📌 Why I Don't Listen to Podcasts Anymore

It's not that I don't think they are interesting or stimulating! If anything, they are TOO.

Because I love to daydream—indeed, the only things I would get in trouble for in school were either zoning out or talking—I have always thought of myself as a little lazy. Not lazy in a “tongue lolling, popcorn on my belly, sprawled on the couch” way. But more in a “not living up to my creative human potential” way—not pushing myself enough and indulging myself too freely. Letting myself live in Elayne La-La-Land when I should be, you know, probably bettering my brain, body, or world. In short, daydreaming has always been a guilty pleasure of mine—emphasis on guilt.

Sometimes the edges of Homer’s daydreams and mine skirt uncomfortably close.

And then, many years back (in the dino days even before the pandemic), I began to get recommendations from people I admire on all these great podcasts I could listen to. There were so many—and they all sounded so intriguing! Deep dives into human psychology, writers talking about their writing, interviews with people I’ve always wanted to know more about—anything was possible with just the press of a play button and a multi-tasking spirit. Finally, the opportunity to turn my daydreaming into something productive via a golden age of podcast programming!

I started small, listening to the Marc Maron WTF podcast, which, I’ll be honest, was excellent. And then something happened. Once I mentioned any aspect of the podcast I had been listening to others, they began to tell me about the wonderful podcasts they listened to that I should probably also be listening to. So, I added a few more to my rotation.

Keep in mind: I have kids; ergo, the swaths of time I can listen to podcasts without broadcasting whatever it is to the entire family are limited. Even with just one podcast, I wasn’t always keeping up, and now I was juggling a couple. So, I soon found myself getting creative, not with what I was learning from the podcasts—but instead to fit in a little more podcast time. Could I listen to them while I did the dishes? Took a shower? Did laundry? Drove? (Yes, kind of?, yes, and yes.) And it sorta worked! It seemed I was learning so much!

Yet—I felt worse. Instead of looking forward to my podcasts, I began to dread them. They had become a “to-do” list for me, which only the podcast creators controlled. It was more about “powering through” them to catch up, and no longer about curiosity. In fact, I rarely felt curious anymore. Why should I? I was consistently getting filled up with answers to questions I hadn’t even thought to ask. It wasn’t that I didn’t find the interviews/shows/whathaveyou interesting—it was that they were crowding out something else: one very particular, sometimes even annoying, voice I hadn’t heard in way too long.

You already know where I’m going with this.

Me, talking to my Google Podcasts playlist (at the time).

And so, dear reader, I stopped listening to them.

And for a few months, I missed them.

“Goodbye! Please send Marc my love! He really is a great interviewerrrrrr…."

But then, I didn’t.

And instead, something interesting happened. Despite “learning” less, I realized I was feeling much more fulfilled—because I was daydreaming again. Stranger still, instead of discounting my daydreaming as wasted time, I was letting myself ENJOY it. Finally, it dawned on me—that when I daydream, I am learning—about my natural, innate interests and passions. I needed to daydream in order to live up to my creative human potential.

My muse, finally pulling the plug on my podcasts era.

Once again, I was thinking of nothing in particular, yet it felt like everything! Even though fleeting and random, stories were beckoning! I had deep thoughts about people I knew (versus total strangers)! Childhood memories popped up like snowdrop flowers in a frosty lawn!

“I daydream a lot—that's how I get my ideas. If I'm sitting in a café, I'm not on my phone because I want to hear my mind. I think that those periods of small solitude that we are really losing are so important. People need space to air out their thoughts, to have a sense of themselves—unfettered by anything.”
—Patti Smith in Maclean’s

Just to exist, let alone label ourselves as creators, it sometimes seems we need to prove ourselves to be Renaissance People, doing everything, all the time. If we aren’t cooking a nourishing meal for our family WHILE listening to a TED talk about someone’s Nobel Prize work, we feel as if we are phoning it in. (The irony is, of course, that “phoning it in” is precisely what we so often do, under the guise of productivity.)

I have nothing against podcasts, and let me be clear: I don’t think podcasts are the problem. Many people feel the same way about, say, social media, or becoming part of their church's vestry, or having an elaborate yard or garden that requires a ton of maintenance. It’s not that any of these things are bad—it’s just that each requires a lot of focus and time. Any rabbit hole, if we let it, can soon enough become a rabbit warren that causes the ground we stand on to collapse beneath us.

For me, something had to give. So, a few years ago, I bid podcasts adieu. And it’s not that I don’t wish them well; they are on a different journey than I am. They are about sharing their discoveries and exploring their interests; I am now unabashedly about hanging out in Elayne La-La-Land. I need the uninterrupted thought time more than anything else coming in through my ear-and-eye-holes. With the freedom of boredom, even laundry time can, if I’m lucky (and often I am), become the creative highlight of my day. In the end, I wanted laundry to be boring again.

I figure, heck, if I regret not fitting in more podcasts while I’m lying on my deathbed, well, that will be the perfect time to catch up!

Bonus note: this interview just really made me feel seen (and sane!) in how I think about a lot of stuff. LOL! Here’s another gem, where Patti talks about writing and using detective stories as an example.

“The solver has to picture what he’s seeing first, and then express his own observations. The writer does the same.”
—Patti Smith in Maclean’s

Amen, Patti! I use so much of my daydreaming time to try to tell myself a story.

Ideally, when our heart is truly invested in something, we will be at least as nourished by it as we are drained. Are the things you are investing in nourishing or draining you more? And if draining, what might you be able to let go, at least for a trial period?

Your friend who is missing (but I wouldn’t say missing) the golden age of podcasting,

Elayne

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