Like most of my peers, I was recently infected with the dreaded coronavirus. Surprisingly enough, this turned out to be a blessing, in that it forced me off the hamster wheel and gave me back some time. Time to pause and reflect on our modes of communication. This was triggered by a search through the sea of podcasts for one that would consistently elevate my mind without feeling like a heavy lift. I stumbled upon a remarkable Serbian podcast, which manages a delicate balance of maintaining high quality while being pleasant to listen to for up to three hours per episode. Every week, the sharp and talkative creator and host of “Agelast” welcomes prominent individuals from a wide array of fields, ranging from actors to educators, from physicists to authors, to name but a few.

What I have found interesting, aside from the audio content itself, is the realisation that over the last two years, I’ve been missing this sort of long conversation, organically flowing from one topic to the next. Most discussions in our lives have been taking place online, which comes with a certain pressure to be succinct and make a targeted point. This goal of being always as concise as possible is particularly emphasized in the work sphere and seems prevalent in north-western cultures. By contrast, the loquacious south-eastern part of Europe allows much more freedom to take time and improvise in conversations. The café culture is particularly strong in these countries, which can be felt even while listening to this podcast. There is room for verbal wanderings – which are highly underrated, considering the fact that they give birth to unexpected gems of thought.

I first recognised this southern cultural trait some 25 years ago in Dalmatia. There, I noticed that philosophy, politics and culture were everywhere, in conversations among ordinary shop owners, workers, pensioners. They would chat at length about the human condition and the universe, quoting Tolstoy, Jung or Descartes in passing. There, I found knowledge and philosophy in the streets to a far greater extent than in New York or London. This was probably, in part, thanks to the heritage of the extraordinary educational system in Yugoslavia. But I believe that what creates fertile ground for such interactions is also the slower pace of life and the ritual of spending hours sipping coffee with friends and acquaintances. Coffee is what you gather around rather than the object of going to a café. And the same creative results cannot be had by taking shortcuts or planning conversations like you would a bullet point presentation.

The measures that have been in place due to the pandemic have interrupted these fertile – albeit seemingly aimless – flows of thought for many. For my friends and myself, it has taken this abrupt break to realise how much our mental health is dependent on intellectual and emotional live stimulation. And though video calls are an acceptable temporary alternative to in-person conversations, they do not allow us the same degree of freedom and unwinding, which require time. Moreover, for many of us, this new reality has meant trading in personal time for work time which, in turn, has resulted in a steep increase in burnout.

Whereas the term “burnout” is excessively used, it is rarely mentioned that some of the contributing factors are a lack of intellectual stimulation or challenges in the workplace. Pragmatically, we are encouraged to build our careers on what comes naturally to us, what we are talented at, because it is arguably the area that we can reach the greatest heights in by reinforcing our predisposed skills. But if you stick to what comes easiest to you, there is a risk of missing challenges. And where there is no challenge, there cannot be the same ensuing pride you experience upon overcoming obstacles. Hence the importance of possible upwards mobility in companies, so as to encourage employees to reach new heights and challenge themselves if they wish to. And if they do, adequate recognition must also be part of the system, instead of what we are seeing today, namely a carrot and stick scenario, in which only a lucky few will ever get the carrot. The faster you run after the carrot, the less headspace you have for thoughts that would, in turn, feed your creativity and help your mind and spirit grow in unexpected ways. But I digress, as I would in an in-person conversation…

Circling back to my initial point, I find that stopping the race for the carrot has helped me drop my blinkers. This regained vision of a vast horizon also means hearing voices that connect me with a broader world than my own. And where the humoristic and punchy lines of Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers or John Oliver helped me deal with the COVID-world while I was in the hamster wheel, now that I’m off, the long slaloms of “Agelast,” artfully directed by Galeb Nikačević, put this whole experience back in the broader context of all that is human existence. And what’s more, this podcast has inspired me to end my evenings by reading books that have been waiting on my nightstand for months. Thus I would conclude that knowledge breeds knowledge – provided it is shared by the right catalyst.

(Title: quote by Honoré de Balzac)