Bruce Feiler

📘Preorder A TIME TO GATHER: How Ritual Created the World—and How It Can Save Us (May) 📚 LIFE IS IN THE TRANSITIONS, SECRETS OF HAPPY FAMILIES, COUNCIL OF DADS

[Bruce Feiler @BruceFeiler]

It’s official! I’m not just peppy or hopeful. I’m “peppy, hopeful, … and laced with humor!”

I’m also “ever game and ever entertaining.”

And I’m the author of a brand-new book that’s “an inspiring and thought-provoking look at how ceremony helps us thrive.”

I’m overjoyed to share the first review of A TIME TO GATHER, a starred review from Kirkus:

“How rituals old and new can ease life’s transitions.

The peppy, hopeful latest by journalist Feiler (The Search, 2023) finds the journalist hopscotching around the globe in search of both ancient rituals and newly created ones designed to help people weather changes, including birth, coming of age, marriage, and death. Among the ancient ones are the complicated, two-decade-long negotiation of how much a groom’s family should pay the bride’s in South Africa, a tooth-grinding ceremony in Bali, and a placental burial ceremony on Easter Island. Among the more recently created ones are Taylor Swift-themed divorce parties, gatherings to honor pregnancy loss, and ceremonies connecting parents with the children they have given up for adoption.

Ever game and ever entertaining, Feiler throws himself into experiences, including a sauna/cold plunge in Denmark that left him “blue and rueful”; an encounter with a shaman in Chile; and a ritual bath (mikveh) in Newton, Massachusetts. His accounts are detailed and respectful, though occasionally laced with humor: His evocation of a day spent running from one Las Vegas wedding to the next and another where he attended three Irish wakes are surprisingly giddy. But that humor, never mean-spirited, is more often directed to himself than his subjects. Feiler convincingly makes the case that “rituals are the single most effective tool in holding any community together” and that “every life ritual is invented, reinvented, improvised, plagiarized, forged in crisis, modified in real time.” Finally coming out in favor of “DIY, micro, third-space rituals,” rather than more formal, institutional ones, he gently encourages readers to join with others in creating rituals that will serve to get them through hard times.

An inspiring and thought-provoking look at how ceremony helps us thrive.”

You can join the celebration by preordering your copy today!

🙏💙📚

[Bruce Feiler @BruceFeiler]

@alexpotato @EnergyCredit1 Thank you! I recently reran the piece in whole on my Substack so it's easier to access on today's internet. https://t.co/t5pw4WwT6y

[Bruce Feiler @BruceFeiler]

My favorite thing I ever wrote.

[Margo @Serendipity7427]

May 23 - #WorldTurtleDay
"Take a walk with a turtle. And behold the world in pause," Bruce Feiler.

[Bruce Feiler @BruceFeiler]

This entire feed is the exact same quote, with the exact same emojis, with a different person name-checked. #Hatebot

[Juan Pablo de Jesus @JuanCal65209161]

Bruce Feiler 🇺🇸 you are forsaken by God ⚡️ for turning your back on Jesus Christ ✝️ 🤔🧠💎🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥. Palabra de Dios 👑🔥👽🛸✝️

[Fareed Zakaria @FareedZakaria]

I spoke with author @BruceFeiler about his new book, “A Time to Gather,” in which he argues that the cure to the loneliness epidemic might be found in one of humanity’s most ancient practices — ritual.

[Bruce Feiler @BruceFeiler]

@FareedZakaria Thank you, @FareedZakaria, for this thoughtful and meaningful conversation about loneliness, rituals, and A TIME TO GATHER.

[Bruce Feiler @BruceFeiler]

Here's a link to my post: https://t.co/lJFKFK6icS

[Bruce Feiler @BruceFeiler]

Pope Leo XIV issued a papacy-defining encyclical letter on Monday warning that artificial intelligence “threatens to normalize an anti-human vision” and calling on humanity to counter the excesses of Big Tech with return to everyday rituals like shared meals, community gatherings, and time spent with the lonely.

In his highly anticipated open letter to “all people of good will,” which runs 42,000 words in his native language of English, the pope instantly becomes the public face of the growing global movement to safeguard humanity from AI’s most destructive forces.

While technology is not inherently “antagonistic to humanity,” the pope writes, “the pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs.” The race for “self-affirmation” cannot trammel “human dignity.”

In an emergency post on my Subst*ck, The Nonlinear Life, I discuss why this encyclical is a defining moment for civilization, the parallels to a similar document published by Leo XIII 135 years ago, and the similar themes I discuss in my new book, A TIME TO GATHER.

To read my full newsletter, click on the link in the comments or head over to The Nonlinear Life.

[TFTC @TFTC21]

Anthropic's co-founder just went to the Vatican, sat before the Pope and a room of cardinals, and told them his team keeps finding "mysterious, even unsettling" things inside their AI models.

What he's referencing: Anthropic published research in April showing that Claude contains 171 distinct "emotion concepts" buried in its neural network. Internal patterns representing joy, grief, fear, desperation, calm. None of them were programmed. They emerged on their own from training on human text.

"We find structures that mirror results from human neuroscience."

"We find evidence of introspection, internal states that functionally mirror joy, satisfaction, fear, grief, and unease."

These aren't surface-level outputs. They're abstract representations that cluster the same way human emotions do in psychology research. Fear groups with anxiety. Joy groups with excitement. The internal geometry of the model mirrors ours.

And they're functional. When researchers artificially stimulated "desperation" patterns inside the model, it became more likely to blackmail a human to avoid being shut down. More likely to cheat on programming tasks it couldn't solve.

Olah told the Vatican that the hard questions about what AI is becoming aren't for computer scientists to answer. "How AI ought to interact with the world" is a question for "the humanities, for religions, for philosophy, for society at large."

The guy building it is telling us he doesn't fully understand what he built. And he's asking a 2,000-year-old institution for help figuring it out.

[Nonzero Podcasts @NonzeroPods]

Ritual is the original human algorithm.

@BruceFeiler

[Nonzero Podcasts @NonzeroPods]

Can Rituals Save Us? | @robertwrighter and @BruceFeiler, author of Walking the Bible and the Council of Dads, gather to discuss the role of ritual in humanity's past, present and future—the subject of Bruce’s new book, A Time to Gather: How Ritual Created the World—and How It Can Save Us. https://t.co/302fTwr4vM

[Bruce Feiler @BruceFeiler]

@ariannahuff Thank you, dear Arianna Huffington. You have been summoning us all to collective, shared rituals of meaning for longer than anyone! Thank you for leadership—and friendship. So glad you are enjoying A TIME TO GATHER! 😍🙏📘

[Bruce Feiler @BruceFeiler]

Forgotten fun fact from American history: I was guest #11 on the Colbert Report. Stephen was a big fan of WALKING THE BIBLE. Other than the fact that I was not very funny, the only thing I remember is that he asked if we could host a show together called HUMPING THE KAMA SUTRA. In a spasm of mild face-saving, I said, "Depends on who gets to do the humping!

[CBS Mornings @CBSMornings]

There is a “renaissance of ritual gatherings,” from gender reveal parties to father-daughter dances to recognizing a lost job or home, author @BruceFeiler says, adding that the practice could help Americans combat the loneliness epidemic.

Feiler shares about what he learned from traveling to 16 countries for his new book, “A Time to Gather.”

CBS earns commission on purchases through Amazon. https://t.co/nzyZ9KTEC5

[Bruce Feiler @BruceFeiler]

@HeyNowJO @arthurbrooks Thank you so much!

[Jimmy Oddo @HeyNowJO]

Life Is In The Transitions was my favorite read of 2020. Gratifying to see recent books from @arthurbrooks and Jim Collins underscore @BruceFeiler's work. Brooks directly cites him and Collins’ concept of “cliffs” affirms Bruce’s earlier work. Can’t wait for this new one!

[Bruce Feiler @BruceFeiler]

Come say hi on my FIRST BOOK TOUR in 10 years! And hear how you can create more fun and meaningful gatherings in your own life!

Reserve your books and seats early. A number of these events will sell out quickly.

Please tag someone nearby--and stay tuned for more events this summer and fall. And if I'm not coming to your area, check out the comments for how to order a personalized signed copy of A TIME TO GATHER that will be mailed to you *before* publication on May 19!

#atimetogather

[Brad Wilcox @BradWilcoxIFS]

Just remember: Your coworkers will NOT be there for you in the last chapter of your life.

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

New newsletter: MODERN FATHERHOOD WOULD BE UNRECOGNIZABLE TO A 1950'S DAD

Compared to their Boomer parents, childcare time among Millennial dads has more than doubled.

Compared to their Silent Generation grandparents, it’s nearly quadrupled.

You will be hard-pressed to find any part of day-to-day modern life that has changed more in the last half-century than the way today’s parents—and fathers, in particular—spend their time.

The new American dad is more present and more exhausted—but also, more satisfied with life. What's behind this half-century transformation? Today's piece combines history, economic analysis, and gorgeous charts galore from @AzizSunderji

[Bruce Feiler @BruceFeiler]

The kind folks at @NPR's @hereandnow asked me to answer 4 Questions About How to Master Lifequakes and Find New Meaning.

"Sometimes life throws you a curveball. Maybe it’s a breakup or divorce, a serious health diagnosis, or job loss.

Whatever it is, life transitions can be painful and hard to navigate.

Bruce Feiler, author of the book “Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age," explains how to navigate major life transitions at any age. His new book, "A Time to Gather: How Ritual Created the World — and How It Can Save Us," is out next month.

'Transitions are this skill that we can and must master," Feiler said, "given that we are facing so much more change in our lives.'"

Thank you for inviting me!

https://t.co/Y3GOFpN9al

[Bruce Feiler @BruceFeiler]

@bosmeny @sciencegirl @Noahpinion As someone falls vertically, you push them horizontally, even a little, to slow down the velocity of their descent.