wife, you know, I was thinking again today we might be alone in the universe. And she's like, I know, sweetie.

Melissa Franklin: I know, sweetie? That's really nice.

David Kestenbaum: Like, just think about it for real, like, for real. Not just as a "hey, what are the odds we're alone," or this or that. For real, because it might be true.

Melissa Franklin: Yeah. Do you think it's really hard? Maybe you're just having college thoughts when you're 45.

XXX

Melissa Franklin: I mean, how would we know if cockroaches were alien or not?

David Kestenbaum: I mean, they have DNA. They seem very much like part of our family tree.

Melissa Franklin: But maybe they make themselves seem like our family tree in order to live here. Because how could they live here if they weren't?

David Kestenbaum: Be serious for a second.

Melissa Franklin: I can't believe that you get to decide what's serious. You are so, so wrong! You go, oh, oh, stop. Oh, don't be silly.

Melissa Franklin: And you're the one bringing up the crazy things, like you're going to cry because there's no extraterrestrial intelligence. Jesus. OK.

Melissa Franklin: Let's go talk to Paul. I need to talk to Paul. I want to ask him now.

David Kestenbaum: OK.

XXX

David Kestenbaum: And it crossed my mind for the first time that we might be alone. And it made me really sad. That felt like a real thing.

Paul Horowitz: Yeah.

David Kestenbaum: Did you ever go through anything like that?

Paul Horowitz: No, because I don't think we're alone.

David Kestenbaum: You don't?

Paul Horowitz: No, I think-- I think the Fermi Paradox is a serious question.

David Kestenbaum: Yeah.

Paul Horowitz: I think there's probably some good answers. The unbounded time is a problem.

XXX

Paul Horowitz: It's interesting, because just as you walked in, I'm working on a new scheme to do the entire sky all the time looking for optical pulses. But you cannot dismiss the Fermi Paradox.

David Kestenbaum: Yeah.

Paul Horowitz: The best you could do is squirm, and wave your hands, and say there are some ways for you not to be sad.

David Kestenbaum: Are there any physics things that make you sad like that?

Paul Horowitz: Well, what really bothers me is, what happens after you're dead? Is it just like they switch off the light and there's never anything ever, ever again that you experience? Can that really be?

XXX

Paul Horowitz: I suppose there's some precedent for it. Because before you were born, you know, there was nothing, right? But I have a hard time wrapping my mind around being dead. And this probably becomes more of a problem when you get old, because you realize it's actually going to happen. That bothers me a lot more than the possibility that there's not other civilizations out there doing whatever they do.

Melissa Franklin: It just bothers you. You don't want to be dead, but you don't want to be alive forever.

Paul Horowitz: Well, actually, if you're dead you probably don't know you're dead. But I just can't imagine the state of being dead. It's easy to understand. Something dies. It's dead. But if it's you, that's not so easy, because then there's nothing. It's just-- it's just--

Melissa Franklin: And it bothers you you can't imagine that. Or it bothers you that you--

Paul Horowitz: I guess. I guess.

Melissa Franklin: Because you talk about this all the time.

Paul Horowitz: Well, because I'm an old guy. I could die any minute now, right?

Melissa Franklin: OK.

Paul Horowitz: Right? I'm sort of at the average age that everybody around me is dying at. Did I put the "at" in twice?

XXX

Melissa Franklin: What I'm worried about is it's 156 million, in which case, we're probably screwed very soon, like any day now. Boom, aliens are going to come. 156 million in our galaxy?

David Kestenbaum: I love that you're afraid of the other end.

Melissa Franklin: Yeah, I am afraid of the other end. You should be, too.

David Kestenbaum: So I should celebrate the silence, the great silence?

Melissa Franklin: Well, I think, you know, we're in a good place now.

XXX

Ira Glass: I rarely am interviewing somebody-- I'm not sure if I've ever interviewed somebody who's watching me as much as I'm watching them.

Esther Perel: Yes, especially when your throat chokes.

Ira Glass: When my throat chokes? What does that mean?

Esther Perel: When I spoke and you would get--

Ira Glass: And what does that mean when I do that?

Esther Perel: When the little polyvagal nerve quivers, it means that I'm saying something that's reaching you.

XXX

Ira Glass: And what can you accomplish in a two or three-hour session, where you see the people once?

Esther Perel: So much. The story that the people come in with is not the story they leave with. That's the first goal.

Ira Glass: Yeah.

Esther Perel: The second thing is to see if they can actually experience with each other, even a glimpse of it, that which they may be longing for. Can they have a different kind of connection, a different kind of experience of themselves and with each other in the room?

Ira Glass: And with most of the couples, can you get them to that point? That seems very advanced.

Esther Perel: Not necessarily. I mean, with many.
