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Here's A Thought

Here's A Thought

Jan M Flynn

A blogcast for people who overthink. I'm Jan M. Flynn, a writer who thinks way too much about all kinds of things, so I know what that's like. Sometimes you need a little break from your brain — so here's a chance to get out of your own head for a bit, by getting into mine. Short, weekly episodes give you a glimpse into what's been on my mind: thoughts about life, the universe, and the weird or wonderful things people do. Occasionally I'll share some short fiction or poetry. Think of this as recess for your mind. Join me on my website at www.JanMFlynn.net, where you can leave a comment or suggestion on my blog page, and join my email list and receive a free download of my audio short story, "The Collector". Music courtesy of lesfm at pixabay.
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Top 10 Here's A Thought Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Here's A Thought episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Here's A Thought for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Here's A Thought episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Here's A Thought - When Your Body Speaks To You, Believe It
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07/08/22 • 7 min

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In which I learn the wisdom behind the phrase, "Listen to your body" — the hard way.
Warning: some strong language
Leave me a comment, suggest what you'd like me to overthink on another episode, or just say hi at [email protected]
Music courtesy of Pixabay Music

Support the show

Do you have comments to share or an idea for an upcoming episode? Need something overthought? I'd love to hear from you!
Email me at [email protected]
Or, contact me on my website at www.JanMFlynn.net
Or, DM me on Twitter: @JanMFlynnAuthor
Theme music courtesy of Pixabay Music

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Here's A Thought - Why You're Worried About the Wrong Thing
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02/01/23 • 10 min

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This is the blogcast for people who overthink, hosted and produced by a veteran overthinker. And since overthinking is closely related to worry, we spend this week's episode delving into the overwhelming likelihood that, whatever you're worried about at the moment, it's not what you should be worried about. For example, asteroids on a collisions course with Earth . . .
Source links:
Don't Look Up, 2021 film: netflix.com/title/81252357
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-system-predicts-small-asteroid-to-pass-close-by-earth-this-week
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/26/science/astronomy-asteroids-2023bu.html
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/26/1151667749/asteroid-coming-close-earth#:~:text=NASA%2FJPL%2DCaltech-,Asteroid%202023%20BU%20will%20streak%20about%202%2C200%20miles%20above%20the,moon's%20path%20is%20in%20gray.&text=There%20was%20no%20reason%20to,harmlessly%20Thursday%20night%2C%20NASA%20says.
https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/scout/#/
https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/people/d_farnocchia
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/26/1124340144/nasa-dart-shove-asteroid-first-test-planetary-defense

Support the show

Do you have comments to share or an idea for an upcoming episode? Need something overthought? I'd love to hear from you!
Email me at [email protected]
Or, contact me on my website at www.JanMFlynn.net
Or, DM me on Twitter: @JanMFlynnAuthor
Theme music courtesy of Pixabay Music

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Here's A Thought - 5 Things to Stop Saying (To Anyone Younger Than You)
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04/12/23 • 8 min

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In which we examine five unfortunate phrases that we may find ourselves using when speaking to those in younger generations — and why we shouldn't, if we want to have a chance at being taken seriously. Or even just heard . . .
Ohio Express, "Yummy Yummy Yummy (I Got Love in My Tummy)" 1968

Support the show

Do you have comments to share or an idea for an upcoming episode? Need something overthought? I'd love to hear from you!
Email me at [email protected]
Or, contact me on my website at www.JanMFlynn.net
Or, DM me on Twitter: @JanMFlynnAuthor
Theme music courtesy of Pixabay Music

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In this episode, we return to the amazing (and often unsettling) world of AI — but this time, with a look at an exciting potential.
What if ChatGPT — or one of its versions — can take some of the sting out of having to tell your romantic partner that it's time to call it quits? Some people are already using AI to write their wedding vows; why not use it when things just don't work out?
I sense a real opportunity here . . .
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/03/fashion/weddings/chatbot-wedding-vows-chatgpt-ai.html
Paul Simon
There Must Be Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover (YouTube)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/23/technology/clarkesworld-submissions-ai-sci-fi.html#:~:text=And%20now%2C%20it%20seems%2C%20it's,chatbots.
https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/latest-version-of-chatgpt-aces-the-bar-exam-with-score-in-90th-percentile
https://www.toastwiz.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisnoessel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_worn
Intro Music by Ivan_Velkov from Pixabay

Support the show

Do you have comments to share or an idea for an upcoming episode? Need something overthought? I'd love to hear from you!
Email me at [email protected]
Or, contact me on my website at www.JanMFlynn.net
Or, DM me on Twitter: @JanMFlynnAuthor
Theme music courtesy of Pixabay Music

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Here's A Thought - I'm Not Trending And That Makes Me Happy
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09/13/23 • 12 min

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With the turn of the seasons, it's time to revisit my wardrobe, which leads me to consider fashion (intimidating), and then fashion trends (mystifying), and from there, trends in general — especially popular culture trends.
What I notice is that very few of them have anything to do with me, now that I've joined a demographic that popular culture doesn't seem to register at all.
Check out what it's like to be trend-exempt — and why I'm grateful for it.
You can also check out author Sara Petersen and her new book, Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture, available on Amazon or (better yet) Bookshop.org — also the articles referenced on Vox and Wired.
Opening Music by Pavel Bekirov from Pixabay

Support the show

Do you have comments to share or an idea for an upcoming episode? Need something overthought? I'd love to hear from you!
Email me at [email protected]
Or, contact me on my website at www.JanMFlynn.net
Or, DM me on Twitter: @JanMFlynnAuthor
Theme music courtesy of Pixabay Music

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Here's A Thought - Nobody Put the Fun in Funerals (But We Go Anyway)
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09/27/23 • 10 min

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There are some things in life that are just the thing to do, even when we don't relish the thought of doing them. Going to funerals probably ranks below even paying taxes. And in a lot of cases, if we just don't go, who's going to know?
In this episode, we consider how that's not really the point, and hopefully find some encouragement for showing up whenever we can.
Quote on Varanasi, India from Francesca Mills writing in National Geographic, April 2019:
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel/2019/01/india-life-and-death-in-varanasi#:~:text=Varanasi%20is%20the%20city%20where,human%20being%20is%20entrapped%20in.
Advance Care Directive information:
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/advance-care-planning-advance-directives-health-care

Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) Order information:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/8866-do-not-resuscitate-orders#:~:text=A%20do%2Dnot%2Dresuscitate%20(,or%20other%20serious%20medical%20condition.
Opening Music by michaelhersch from Pixabay

Support the show

Do you have comments to share or an idea for an upcoming episode? Need something overthought? I'd love to hear from you!
Email me at [email protected]
Or, contact me on my website at www.JanMFlynn.net
Or, DM me on Twitter: @JanMFlynnAuthor
Theme music courtesy of Pixabay Music

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Here's A Thought - Cheers to Episode 100! Now, Let's Get Serious
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11/29/23 • 14 min

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In this episode, Here's A Thought reaches a milestone that a lot of podcasts never achieve — and that is entirely thanks to listeners like you. So I'm enormously appreciative.
I'm also thinking deeply -- which is distinct, I hope, from overthinking — about the interview I did for another podcast I'm involved in, and how it was driven home to me by the recent news about Derek Chauvin — the former Minneapolis cop who was sentenced to 22 1/2 years for killing George Floyd in 2020 — being stabbed in prison.
Whatever offense a convict has committed, violence, sexual assault, and dehumanizing conditions are not supposed to be part of the punishment.
And the hard truth is that not everyone who is languishing in prison even belongs there.
It's a reality that most of us are insulated from confronting — but after my interview with Dr. Greg Hampikian, co-founder of the Idaho Innocence Project, for an episode of the Crow's Feet: Life As We Age podcast (release date January 24, 2024), I've lost my insulation.
I don't think that's a bad thing.
Here's A Thought will be taking a hiatus after this episode -- so check out any of the previous ones you may have missed and please join me in the meantime at:
Crow's Feet: Life As We Age -- on all major podcast platforms.
Links for today's episodes:
Dr. Greg Hampikian
Idaho Innocence Project
Amanda Knox
Bureau of Justice Statistics, report cited on sexual victimization in prisons
New York Times, November 27, 2023: "The Stabbing of Derek Chauvin: What We Know
Jesse Lerner-Kinglake, Just Detention International
Prison Policy Initiative
Sharia Law and punishment
Opening Sound Effect from Pixabay

Support the show

Do you have comments to share or an idea for an upcoming episode? Need something overthought? I'd love to hear from you!
Email me at [email protected]
Or, contact me on my website at www.JanMFlynn.net
Or, DM me on Twitter: @JanMFlynnAuthor
Theme music courtesy of Pixabay Music

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When the girls need a new house because their old one's wearing out . . . attention must be paid
So let's talk about the one article of clothing for which I really, truly hate to shop. I bet I'm not the only one.

Support the show

Do you have comments to share or an idea for an upcoming episode? Need something overthought? I'd love to hear from you!
Email me at [email protected]
Or, contact me on my website at www.JanMFlynn.net
Or, DM me on Twitter: @JanMFlynnAuthor
Theme music courtesy of Pixabay Music

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Here's A Thought - Why Did the Sheep Cross the Road?
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04/24/24 • 10 min

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In which I witness a semiannual Idaho tradition — when sheep take over a major roadway on their way to greener pastures. It's an Idaho thing.
Want to learn more? Helpful links:
Andy Little, the “Idaho Sheep King"
Idaho sheep ranchers Frank Shirts and Henry Etcheverry
Boise's Basque Block -- where you can find funky, cozy Bar Gernika and enjoy the once-every-five-years cultural Basque cultural festival, Jaialdi
A few more fun quotations about sheep (that aren't insulting to sheep):
We’re a nation of sheep. If you go out and look up at the sky, people around you will start looking up at the sky.Alan Abel

Ideas are easy. It’s the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.Sue Grafton

We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.Mark Twain

The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.Stendhal

If Someone wants a sheep, then that means that he exists.Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Sheep sound effects courtesy Pixabay Sound

Support the show

Do you have comments to share or an idea for an upcoming episode? Need something overthought? I'd love to hear from you!
Email me at [email protected]
Or, contact me on my website at www.JanMFlynn.net
Or, DM me on Twitter: @JanMFlynnAuthor
Theme music courtesy of Pixabay Music

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Going to see the movie Civil War, the 2024 release written and directed by Alex Garland, isn't like seeing most movies. You walk out of the theater with a lot to think about -- and maybe you walk out changed.
What the experience has done for me is to help me embrace a philosophy proposed by Viktor Frankl, the 20th Century psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust and developed Logotherapy, based on the premise that a basic drive of humankind is to find meaning in life — no matter what the conditions of someone's life may be.
His most famous work is the book Man’s Search for Meaning -- published in English in 1959, an immediate best-seller and, in 1991, called by the Library of Congress one of the ten most influential books in the U.S.
If the term "tragic optimism" sounds contradictory to you, stick with me for a few minutes. You might find it as bracing, helpful -- and hopeful -- as I do.
Opening Music by Oleg Kyrylkovv from Pixabay

Support the show

Do you have comments to share or an idea for an upcoming episode? Need something overthought? I'd love to hear from you!
Email me at [email protected]
Or, contact me on my website at www.JanMFlynn.net
Or, DM me on Twitter: @JanMFlynnAuthor
Theme music courtesy of Pixabay Music

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FAQ

How many episodes does Here's A Thought have?

Here's A Thought currently has 117 episodes available.

What topics does Here's A Thought cover?

The podcast is about Leisure, Society & Culture, Writing, Aging, Podcasts, Books, Inspiration, Personal Journal, Relationships, Philosophy, Short Stories and Opinion.

What is the most popular episode on Here's A Thought?

The episode title 'Is Overthinking Such a Bad Thing? Celebrating the Final Episode of Season One' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Here's A Thought?

The average episode length on Here's A Thought is 11 minutes.

How often are episodes of Here's A Thought released?

Episodes of Here's A Thought are typically released every 7 days.

When was the first episode of Here's A Thought?

The first episode of Here's A Thought was released on Sep 29, 2021.

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