The Lesson: Everyone has value and there are no throwaway people – which is why Dr. Edgar Cahn invented Time Banking: a currency built off reciprocating talents, time, and experience that is bringing communities around the world together and opening up new worlds of value and connections.
Notable Excerpt: “I feel that people, if you give most people a chance, would say, ‘I’d love to think of myself as a kind, decent human being. How can I do that?’ When you ask them politically, they feel alienated from a system that has sent them a message that they don’t matter; that their voices don’t matter. I think it’s a matter … of using vehicles that say you can create alternatives. I think we need a whole mentoring squad to make that feel real. I think Peace Corps did that. I think that there were times when we had that as a dominant culture. When the hot thing to do was not to be negative, but at least being negative gives you an identity if you don’t have any other options and I just think that time banking is neither left nor right – [it is] only respect for human beings, only respect for capacity and if we begin to appeal to the capacity of people to be bigger than themselves, I think they will respond.”
The Guest: Dr. Edgar Cahn, the inventor of Time Banking, is a legal professor and former counsel and speech writer to Robert F. Kennedy. After attending the London School of Economics, he created Time Banking in 1995. There are now Time Banks in over 30 countries around the world.
The Host: Julie Pilat works in music and tech in Los Angeles while also participating in many community activities. After growing up in radio, she missed interviewing people and decided to create “The Idea Fountain: Life-Changing Conversations” monthly podcast in which she interviews someone who has changed her life.
(LISTEN to the inspiring talk below) – Photo by Chiara Cremaschi, CC
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