All Our Uncertain Tomorrows
with Gillian Deacon and Mark Medley
Hosted by Lucy van Oldenbarneveld
“There is a wonderful yearning at the heart of Mark Medley’s book. He beautifully catalogues a range of people who strive for something they may never achieve but find meaning in the effort. At its heart, Live to See the Day is a brilliant study of the very nature of how we live our lives and find purpose in our days.”
Join our host, Lucy van Oldenbarneveld, for an unforgettable conversation on human nature, our drive to explore and our fear of the unknown.
“Gill—high level of comfort with uncertainty,” a producer once noted. But Gillian Deacon’s comfort level is put to the test over the course of an illness that is as mysterious as it is debilitating. During this time of not knowing, Deacon investigates the nature of uncertainty itself and demonstrates how we can choose to draw on our innate resilience and learn to thrive in an ever-changing world. Her new book, A Love Affair with the Unknown: Leaning into the Uncertainty of Modern Life, reminds us that, like comedy improvisation and jazz music, beautiful things can result from the unpredictable and unplanned. While providing evidence of the beauty in not knowing, she makes a clear and compelling case that uncertainty is a condition we are built for. In fact, our best shot at creativity, innovation, and human connection occurs when we radically embrace the uncertainty we habitually struggle against.
In Live to See the Day: Impossible Goals, Unimaginable Futures, and the Pursuit of Things That May Never Be, journalist Mark Medley sets out to find people who straddle the line between determination and delusion, who have devoted their lives to dreams they know have little chance of coming true, or that will only come to pass in decades—if not centuries—from now. Over the course of five years, and through interviews with more than 250 people, he immersed himself in a question we all reckon with personally in our lives: how to push forward when the world is telling you to give up. Travelling to the jungles of Indonesia to encounter a photographer who has devoted his life to pursuing a mystery ape; to the forests of Norway, where a time-bending artist is amassing books that will only be read a hundred years from now; to the deserts of the American Southwest, where he shadows a grizzled treasure hunter who has spent his life searching for a legendary lost fortune, Medley asks: What keeps these people going? Why start a race they know they’ll never finish?
Books are available from our friends at Perfect Books.
The Ottawa International Writers Festival is supported by generous individuals like you. Please consider subscribing to our newsletter and making a donation to support our programming and children’s literacy initiatives.